Hydrocal substitute

[Anonymous]

Recently I built a small mountain by soaking paper towels in a watered down batch of drywall mud. I am pleased with the results but would like to know if anyone else is using this or a similar method. I would be interested in any suggestions you have.

By the way, I read somewhere to paint the mountain with coffee to give a dull tan color to the mountain. They explained this will assist in covering the stark white of the mountain when completing the scenery. It seems to work great.

Makes me crave Folgers!

Cmc

[rogerhensley]

For me, that has resulted in the scenery flaking apart in a short time. There just doesn't seen to be any strength to watered down drywall mud. The Hyrdocal or Ultracal 30 is actually a form of cement with the resulting strength.

That said, I now use 'Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty' as I can get that easily here and it has a slightly yellow color which is better if I chip the scenery.

BTW - the scenery I created with Hydrocal 21 years ago has been lifted and moved twice and still is holding up well.

Roger

Roger Hensley - [e-mail]
== http://cid.railfan.net/eci_new.html ==
== East Central Indiana HO Scale Railroad ==

[Anonymous]

I use lightweight spackling compound, it is a little more $$$ but it has NO weight to it,it is not as messy (no mixing to do) and it doesn't harden making it easy to go back later and plant trees, carve out a creek or whatever. The only thing I use plaster for is to line a creek or river bottom.Like plaster you need to paint it the basic ground color for the area you are modeling. I first did a module with this method 9 years ago and it is holding up as good as new. Mike

[Anonymous]

The plaster cloth made by Woodland Scenics is easy to use and is more affordable than a lot of modeling products,and you get great results. Gerald

[Anonymous]

I've used Hydrocal, joint compound and Sculptamold in the past for making landforms. Anymore though, I use the extruded styrofoam insulation made by either Dow or Dupont. I'm in N scale with N-TRAK modules as well as a traveling layout that have styrofoam for most, if not all of the scenery base. Since my son has been away in college, I've had to schlep these things around by myself, so the light weight of the foam scenery is greatly appreciated.
It's easy to work with, and while it can get messy when shaping it with a rasp, I'm always happy with the results I get.

Just something to think about.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the input Charles. I`ll give it a try the next modual I build. It`s hard to teach us old dogs new tricks. Woof. Gerald

[Anonymous]

Sorry for the delay in responding,

When you used the Drywall mud were you soaking papertowels in it? My thought is it would act as a strengthener. I will look into the Hard water putty though. Thanks for the input.

Cmc

[Anonymous]

I use Hydrocal soaked in paper towels then placed over aluminium window screen for my mountains. I have used this for several years and it holds up well.

[Anonymous]

Durham's Rock Hard water Putty (with a little paint for color) over foam works for me.