I tore up one half of my layout for new scenery. Now I want to add a small creek running adjacent to the tracks and then run under the lumber yard spur and disapear into the backdrop. Whats the best technique to carve out the stream? Layout base is 4" of Owens Corning Pink insulation boards.
Thanks for any help!
I used a long serated kitchen knive:
Anything that will cut and gouge.
Mike.
My You Tube
I cut up the foam with a utility knife and sometimes use an ordinary table spoon to scoop the foam out. I only go down a half to 3/4 of an inch. Once I have the stream bed cut out, I cover the area with plaster cloth, and usually rub the cloth with full-strength white glue, particularly below what will be the water line. Then paint and usually some talus.
Consider some culvert piping or even a small trestle to carry the tracks over the stream where they cross.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
A hot-wire cutter, in a suitably-sized U-shape would likely work well, too.
I had a pretty-good one, powered by modified transformer from an oil furnace, but the transformer failed some time ago.Last summer, I tried making another one, this time powered from a car-battery charger, but it over-heated, melting the 1/8" piano wire that was supposed to do the cutting. I worked well, though, cutting very rapidly through a 6" deep stack of styrofoam before the wire went for a hike.
Wayne
doctorwayneLast summer, I tried making another one, this time powered from a car-battery charger, but it over-heated, melting the 1/8" piano wire that was supposed to do the cutting.
Maybe Nichrome wire would be the solution to the rapid oxidization and failure. We had lots of it at my former workplace. Stainless TIG filler wire might be an OK alternate for the heavier sizes.
I never did much with extruded foam so haven't given much thought to a hot-wire cutter.
Good Luck, Ed
I'd almost forgotten, but I picked up a hot knife for cutting foam, and at a reasonable price, too. I tested it once, but haven't had a chance to use it on the layout, as SWMBO would create a stink bigger than that caused by melted styrofoam.
She can smell water-based model paints, opened in the basement, from two storeys up..."ARE YOU PAINTING IN THE HOUSE AGAIN?".
I would use a serrated knife and rough-gouge out the path of the stream. Then, I'd use a wire brush and brush out the path, improving it's shape. Finally, I would line the path with some spackle or something similar to contain any 'water' pour, but that liner would also be easier to paint and to feather out to lighter colours.
Even a wood chisel would work if you know what you're doing and have a pretty solid idea of what the finished product is to look like. You could sand the gouged-out path with coarse sand-paper even.
Many ways to do this.
MisterBeasley Consider some culvert piping or even a small trestle to carry the tracks over the stream where they cross.
Still deciding if it will be big enough to require a small trestle ( in praticular the Hobo creek bridge from monroe models. ) or a culvert. I want to model the stream by my apartment and the one I spent hours in when I was a kid catching crayfish. The CN mainline ( old SOO line ) crosses it and I believe is a culvert although I would need to walk over there and take a look.
Thanks for all the help! As wayne pointed out, SWMBO would not like the smell of melting foam in our apartment so kitchen knife It will be. Has anyone found the best grit of sandpaper to smooth down the foam?
I don't think the smell of a hot knife is that much nor that offensive.
However, Ken Patterson took a rasp like this heated it with a torch and bent it in the shape of a bracelet so it would be easy to hold. He uses it instead of roadbed on top foam, to carve beside the track, but it would be a good tool to carve a a stream. A 20' stream is a little over 3" in width. I would call that wide for a stream. That Hobo Creek Bridge is a good bit wider.
I don't think you would need anything finer than 220, but I would just smooth the bottom with plaster or sculptamold or maybe even caulk. My experience with drywall mud is it cracks.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Ringo58 Has anyone found the best grit of sandpaper to smooth down the foam?
I'm sure you have some sand paper around, so use what you have. If you don't like it, get something finer.
I like the foam sanding blocks. You can get them in different grit size.
Try to track down Lance Mindheim's article on how he built his creek on his old N scale Monon layout. The article was in the July 2003 Model Railroader, but the Trackside Photo that first showed the creek was sometime before that. It was the most realistic modeling of a meandering creekbed that I have ever seen. I believe Mindheim uses or used two layers of foam but the main thing is the way he captured the undercut that you often see on one side of a creek, and with a sandbar opposite, but so rarely see modeled, or modeled as well as he did it. There is a reason why creeks and rivers meander and tend to create undercuts, sandbars, and oxbows over time and he really understood that natural process.
Dave Nelson
dknelson Try to track down Lance Mindheim's article on how he built his creek on his old N scale Monon layout. The article was in the July 2003 Model Railroader, but the Trackside Photo that first showed the creek was sometime before that. It was the most realistic modeling of a meandering creekbed that I have ever seen. I believe Mindheim uses or used two layers of foam but the main thing is the way he captured the undercut that you often see on one side of a creek, and with a sandbar opposite, but so rarely see modeled, or modeled as well as he did it. There is a reason why creeks and rivers meander and tend to create undercuts, sandbars, and oxbows over time and he really understood that natural process. Dave Nelson
Thats good to keep in mind. The stream I want to model has lots of undercuts and sandbars. Its nice stream that the first settlers in my town built their cabins on. It's too bad they covered it up for about 1/4 as it runs under town and an abandoned car dealer ( now an empty lot). The empyt lot colapsed into the stream about a year ago and blocked the flow. Theyre still trying to clean it up.
I would have to get a subscription to view that article, correct?