Paper Towel Screnery

[jtatum65]

Hey gang i was looking for a topic on using paper towels dipped in hydrocal for my scenery work, but couldnt find one. I am wondering if anyone has used or knows someone or even read an article on using paper towels with plaster/hydrocal. And if so what is the formula for mixing the hydrocal. I tried this myself but found all i did was make a mess and wasted hydrocal. Any help would be appreciated.

Jim T.[8]

[Anonymous]

I use patching plaster. It is a lot cheaper & a lot stronger. I don't use paper towels.
Use aluminum screen. A lot stronger. Haven't used paper towels before. Guess I ought to keep my ideas to myself, huh. LOL

[jdolan]

My wife uses paper towels and thinned drywall compound over cardboard strips for scenery gives her nice land forms adds rocks and stone work ontop of that to do the rest,looks good when she is done. It is messy like the rest of the plasters but worth it. she cuts the towels in hand size pieces, dips it in the mix and lays it over cardboard web,over lapping them and goes from there. She found the idea in a scenerybook from Kalmback was an old book.

[foxtrackin]

I have been using paper towels dipped in plaster of paris. I use heavy duty towels and mix the plaster thin ( like pea soup) it is pretty messy. I will take old grocery bags and wad them up and tape them down then go over them with the paper towels soaked in plaster. Makes great looking hills and doesnt take very long. I am doing a large HO layout and needed a quick way to make landscape. I want hills and flat ground that had some contour to it as I am doing central Indiana and didn't want mountains. You should work fast and make pretty small batches as the plaster of paris will set up pretty quickly. Good luck

[jtatum65]

Well darn that was pretty fast responses i like that...well i appreciate everyones input. well i am on a tight budget and really cant afford the plaster cloth made by WS. so i was thinkin about the hydrocal and paper towel route. i bought a 100 lbs bag of staturary hydrocal at a local supplier it weights a lil more but not much. what is the mixture ratio? 2:1? 3:1? thanks for all your assistance

Jim T.

[Anonymous]

Hello, I use paper towels, i lightly spray it with water when it is in place, then i mix the plaster of paris real thin, brush it on, let dry and brush more coats on, then you can use the plaster a lttle thicker, it is not as messy as dipping them

[egmurphy]

Hydrocal used to be real popular because it is harder than regular plaster and you can get away with a thinner layer. "Hard Shell" scenery was based on using Hydrocal. Because it is harder/denser, it doesn't accept stains as well as regular plaster. This may not be a problem if you are painting he surface instead of staining.

I checked the US Gypsum website and found 'statuary hydrocal', here's the link:
http://www.gypsumsolutions.com/brand.asp?prod=60

Unfortunately it doesn't give a precise mix ratio. It does include a chart based on weight of water/hydrocal showing a range of strengths based on mix ratio. That may not help much. I'd suggest starting a test mix using 1 part water to 2 parts hydrocal (by volume) and adjusting the mix based on how that turns out.

There were some interesting things on the data sheet that bear noticing:
1. Be sure to add the hydrocal to the water, not water to hydrocal. Sift or add gradually, don't just dump the whole amount in at once.
2. After adding the hydrocal to the water, let it sit for 2-4 minutes before mixing.
3. Mix 2-5 minutes.

One other thing, use the cheap hard paper towels, not the soft absorbent kitchen type.

Regards

Ed

[dknelson]

Paper towels and hydrocal is the classic Linn Westcott "hardshell" scenery which has been written up many times in MR and made it into some editions of the old Bill McClanahan scenery book, presumably also in the newer scenery books from Kalmbach. I have to think the article index would find plenty of mentions of hard shell scenery, sometimes as part of MR project railroads such as the "Sierra Pintada" of the mid 1960s. The last decade or so however they seem to prefer extruded foam for their project railroads to make them portable. Also plaster can get messy and it can add humidity to a layout area. Some people have an allergic reaction to plaster dust.
Some people also used torn up old bed sheets rather than paper towels. And of course plaster impregnated cloth, such as Woodland Scenics sells and such as doctors used to use to set broken bones, is a popular alternative as well.

The idea is that you build up mountains with crumpled newspaper held together with masking tape. You then cover that with the plaster soaked towels or cloth pieces, being careful to not overlap too much. A brush might be used to smooth more plaster over the finished product. Some modelers add tints to the plaster, other paint it when it is dry with latex paint. Westcott would sprinkle dry paint tints as "zip texturing" -- today we might use ground foam, but the idea is to use the wet paint as the binding agent.
Assuming you use open grid framework you might need some wood supports as part of some mountains. On flat table top benchwork the crumbled newspapers alone are probably enough unless you building a huge mountain.
Wire screen might be needed where there are tunnels.
Hard shell makes a very solid, and very heavy, scenery. I think of it as suited more to mountains than to rolling praries.

