Season for the layout

[insfil]

Would like to read all your pros & cons about using the Winter season for my layout. My benchwork is done, will start laying Atlas 0 track in mid June, but
want to allow plenty of time for that final choice of season to use. I live in the
Northeast, (Long Island, NY) and have exposure to all four seasons but kind
of partial to Winter.
Has anyone used snow and ice to imitate the Winter season and if so what
materials have you used and what problems, if any, did you expirenced.

[FJ and G]

I'm currently debating winter at higher elevations (spring or fall, actually with snow).

I've only built one layout with snow. I used baking powder but after seeing my friend's layout using powdered plaster with wet water lightly misted over; I'd recommend the latter. I experimented with drywall dust and that seemed to be good as well. Before sprinkling on anything, I spray painted the entire layout with white spray paint; I forget if it was gloss or flat.

To create sparkley snow, I got a tube of white sprinkles from Michaels. It really made a huge difference and made the snow really stand out and look real.

I haven't modeled ice, but some folks have used model airplane glue to do that.

For barren trees, I found large trees that had toppled over and carefully selected root material that looked strikingly like trees.

dav

[spankybird]

Hi Insfil,

We do a Christmas layout every year with snow. My wife loves Christmas so much we start in middle of October to set up. If you want to do winter, then it opens the door to use all the houses and building from Dept 56 and Leemax, which has snow on the roofs. They do make powder snow like the grass stuff to put on your layout.

I first painted the board white and while the paint is wet I add the snow.







Click on the pics to enlarge them


tom