I live in northern Michigan. Checked Craigs list one day and had an epiphany. An individual in Grayling is offering old billboard signs for sale. He sells six 14' x 40' signs for $50.00. Apparently farmers use them as tarps. He informs me there are many sizes from 10' x 14' and up. He also say's they are made from woven fiberglass strands coated with vinyl on both sides and very light weight. So I make a field trip to see what he has. Wind up puchasing two signs that are 14' by 20' for $5.00 each. I am just getting ready to start a basement layout and realize these things are a little stiffer and thicker then clear visqueen and obviously can take paint since one side is printed with a message and have no creases. Railroad is 48" high with 8' ceiling. Lay out sign on garage floor and mark and cut three 4' 3" by 20' pieces. tack one end with roofing nai[ to plate on top of wall and tail hangs down 3" below planned rr height. Then pull it tight and work my way to the other end. So for $5.00 I have 60' of background with only two seams. incredible! I will never need that much but that is less then 90 cents for each 5'. The point of this is if you have a company in your area that puts up billboard advertizing they may be throwing these things out or selling them very cheaply after they take them down. Only have one section up at this point but plan to overlap two pieces at the end and cut through both to get a perfect match then contact cement glue them to a backer piece for an invisible joint before painting. Thought somebody might find this an interesting way to create a backdrop
I have heard of people using these as sails for small home built sailboats.
Pictures would be helpful, and appreciated. I am having a hard time visualizing how this would work.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
The way I am understanding this, is that you are hanging this behind your layout rather than painting scenery on your wall you'll use that as a canvas to paint your backdrop scenery?
Correct. Basement has concrete block walls and needed something smoother
Are you just letting it hang down, or are you fastening the bottom to something as well?
the 2 x4 plate the first floor joists sit on is flush with the inside of the block wall so I used 1" roofing nails to mount the tarp to the plate and it hangs straight against the wall with no wrinkles. I cut it 51" and the railroad will be 48" high so in theory it will have a 48" exposure (8' ceiling) and hang 3" behind the layout. Because the material is 14' wide before cutting it could be any width desired like a depressed area requiring a wider backdrop. It appears that 3" will be adequate but if needed I could glue the bottom to the wall or make the next piece wider. so far I am satisfied without gluing the bottom and the layout will keep the bottom tight against the wall. I don't forsee any problems with it coming loose at the top. The entire 14' x 20' sign only weighs a couple of pounds.
As another note, advertising signs at many retail places is done on thick plastic sheets, work great for backdrops or scratch building, got some for free that are .07 inches.
AEP528 Are you just letting it hang down, or are you fastening the bottom to something as well?
Why not use Masonite? It's plenty forgiving and easy to paint and bend. This stuff is widely available also.
Yes, I too have difficulty understanding without photos.
You can't do "coving"- a rounded sharp curve- with masonite. And masonite isn't waterproof-it warps if it gets wet.
azrail You can't do "coving"- a rounded sharp curve- with masonite. And masonite isn't waterproof-it warps if it gets wet.
I've bent masonite around curves (others prob also). In fact, I even asked about such a topic earliler (sorry it won't paste properly): https://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/119790.aspx. Among the responses were outstanding pictues from Doctorwayne. He joins plenty of folks who did the purpose of getting it wet is bend it. Of course I don't mean soak it!