Don--
BWAA--HAAAAHHHH!!!!!
Talk about your Flying Elephants, LOL!
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
Tom,
I've got the perfect solution to your problem:
We rig up a Peter Pan flying harness, strap you into it and hand you a wet plaster casting. With a great shove from some fellow forum members, we send you flying out above the layout to the Buttes, and just as you reach the Buttes, you place the mold and swing back away, ready to grab another mold full of wet plaster! The only requirement you have to fulfill is signing a waiver to be videotaped during the project...
Don Z.
Research; it's not just for geeks.
Shawnee--
Thanks for the information on Bragdon--I really like their products, I use their adhesive weathering chalks on my locos, and it really works well. Besides, they're just up the road from me in Georgetown, so local access to their product is very easy.
I've already got the Cripplebush on order, so we'll see how much I have to fill once they arrive. I'll certainly give the Bragdon molds a try, since they've probably used local Sierra rock for a lot of their castings.
Oh, BTW, I use Hydrocal for my castings, but for the lighter weight. Believe it or not, I've even used Sculptamold on occasion, and it works out pretty nicely, too. Gives a nice 'gritty' texture, especially if I'm casting the hard clay that is common to the Sierra Foothills at certain elevations out here.
Ain't Geology fun, LOL?
Tom, that is a good reason to use some of the larger Cripplebush castings - for the flexibility and size. I guess weight is another good reason...for plaster of paris gets heavy. Haven't tried Hydrocal since weight isn't an issue on my over-engineered benchwork, and I have a super cheap source of plaster of paris.
One thought however,...Bragdon has some molds that are truly large - like 18x28 and 15x29, in addition to a wide variety of other sizes and rock prototypes...I was looking at them recently, kinda wish I had spent my money there instead of Cripplebush, would have gone farther. They're 48 bucks and less. If it's large size that interests you - a one big casting to attach rather than several in that immense area of yours - you may want to look at those molds. And you get to make as many of them as you want, or two that you flip one upside down.
BTW, if you stick the "Great Stuff" that I mentioned in the freezer for a few minutes, it comes out slower and is more manageable in terms of its expansion. That's a trick I picked up that works nicely.
No, you're not the odd man out here at all. I used the latex/gauze rock casting method on my older layout to good effect, and you're right, you can get amazing detail by using real rocks as the molds--I've also used them on portions of my present layout with good success. My main reason for going with the Cripplebush is the amount of space I have to cover and the fact that the space is not really that accessable to leaning over and putting on individual castings. If you take a look at the photo in my first posting, the Buttes are almost 6' off of the floor, and I'd be having to lean in from a stepladder all of the time--probably no problem if I were about 25 years younger, LOL! Bad planning on my part, I know. But with the Cripplebush, I can lay out larger rock detail in one application than applying individual castings. That's the main reason for my choosing them--convenience, and in my case, sheer safety.
Believe me, if the space were easier to reach, I'd be heading up to the Sierra this morning armed with liquid latex and about 8 rolls of gauze.
I may be the odd man out in this thread, but I ordered some castings from Cripplebush...was "wowed" by the pics on their site....But when I got them, for the money, I just don't think they're that impressive. Just "ok". And they are indeed very expensive. I ordered the limestone cliff for 50 bucks, and really, in hindsight, I think one would do better with a set of large plaster castings fitted together. One of the shale pieces - I think 20 bucks - was ok in detail but small, and thus I think overpriced. The other shale piece was large, but the detail wasn't overwhelming.
I did try indenting the limestone cliff and thus using it as a mold for plaster of paris in certain sections, and that turned out ok I guess...at least I got a second use out of it, and some decent rock sections that are different than others. The cripplebush rocks are rubber and hollow behind, so you have to work with that...I filled the back of mine with polyfoam window sealant - "Great Stuff" type - and cut it flush to the casting after it dried, and then glued it in on the edges. Still is flexible, but more workable and not hollow.
I also ordered a pre-cast limestone cliff from Noch...hard poly foam rather than the hollow rubber of Cripplebush - and Noch, now that's an impressive casting. 16 bucks. Tons of detail. And I can use it to make a complete mold replica using latex rubber.
In the end, I do think the best way is to make your own molds with latex rubber, get some cool rocks. It's super easy - smells like heck while you make 'em though - and you can make some massive sized molds, like 3 or 4 big, impressive molds from a small bottle, which is under 10 bucks. The rubber latex molds pick up minute granular detail in the rocks that you don't get, in my experience, from the Cripplebush rubber rocks. The latx stuff dries very quickly and you can have a great big mold in about 24 hours, and you get to pick rock examples that you think are cool. I've found that big pieces of quartz work really well for faceted detail.
I used a number of the Cripplebush rubber rock casting to construct lift-out sections on my layout. These needed to be relatively thin, but also look impressive. Casting them in plaster of any kind would've made for very heavy liftouts.