Dave Nelson

[n2mopac]

I use a slow setting plaster I buy from the local Lowe's. Just tell an "knowledgable" associate what you need. Hydrocal is lighter, but on the paper towels I am using little enough that weight does not become a factor.

Also, be sure to use industrial strength paper towels. Regular kitchen towels, even the stronger ones, aren't strong enough to hold up to the stress of putting them down and they are so thin that the cardboard lattice (if that is what you are supporting with, I do) shows through. Two layers of industrial strength disposable shop towels work great for me. They cost a little more, but it doesn't take verry many to do a large area so its worth it.

Ron

[jhugart]

For the skill-building layout for my son, we used the old technique: Vertical wooden posts, a network of masking tape, wadded newspaper on the tape, paper towels laid over the newspaper and wet down, then plaster-soaked paper towels on that. Once that dried, we did a second layer of towels. Then you can shine a light from underneath (after removing the tape and newspaper) and see the thin spots, to add more plaster-soaked paper towels.

You can buy plaster at Fleet Farm or Home Depot. IIRC, the ratio is two parts plaster to one part cold water. You have to mix the plaster in relatively small batches, since it sets quickly. Your fingers WILL get messy. The floor will also get messy, so lay down some thick plastic.

The weight of the plaster-soaked towels will change the shape you got with the wadded newspapers. You can add more newspapers on top to create another bump where you once had a concavity.

The bottom line is that it is really messy. Wear old clothes you don't care about and protect ANYTHING you do care about. Remove rings, tape over the track, etc.

The result is also HEAVY. Make sure you have good benchwork, or you will find your legs bending when you try to shift the layout. It may take two or more people to safely move the layout (if it is remotely moveable), even a small one, because of the weight of the plaster.

Also, if you plan to have a fascia panel, install it first, screw in wooden blocks (blocks on layout side, screws counter-sunk on aisle side). Make sure you wrap a plaster-soaked towel around each block, and then plaster right up to the fascia. When the plaster is all dried, pencil a line for the profile of the plaster scenery. Unscrew the fascia, use a jigsaw to cut the line, now you have a nice fascia cut to follow the landscape.

I picked up a hand-held sprayer a few years back, it holds about two gallons of water. it's the sort of thing people use for insecticide, but if you have only ever used water in it, it is perfect for wetting large areas of plaster. You need to soak the first plaster layer with water before you add a second layer, or the first layer robs the water from the second layer. Kids love soaking plaster.

Regular plaster takes washes of paint very well when it comes to staining to make rock look rockish. It also takes latex 'ground' paint very well. You get nice organic shapes from the draping plaster, but you do get droopy sections between posts if you aren't careful.

If you have tunnel portals and such, install them AFTER you do the plaster landscape. It is fairly easy to take a small keyhole saw and cut your opening, then use small amounts of plaster towel strips to secure it. It is too easy to get a drip of plaster on a detailed item like a tunnel portal, and then you end up with the architect's solution: decorate with vines.

You can do rock molds and while setting, put them directly on the plaster towels, or let every dry and use additional strips of towels as needed to anchor the rocks. Some people carve rocks in plaster, and I have no experience in that.

Having done this plaster thing on a small layout, I'm going to try foam the next time, hot-wire cutting stuff, Woodland Scenics risers, and see what I get.

Feel free to e-mail me with questions.

[CBQ_Guy]

Just to be different . . . .

When I get to the scenery stage, I am going to try using cheese cloth instead of paper towels. I helped a friend do his with Hydrocal and paper towels, and man, what a mess! The paper towels kept tearing. I know a heavier grade would be better, but I suspect you still have the problem, just not as bad. Well see how it goes . . .

[dknelson]

Just to amplify on my prior post about hard shell scenery .... when you read the old Linn Westcott articles, by "paper towels" he was not referring to the white absorbant paper towels that come on a roll and that you use in a kitchen. Rather he meant the somewhat coarse, brown, textured paper towels that you used to see in gas station and school bathrooms. It was cheap. It was also a good color for scenery base.
Also when I said hard shell was heavy -- I meant in comparison to foam. It is light compared to the old method of slobbing on plaster over wire screen.
Dave Nelson

[jhugart]

I bought some white, Z- or C-fold towels at Sam's Club. They held up well enough to apply, and were light enough you could tear them up. I wouldn't go with the cheap rolls of towels...you wouldn't have enough of them, and they would probably tear very easily.

If you get liberal with your plaster as a finish coat after you have the towels done, it will get heavy. If you used a thick mixture of plaster on your last layer of towels, it may be smooth enough to serve as the scenery base by itself, otherwise you will probably need some finishing item, like plain plaster troweled on, and that adds to the weight.