Let's make it clickable:
www.ucwrr.com
I referred to that site in my quest to understand how best to approach the topography with this and similar techniques. I decided that I wasn't especially keen on having my nice spline roadbed covered with textile, especially since I was going to use latex caulk to fix the sections of flextrack into place along the centreline...which, uh, was going to be covered by textile... You get the picture.
So, I purchased a cheap hot glue gun, a bag of the dual temp sticks, and had a couple of bags of J-Cloths (real purty blue they were) and a decent pair of scissors. I held one edge of the unfolded cloths at one anchor point, say at the front of the benchwork, and draped it over the roadbed. My roadbed was never more than a foot or two from wooden beams of some sort, so this was going to work for me everywhere.
I would mark a cut line that approximated the centreline on my roadbed, a distance further if I wanted a higher hill or a lower depression, and then cut off the unwanted part for that section. Next, hot glued the facing edge on the bench, and hot glued the just-cut edge at or near the top edge of the spline roadbed. This way, the surface of the roadbed remains clear.
To get topographical relief, I merely shoved thin slats under this area and piled shopping bags filled with crumpled newspaper under the cloth, all supported by the network of slats. Everything gets re-used as I move along.
If you are still demurring a bit about which goop to use, I will strongly support Joe Fugate's formula. If you are not happy with the surface at any point, you can break it up and start afresh, or merely carve it, or add more goop to build it up...all so simple. It does take time, though, so be prepared to do this for a week or 10, depending on how much surface you are creating, how deep, how disparate in topography, how many boo-boos you have to rectify, and so on. Also, you will have to clean the bucket and utensils immediately every time..outside. I counted over 200 batches and clean-ups for my layout. The batches, to keep it manageable, should be about 1 liter, tops. Larger batches want to set up in the bucket, are heavier, and so on. Have water handy to add every 40 seconds to keep it flowing...no panics, just work with the stuff and get efficient.
After reviewing the linked article, it appears that the cheesecloth goes over what I refer to as the subgrade, after which the roadbed (ballast former or whatever) goes over the cheesecloth. If it's just the cheesecloth without plaster, there shouldn't be any leveling issues for a single layer.
I get the same result by leaving a wide (30+mm) 'shoulder' on my subgrade and using a thicker than average roadbed. The shoulder gives me space to anchor the scenic material and the deep roadbed lets me model drainage ditches and such in a 1/4" layer of (fill in scenic material of choice.) If the subgrade is the top of a fill or has a retaining wall on the front side, I reduce its width with a sabre saw and wood rasp.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I really like the cheesecloth's smooth transitions visual effect between trackwork and surrounding topography.
http://www.ucwrr.com/Kelly'sScenery.htm
http://www.ucwrr.com/PhotoGallery.htm
"Cheescloth trackwork" appears to have five stages:
[1] Sub-roadbed attached to L-girder benchwork.
[2] Cheesecloth on top of sub-roadbed.
[3] Roadbed on top of cheesecloth.
[4] Track on top of roadbed.
[5] Ballast over roadbed & track.
...then blending in of hardshell, plaster castings, ground goop, etc. It would appear you would need to have your electrical wiring planned out well ahead of time for this scenery technique with the installed cheesecloth perhaps limiting some pre-scenery open-benchwork access to the trackworks's initial wiring.
Cheesecloth's smooth scenery transitions may find this scenery technique quite doable in my case with a 24"-36" benchwork width where the N Scale CR&T has apx. 75 square feet on each layout level, and; the scenery is not spread out too far over vast layout distances.
Cheesecloth scenery could fit nicely into at a "2-3 backdrop forced-perspective depth scenario" that emulates diorama techniques. The cheesecloth would be attached only to the closest backdrop with the last backdrop dedicated to a distant-horizon effect with an inch separating each backdrop.
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
Kelli gives a quick how to on the cheese cloth scenery on the Great Model Railroad video for Lee Nicolas' Utah Colorado Western. It a appears to be a lot easier to do than it sounds. The real fiddly part is the first layer of plaster, after that it seems to be pretty much like regular hardshell.
I haven't used it yet, but may give it a try on the next section of my layout.
George
"And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers ride their father's magic carpet made of steel..."