Suggestions for scenery on portable layout

[Anonymous]

As some of you have seen in my previous posts I am building a portable layout for my condo using 2 hollow core doors that will lie side by side. I was originally just going to paint the doors green and paint on roads but now that I have seen pictures of all your awesome layouts I want something more. The problem is that there is no way I can leave the layout up for more then a few hours at a time. I want to put on some nice looking scenery that won’t all come off and end up on the carpet when I pick up the layout and lay it on its side in the closet. Does anyone here have any suggestions on what I can use? If I have to resort to just painting the doors green and leaving them that way I will but I really would like more.

In past layouts where they were more permanent I have used the grass product that is on the paper backing and it was gluded to the table. I would like that look but I find that it is very messy. Is there anything I can do that will keep from all the grass from flaking off? Maybe spraying it with a clear coat or something?

[cnw1995]

Jim, when I had a 3 x 5 ft. layout in N scale, I put it on folding-table legs, so it could be put down and slid behind the couch and covered with a decorative blanket (my wife was a saint in our old house.) I spent much time musing on this as I wanted some 'realistic' scenery. After the roadbed was glued down and the track attached to the table, I painted the table-top with a cheap brown paint and sprinkled rather light layers of different shades of green ground-up ground foam in those Woodland Scenics shakers. I then liberally sprayed the whole thing with 'matte medium' - added some more layers of foam and more matte medium. I drilled holes for every tree, and used a 'portable' styrofoam mountain with the 'ridge' of foam rocks covering the line between it and the table. After letting everything dry and folding it on its side to shake off what was loose (and carefully recovering it to use again), it worked wonderfully. The downside was I had to carefully pop in every tree every time I pulled it out, but I could rearrange buildings, vehicles and people. There are lots more ideas in Model Railroader or some of the Kalmbach books. Funny now that I have a 'permanent' relatively gigantic layout, I'm using sheets of LifeLike grass 'rolls' and all sorts of not exactly realistic toy-train and found-object stuff (like things made of coffee stirrers and pop sticks).

[cnw1995]

By the way, five years after this layout, I still use the table for storage - having ripped up the track and removed the trees - the ground foam 'grass' is still there. I remember I also painted some 'asphalt' roads too.

[Anonymous]

What do you mean by foam grass?

[Dave Farquhar]

Hobby stores sell big containers of ground foam, used to simulate grass and other vegetation. Woodland Scenics is the most common brand. I've also heard of people making their own by grinding up cheap sponges in an old blender and adding some food coloring (browns and greens and the like), but I've never tried it.

[railman]

lots and lots of glue.

[daan]

Something which is not that realistic as foam grass, but it will stay on your layout when folded; make a thin layer of plaster, take a stiff brush and tap the brush into the wet plaster. This results in a lot of little holes and dents which look very much like grass when painted. You can also stick hair of cheap paintbrushes in the wet plaster. When hardened you have long grass which stays on the layout.
Trees, houses etc you can "fix" on the layout with magnets on the trunks of trees and underside of houses. Those bigheaded small nails used for roofing can be put in the table on the places where you whi***o have them.
Of course you have to keep them somewhere else when the layout is folded[:D]