I constructed an armature out of extruded foam that fit the liftout space. I used bamboo skewers to reinforce critical areas and used hot glue to assemble. Then I used the hot glue to attach the rubber rocks to the base. Finally I blended the edges in with Scupltamold. I painted as needed, including overspray of the rubber rocks to blend it all together.
This approach was very successful for me. I have one liftout that follows a shallow curve that is about five feet long, yet weighs only about 5 or 6 pounds.
While the product is more expensive than conventional rock molds using plaster, it was well worth it for the ease they provided in building these liftouts. With a little judicious color coordination, the rubbe3r rocks blend right in with my other scenery.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Bob--
Thanks so much for the additional tips. Is the American Accents spray paint acrylic base? My photos of the Sierra Buttes shows them as being a rather reddish granite with a lot of gray mixed in, and some darker basaltic upthrusts--those 9000'-high puppies shoot right UP out of the surrounding countryside. So I'll take a look at the shades available when I get the package, sometime next week. And wow--FREE shipping! I'm really looking forward to this
thanks again, I'm copying your additional tutorial.
Since you are using the product, I would also like to give you some additional tips for installation. The rubber castings come with a basic light coat of gray to brown mix of fogged painting for some bit of color and definition. What I did was to select a few colors of spray paint (American Accents, Home Depot) to give them a decent base coat. I found that the lighter tones worked spraying to highlight the upper top of the rock, darker for the bottom. Of coarse this was done by spraying at the proper angle. After they dried, I used artist acylics to add addiyoinal colors. In my case for the prototype, rusts, tans and some greens.
You will also note that the backside of the casting will have some powder/ mold release that needs to be washed off. On some of the first installs, the glue didn't hold due to this.
A sharp pair of surgical scissors really helped to cut the craggy lines around the detail of the rock for a fit that I wanted and to disquise any seams. Small scraps can also be glued on any spots that don't look right to also hide the fitting. A bit of scenery material here and there will totally hide the remaining joints. Some of the hot glue was showing and I didn't even bother to hide it. The translucent glue appears as water running within the crevases. Some WS water effects was added to pronounce this effect even further on some places.
Good luck with your install, I had fun working with them. They are quite easy to work with.
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
Well, looked at their catalogue and went nuts. Ordered Santa Fe Canyon 1 and 3, Granite 1,3 and 5 and the basalt pinnacles. I'm thinking that that's enough to cover most of the Buttes rock-face. Luckily, I've got some color photos of the real Sierra Buttes to guide me, so when they arrive, I'll get started. Looking forward to it.
Thanks again, Bog40 for the information (and the inspiration!).
Thanks for the link, very timely for me.
I hate Rust
Bogp40
Thanks for those spectacular photos. I've been looking at Santa Fe Canyon 1 and 3, and also several of their granite and basalt castings. After seeing your results, I think I'll go ahead and give them a try. Like your club, I've got a pretty vast area to work on, and I'm just about convinced that those Cripplebush are the way to go in my case, as well.
Thanks again. REALLY appreciate it!
I have used them for some extremely large cuts on the club layout. I realized that individual castings would have been almost insane to use for this 12' long and 14" high area. The Cripplebush Santa Fe Canyon 1 &3 are the largest and one of thier most popular. I found that bonding with a hot glue gun to be the best. They will layout and cut for fit very nicely. If you need to add fill-in or change contour, this is done easily by using scrap pieces of foam glued to the scenery base.
The pic below is a combination of the Santa Fe 1&3. I layed them out ang found the splice spots to follow a ragged line in the rock strata. Worked out quite well
The spot is almost finished now, these are construction photos. It shows that the cut has a base of slightly curved and tilted 3/8" ply. I should have actually added some thin foam to show a bit more irregularity where the cut is quite long. These rubber castings will bend and fold like crazy to follow any radius or bend. If you experience any puckering, just slit the casting along a fault and fold for proper fit then hot glue as you install.
The website is: http://www.cripplebush.net/santa-fe/santa-fe-category.htm There is also an installation tutortorial there as well.
I've been looking at a portion of my model railroad--the Sierra Buttes, and after seeing Don Z's rockwork on his layout, have decided to get rid of the 'ice cream' look and put in some serious rock-castings.
One thing, however, it's a pretty enormous space, as you can see from the above photo--and that doesn't even show the additional 3-foot 'wraparound' in front of the locomotive. Add to that the fact that I've built up the front of the layout from it, and it would take an awful lot of rock-castings (plus a lot of careful leaning in from a step-ladder) to apply them.
I've been taking a serious look at the Cripplebush 'rubber' rock castings for at least part of the face on the Buttes, and I was wondering if anyone here has used them, and if so, how much success you've had. I'm pretty impressed with their catalogue and quality. My original plan was to head up to the Sierra this next week and do some actual granite casting with latex and gauze, but the more I look at the area I need to cover, the more I'm thinking about the Cripplebush for part--or even most--of it.
Any comments, hints or advice will be MORE than welcome