What is best way to replicate Marble and Stone slabs in HO?

[Anonymous]

What is the best way to replicate stone and Marble slabs in HO? I plan to suggest a Quarrying operation by using a short spur and a flat car or two. A small Crane on treads will be used to load these heavy items for shipment. That is the extent of my project.

Any ideas?

Thank you for your time.

Lee

[Anonymous]

Try using plaster or Hydrocal for marble. I'd pour some into a simple, relatively flat mold (try using LEGO pieces for mold)-wouldn't have to be perfect since marble wasn't completely smooth when first quarried and was dependent on methods used to 'quarry' it out in first place. Keep the pour a few scale inches thick on some of the pieces at least- remember it was used for flooring, building facades, and tombstones. Sometimes it was used as 'building blocks' for larger structural elements like bridge abutments and for solid walls on large municipal buildings, banks, etc., especially those buildings in close proximity to the quarry. That material would be considerably thicker when being shipped to the end user and would be shipped on flat cars typically in large slabs and held down w/ chains and wood cribbing: suspect pallets were used, but unclear on this point. Possibly smaller and/of finished products were shipped in box cars Just cut the finished plaster material into reasonably rectangular pieces, leave edges irregular and not dressed. Sand plaster to desired thickness using drywall screen and finish up w/100-220 sandpaper-don't wet -sand or you'll have a mess! Finish w/ primer sprayed real thin and top coat w/ compatible satin paint leaning towards flat, rather than gloss. Rubble could be replicated by broken bits and chunks of leftover plaster. If you were modeling a large structure - bridge or viaduct , etc. you might try using thinnest 'drywall' available - prob 1/2" and use spackle to texture or to scribe joint lines into surface. Bendable drywall is available. Marble is, usually. at least around here. an off-white or pale gray w/ subtle pink, gray, greenish or even black veining in random patterns. Walthers makes a 'marble' industry building "Midstate Marble Products" Walthers #933-3073 in HO and it looks quite similar to, but larger than, a structure within a few miles of my locale. An overhead crane still sits next to the main structure, and it's not unlike the one included in Walthers' "Team Track" kit #933-3166 . ( Both referenced kits are on pg 451 in 2004 Walthers HO catalog. ) I would suspect a marble shipping facility like the one we're discussing would be laid out on flat ground and in very close proximity to a siding because the stuff is heavy! Consider having ballast around facility and leads 'to beyond the room' implied quarry laced with marble dust and ballast that was made out of marble bits. I'd scatter small bits and pieces of quarried material along right of way, alongside roads and in yard or along siding to imply material that had been damaged or fallen off of freight cars in and out of facility. I am including such an operation, plus a very small portion of a quarry (since they could be almost as large as most layouts in the 'real world') on my new layout set in nw Georgia. As I progress I'll share anything I may think is of interest on this Forum. Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

I have read about modelling quarried rocks with chunks of drywall. Just peel off the paper and colour appropriately. Sounds simple enough, but I have not tried it...

Andrew