What glues should I use to bond Woodland Scenics Shaper Sheets to plywood and formboard? Do I glue the aluminum side to the layout or do I need to flod it over and glue the "fuzzy" side to the layout?
Thanks
I'd never heard of Shsper sheet, so I googled it. Found some sources. Then I went to good ol' You Tube, searched for it by "Woodland Scenics Shaper Sheets. There's a pretty good how to video by WS. It should get you off to a great start.
Pretty interesting stuff I must say. Dan
Hi Kenben,
I have some experience with Shaper Sheets so I will try to answer your questions.
I used PL300 foam compatible adhesive to glue several Shaper Sheets over top of a foam spine to form mountains. The PL300 works very well but I suggest that you have a quantity of 'T' pins or nails about 2 1/2" long to keep the sheets in place until the adhesive dries. I used bulletin board pins but they weren't long enough to hold things down properly.
The fuzzy side goes up. The fuzzy surface is designed to hold glue or Sculptamold or whatever you want to attach to the surface. When joining two sheets together WS recommends peeling the fuzzy surface back a half inch or so from one of the sheets. That will expose the adhesive that holds the fuzzy stuff in place, and that adhesive will stick to the foil on the second sheet. Peeling the fuzzy stuff back can be a PITA so after a few tries I just used the PL300 to glue the joints.
If I can offer a few more suggestions, here is what I learned:
- Make sure that you cut the sheet at least 10% - 15% larger than the area to be covered. When you crumple the sheet to add texture the area that it will cover is reduced.
- Don't crumple the sheets too tightly when you are adding the texture. If you squeeze the sheets into a tight ball you will actually lose some of the depth in the surface formations. Crumple it lightly and then spread it out to see how it looks. If you want more texture you can crumple it into a tighter ball, but go gently.
- If you are going to put the Shaper Sheets over top of a foam form, make sure that the glue in the form has dried completely. You will have to apply some pressure to get the Shaper Sheets to conform to the shape so you don't want the form collapsing when you are working on it.
Here are some photos of the work in progress:
Here you can see the contrast between a sheet that was tightly crumpled on the upper right vs a sheet that wasn't crumpled as tightly. If you look carefully, you will see the beginnings of a logging road with a switchback coming down the mountain:
Keep in mind that this was my first attempt at working with the Shaper Sheets, so if you aren't impressed don't blame the sheets!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!