I use newspaper (left wing, of course) crumpled up and placed in plastic grocery bags to keep them dry, held in place with masking tape, and covered with plaster cloth,.
I buy the plaster cloth, but a lot of modelers make their own with plaster and drier sheets or paper towels.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Bill, that's an excellent use of what's around....
Bob Berger, C.O.O. N-ovation & Northwestern R.R. My patio layout....SEE IT HERE
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BillWLike many modelers, I have built a good bit of scenery by stacking and carving styrofoam. Recently, however, I wanted to build some scenery, but had only some styrofoam scraps readily at hand that were not suitable for stacking or carving. With a bit of experimentation, however, I discovered a way to make good use of these scraps -- indeed any type of plastic foam or even old "peanuts" -- in scenery construction. Simply mound them up in approximately the desired form, then bind them together using self-adhering mesh-type plastic sheet rock tape. Then, simply slather runny plaster-of-paris over the tape and you'll get very strong and cheap scenery. To be sure, some landforms demand greater precision that this technique affords, but it works great for generic hills and valleys.
Allright, stop teasing us, Bill. Post some photos of your work.
Alton Junction
My layout has a combination of stacked extruded styrofoam and balled up newspapers, covered with both plaster cloth and Sculptamold.
Never thought of using styrofoam peanuts though. What a great idea! You could also cover them with a sheet of moist newspaper --- which holds its shape pretty well -- and cover with plaster cloth, plaster, or scuptamold.
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
Good idea but you want cheap I'll give you cheap, Red rosin paper ( the stuff used as underlayment for hard wood floors around $12.00 of a 500' roll and straight Elmer's white glue. You make a skeleton of cardboard strips by cutting 1" wide strips from board boxes you can either staple or hot glue the strips together to make the skeleton. You glue the sections of red rosin paper to the cardboard skeleton with your hot glue gun (don't even say you don't own a hot glue gun, everyone owns a hot glue gun) yo then paint the red rosin paper with the straight white glue thoroughly soaking the paper. You can add ground cover at this time if you so choose but don't have to and can come back and do it later. Let the whole mess dry over night and you have "hard shell" scenery as hard as anything you've ever seen. You like using rock castings no problem. Simply spray the area you want the rock casting to live with a little bit of wet water to soften up the glue and add some fresh white glue and you rock castings for little more then $20 you can cover an entire layout with ground forms.
Hi from Belgium,
I have seen the Roseen paper use in the book of Howard Zane about his Piermont Division railroad (See it at www.zanestrains.com)
I was so impressed how easy it seems to use that I make a try on a samll diorama.
After gluing whith a hot glue gun the cardstock lattice I also hot glue pieces of roseen paper on the cardstock skeleton and paint them whith full strenght white glue as explained by Mister Zane.
Of course you can use foam structure to hold the mountain shape in place of the cardstock lattice.
The result are much better than expected and the method is fast and so easy; You can put on the paper rock molds of plaster and they grip strongly on it.
Retainning walls and tunnel portals are also glued whith hot glue on the paper mountains
I just add a green brown acrylic color to the glue to kill the pink/red color of the paper.
I also add soils and ground foam later as a second layer on the new mountain scenery using the classic method of diluted white glue.
The advantages of this method are great; first good bye the mess of plaster, second it goes faster than any other method, third it's easy to use, lightweight strong and best of all very cheap.
If anybody wants to make a try do it and quick,
Good luck,
Marc
Jim Kelly actually made a mountain using styrofoam peanuts on a MR beginner project back in the early 90s.
I just had the opportunity to start reading a book I picked up at a train show a few weeks back about scenery techniques. One contributor showed how he used carpet fibers to simulate brush foliage. by cutting the back of the carpet or underside with a sharp scissors removing the tufts of fibers in clumps and then either painting them or dieing them to simulate brush.Another guy used fake fur glued down to the land form to simulate weeds and wild grass. After the fake fur had been glued down ad dried for 24 hours he first went over the fur with a scissors to cut some of the fur out completely and the rest into varying sizes. he later found an eclectic hair clipper worked much better. after getting the fur clipped to the heights he liked he airbrushed various shade of green and yellow to simulate some dead grass.then he finally sprinkled in real sifted dirt and brushed it through so it would show bare patches of earth and the earth was set in place with a 50/50 mix of while glues and water.