Looking for Low Maintenance Scenery Material

[trestrainfan]

Although I'm not ready to start building a layout, I often think about what I would want on a layout. I have posted this question on another forum, and didn’t receive too many responses, so I thought I’d try it here. This forum might be a better choice as this question is more “toy train” related. If you posted a reply on the other forum, no need to reply here unless you want to post.

I operate traditional size O gauge trains and accessories, so I'm not really concerned about realism. But, I like bridges and tunnels, so I think a dramatic landscape with steep mountains would be interesting. I’m thinking kind of a 3-D version of a simple toy train layout.

I would also like a low maintenance landscape, something that you easily vacuum or maybe just wipe off with a damp cloth, so all the various trees and ground covers that are used to create realistic scenery would not work. The land forms would be painted to represent mountains, deserts, forests, etc. Low maintenance and durability would be more important than realism. Dramatic shapes could create interest.

I'm thinking there would be 3 main parts to the scenery:

1) The base of the scenery might be a traditional cardboard lattice, but I'm open to suggestions.

2) Scenic Material X would be applied to the cardboard lattice to create the land form. It can be a combination of various materials.

3) The cured scenery material would be painted and sealed so it is easy to clean.

To sort of add up the qualities I would prefer in Scenic Material X, I would like it to be, if possible:

thin

hard

strong

smooth surface

light weight

inexpensive

durable

able to take paint and sealants

Does anyone have any suggestions for creating Scenic Material X? What materials and methods would you use?

Based on your suggestions for Scenic Materials X, what types of paints and sealants would you recommend for painting Scenic Material X? Keep in mind, I might want the final product to be water resistant so maintenance might consist of either vacuuming or wiping off dust with a damp paper towel.

Part 2 of the Question

If a cardboard lattice covered with plaster wrap or paper or some other material and then a coating seems like the way to go, then I'm guessing a critical component is what to use to coat the plaster wrap, paper, etc. I was looking through some old scenery topics I've copied off various train forums, and it sounds like there are a number of products that might work:

plaster

sculptamold

structo-lite

drywall mud

Ultracal (not sure what this is, just read about it in the May CTT issue)

And I'm sure there might be other materials as well. I'm not very familiar with the various products. Can anyone list pros and cons of the various materials?

Thanks for any ideas and suggestions.

[Rob412]

How about using foam to shape the mountain. This would keep it lightweight. The foam comes in 2x8 foot sheets. I used liquid nails for paneling and foam to secure the layers together. Then filed and shaped the mountain to get the shape I want. I then used the caulk to go over the seams in the foam to avoid seeing the lines between layers and worked that in with my finger. After that I painted it a dark brown for a base. Which I put right on the foam. I did use woodland scenics ground foam but you could just paint various lighter colors on top to represent turf or rock. Then just put the vacuum on it to clean. If you add a lot of trees to your hill it may get labor intensive as you would have to wipe around all the trees or remove them to clean the mountain. This is my first attempt with the ground foam so if it attracts and holds a lot of dust I would just paint the mountain too. There is a good video on you tube go to worlds greatest hobby there is a series on building the Madison Central narrated by Michael Gross and shows among other things how to shape the foam.

[trestrainfan]

Rob412, Thanks for the in depth reply.

I'm sort of leaning away from using foam (I'm concerned about foam giving off more toxic fumes in a fire compared to other materials. I'll have to do some research to see if my concerns have any real basis in fact.)

I know quite a few people use foam, and you make some very good points about some advantages of using foam. Certain types of land forms would be much easier to represent on the layout using carved foam rather than a cardboard lattice/plaster wrap method. The use of the caulk to hide the seam between the foam layers is a good idea. Does the caulk take the paint differently than the foam, or does it all look uniform after it has been painted?

[Rob412]

You can't see where the caulk is once you paint it. I put a heavy first coat on the foam as it soaks in a lot of the paint. And then apply a second coat after that dries. I just use regular house paint that you can get from a Home Depot or Lowe's. I like the foam because I tend to build the scenery in modular forms so I can build it at a workbench detail it and then drop it into position. This also helps when I want to clean the tracks and the area as I can move sections easily. Having asthma dust is a real important factor in how I approach any scenery. Although I have just started on the scenery so anything I say is from giving it a long hard thought rather than actual practice. I am hoping that the ground foam I am adding will not attract too much dust I'm sure many other guys out there would be able to answer that question better then I right now as I am on a wait-and-see but I have vacuumed it and it seems to hold up fairly well. My wife painted some rocks on the side of the foam and I was surprised at how well she made it look.

[Rob412]

These foam sheets are used to insulate houses so depending on the type of house you're in you may already be surrounded by it. Plus it can't be much worse then all of the lacquers that are usually put on our furniture.

[fifedog]

I subscribe to the cardboard lattice work covered by plaster cloth method.  Easier to mold and manipulate while working with it.  Once dry, simply apply a covering a latex paint, and while that's wet, apply various shades of ground foam.

Also like to include broken pieces of old ceiling tile for cliff walls and tunnel linings.  Again, easy to affix and paint.

Since you mentioned deserts, are we modeling a portion of the American Southwest?

[trestrainfan]

Rob412 and fifedog, thanks for the info.

Fifedog, I'm a long ways off from starting a layout, but I would like to have an around the room layout with periodic mountain ranges separating different landscape types. The landscaping would be fanciful, so I wouldn't be trying to do a realistic landscape. I'd like to have 2 types of landscape that represent the American Southwest. One would have tall eroded rock columns and canyon walls like Bryce Canyon or the Red Rock area. The other would be more generic California desert with sand dunes and low mountains.

[fifedog]

One of our former posters, Perry, modeled his whole layout in the reddish scenery of the southwest, and it was always eye-catching to me.

[trestrainfan]

I remember his posts. He almost always had a dinosaur running around creating mayhem. Very neat scenery. I think he carved it out of a white styrofoam.