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Well I didn't exactly intend to start a 'foam vs plaster' war, or a symposium on 'which is better, open grid, or foam on supports'... Fact of the matter is, foam is not an option for me, because quite frankly youI can't fit a 4x8 sheet of foam in the back of a Jeep Wrangler, and I don't have any other means of getting sheet foamto my house. Not to mention it's nearly impossible to find 2" foam here in the south (most building supply places down here only carry 1/2 and 3/4 inch at best). I built my plywood on L-girder benchwork while I had a pickup truck, so hauling the 4x8 sheets of plywood wasn't a problem then, but that was several months ago, and I'm ready to start working on scenery, which is why plaster has come to mind. As far as cost, I didn't expect this to be a cheap hobby, just a long-lived one, and one I could enjoy for many years, so I only asked about plaster to find out what's been tried with success and what options are available. My plans are to model the piedmont region of Georgia, which consists of mildly rolling hills, distinctive of where I live now. I'll only have one 'mountain' which will only be about a 2x4 section of the layout, and it won't be very big anyway. I'll have four distinct regions on my layout, city and railyard, coal mine and mountain, small town branchline, and rural Georgia whistlestop. The city area will be mostly flat anyway, the coal mine and mountain will only display the lower portion of the mountain and associated foothills, the branchline will be modeled after my local town, which has very gentle hill, and rural Georgia will be primarily flat farmland and fields. Most of my scenic contours will come up from the benchwork, instead of down. The few areas that will be lower than the rest of the layout, I can easily cut out of the plywood base with a jigsaw. I got into this hobby expecting it to take at least a year just to get the basics up and running, and at least another 4 years before all the scenery was in place and I had enough rollingstock and locomotives to run the layout like my dreams depict. I didn't mean to upset anybody who's anti-plaster, but I do want to thank everyone that responded with constructive 'pro-plaster' ideas on scenery. I've read all the how-to's on cardboard lattice and the chickenwire approach, so I'm fairly convinced that's what I'll do. Is plaster of Paris the best type of plaster to use for this method? I can buy a 25 lb bag at Lowes for about $7. I'll also check out that floor leveler stuff next time I'm there!
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