Scenery base

[Somerset-Bob]

Afer retirement I got back into model railroading.  I pulled out boxes from about 1980 and among the stuff was a box of Perma-Scene.  The company is out of business and I can't find anything like it.  It is brown and has texture.  Does anyone know if there is anything like it on the market?  I tried inserting an image but couldn't get it to work/

 

 

[mbinsewi]

There are a number of scenery base products out there such as hydrocal, and you can also use drywall joint compound.

I Googled Perma-Scene and found out what it is all about.  Looks like it was made by Permacraft Products, Inc.

Mike.

[Somerset-Bob]

Yes Mike, I am using them now but Perma-Scene is brown and has course texture which the products don't have.  Thanks for your reply.

 

[BigDaddy]

I also have a box from the 80's.  Never used it.  I really like sculptamold.  It is a paper/plaster product.  It is very light, it can be colored, as you mix it, with cheap craft paints.  You can even use it to cast rocks.

The one downside is that it tends to form short strings, like small fibers in the mix.  If you are trying to from a smooth area, you can use water and gloves to smooth it out.  No so much with rock castings.  There you need to use an artists pallet knife.

The canyon is all sculptamold

 This forum has specific rules in how to post pics.  They have to be hosted somewhere like Flickr, Imgur, not google or facebook.  There is a sticky in the General forum on how to do it.

[SeeYou190]

Bob, to the Model Railroader forums. Your first few posts are delayed by the moderators, but that will end soon enough. Please stick it out and continue with the conversations.

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I used Permascene in the 1990s. I also use Sculptamold, and I need to say that Sculptamold was always better for me. It has decent texture, and I have not found anything else that is near as good for joining rock castings together.

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-Kevin

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[Lone Wolf and Santa Fe]

    I used Perma-Scene back in the early 80s on my first layout when I was in junior high school. It was pretty easy to use. You just mix with water and then spread it over wire window screen, and that was it. You didn’t need to paint it. It was a finished production. Here is a picture:

    In future layouts I used the paper towels soaked in plaster method where you build a skeleton frame out of cardboard strips and lay the soaked paper towels over the skeleton. Once dry you paint the plaster an earth color with latex house paint and sprinkle on dyed saw dust or ground foam for vegetation while the paint is still wet.
    The Perma-Scene did tend to crack but that was ok because the Earth is full of cracks. Overall however I prefer the paper towels soaked in plaster method for a scenery base.
    To answer your question, there is nothing on the market that is like it. Sculptamold is probably the closest.

[riogrande5761]

Lone Wolf and Santa Fe

    I used Perma-Scene back in the early 80s on my first layout when I was in junior high school. It was pretty easy to use. You just mix with water and then spread it over wire window screen, and that was it.

    In future layouts I used the paper towels soaked in plaster method where you build a skeleton frame out of cardboard strips and lay the soaked paper towels over the skeleton. Once dry you paint the plaster an earth color with latex house paint and sprinkle on dyed saw dust or ground foam for vegetation while the paint is still wet. 

Sounds like Perma Scene was just an out-of-the-box system to make scenery but like Lone Wolf mentioned, you can use something like screen or cardboard strips to support paper towels soaked in plaster.

What I did was use cardboard strips held in place using hot glue and then covered that with plaster cloth and then a thin layer of plaster. 

FYI I did use more cardboard strips than is necessary, you don't have to use as many as I did.  I was experimenting with making landforms using the cardboard strips rather than just a very basic hill or valley.

You can buy the paster cloth on Ebay or Amazon way cheaper than what you see in the hobby shops FYI.  Activa is one brand I used and it worked great and cost less than half the price of the type sold by hobby shops by hobby manufacturers.

For my last layout, I built a basic frame work on the back and attached the cardboard strips to near the track on one side and over to the wood framework on the other to support it.

Here is another example of some wood I installed using hot glue to act as supports for cardboard strips:

Here I am overlaying squares of Activa plaster cloth - I cut it in sections roughly 8 x 8 inches or 10x10 or whatever was easy to manage, dipped them in water that was in a paint roller pan, and then draped them on the cardboard overlapping the adjacent plaster cloths by 1 to 2 inches.

Later I mixed up some plaster of Paris in a fairly thin consistancy and slathered it over the plaster cloth that had set up.  (I wetted the plaster cloth with a good soaking of water from a spray bottle because otherwise it will suck the moisture out of the plaster you slather on and the plaster it won't set up properly being dried out - I found that out by experience).

Here you can see on one side some pre-colored plaster and on the other side the plastic cloth which hasn't been covered yet:

You can paint over the plaster after it sets up for a base color.  I used a desert light brown sand color for a desert theme but you can use earth if you are going mid-west or eastern.

Here is a semi-finished scene before I had to tear down the layout for a move:

 

[RealGomer]

I found an unopened box of PermaScene from the earlt 80s.  that hopefully I can still use it. Anyway, I did a bit of digging and I'm guessing the company went out of business in 2005 or so when the owner died.

[BigDaddy]

RealGomer

I found an unopened box of PermaScene from the earlt 80s.

I have one too, let us know if it still works.

[NVSRR]

I used perma

scene early on like most did.  I now mix up ground goop.   I use saw dust as the main filler allowing me to control the texture through dust size.  I still use it between rocks for larger gaps then over coat with a layer of plaster to carve it.   And just straight plaster in the narrow gaps.      I never calculated the price per foot

 

Wolfie 

[kasskaboose]

Plaster-of-Paris is what I use for a base.  That inexpensive product is easily available. I like that it's also easy to paint, dries fast, and sturdy.