You cover your foam with...

[WickhamMan]

Folks,

I'm beginning a new layout and plan to use foam as a base. I've heard that foam does not "show" well and a lot of you cover your foam with various materials (i.e. drywall compound, etc.). I'd like to hear your thoughts and experience on this. I also plan to have some water on my layout and know that water products will seap right through the foam without a coating of some type.

What coating do you think works best?

Thanks in advance.

EdW

[Boiler-man]

I use WS Plaster Gauze

[jeffrey-wimberly]

 I cover mine with drywall joint compound.

[cudaken]

 Ed, my first section I used plaster over the foam, it looked OK.

 About six months ago I found a video on U Tube about painting foam. They just painted over the foam, I did the next section that way and like the results better.

 I use art craft latex paint straight out of the bottle, brand I use is  Apple or Folk Art from Wall Mart. If you dont want to see te seams, use white glue to hide the joints..

          Cuda Ken

[retsignalmtr]

when i put down some new foam i paint it with an earth color latex or acrylic paint. then i paint the colors of the scenery that i will apply later over joint compound. grassy areas get greens and browns, roads get black or dark gray. one thing i've found it that there is some kind of substance on the foam in spots that makes the paint bead up and not dry. probably somthing left over from the extruding process. next time i buy a sheet of foam i'm going to wash the board with dish detergent first to see if it helps. when you use the water compounds some of them may disolve the foam so putting down some joint compound first should work.

[reklein]

I smear sculptamold over the foam to hide the layer lines, then use latex paint. When I'm simulating eastern WA basalt, I just paint.

[Wayzata Modeler]

 I cover my carved foam with a textured ceiling paint.  Heavy consistency hides sharp lines and joints.  Paint comes in varying textures.   Do not have to drill to insert trees and such (as would have to with plaster or joint compound)

[Packers#1]

 I paint mine w/ a latex house paint, then I'll either just leave it to add scenery later, or I'll sprinkle some woodland scenics turf onto it, then after the paint dries, wet it w/ 50:50 white glue/water. then you can add more turf, or ground foam, or lichen, or whatever else, just by soprinkling it on then adding more 50:50 white glue/water.

[twhite]

I give mine a base coat of plaster gauze, then use Sculptamold for any rock outcroppings. 

Tom

[MisterBeasley]

The first thing I do is get rid of the flatness of the surface.  I use scraps of foam to add small hills, and I carve out ditches and valleys.  I use a bit of plaster cloth to round the edges of any additions, to give a more natural contour.  This shot was taken after digging out the pond area in the foreground and building up the terrain where it passes over the bridge.  The plaster cloth covers the pond bed.

I like Gypsolite as my base cover.  It's a gray plaster material with a gritty texture.  I usually add a squirt or two of dark brown craft paint, so that the dry plaster ends up a light tan.

Once the Gypsolite is dry, I mix a wash of dull green craft paint, and brush it over the tan surface in a camouflage pattern.  Finally, I add several different colors of turf and a variety of flocking.  Here, I've covered the plaster cloth with the Gypsolite and painted it, using darker colors to simulate depth in the water.

Water products like Envirotex will not seep through solid foam.  The foam won't absorb them or react with them either.  The plaster cloth and Gypsolite are used to get the contour and texture of the surface, not to seal the pond base.  After pouring the Envirotex and finishing up with turf, flocking and some trees, all I had to do was wait for the birds to show up and complete the scene.

 

[Robby]

Nice work guys.

Personally I use a mix of methods; plaster cloth, drywall compound or carve the raw foam with a hot wire and use latex house paint and real dirt.  Foam is great to work with.

 

[WickhamMan]

I thought that water products like Envirotex would seap through the foam. Is that only with beaded foam?

If so, I will likely just go with painting and spot placement of joint compound or something to cover the seams when needed.

 EdW

[Anonymous]

I use aluminum tape to cover the seams. Then the whole thing gets a coat of earth-colored latex paint. I add scenery over that.

If you have a thick coat (mainly, no spots without paint) of latex paint, it will serve as a barrier to the water material.

[dsnyder44]

Just love that pink and blue foam. I have carved it using surforms and xactos and then painted it directly with an interesting paint I found at a hardware store that was a color mix mismatch (translates into big markdown). Anyway, this paint is textured already with a fine sand so that when it dries, it already has a texture. I was lucky that the color they mixed was just right to match Colorado tans even though it didn't meet some housewifes objectives. I can get variations by adding more flat white or burnt sienna tints.

The builders polystyrene sheets work pretty good for scenery too - lighter and cheaper than the pink/blue stuff. However they don't carve worth a hoot. Cut them with a hot knife. This foam is a much higher caliber than the packing foam that most people are used to which drops beads everywhere. I use a base of pink/blue foam and build up the contours and basic shapes using polystyrene sheets or even the packing shapes that come with every product around. Again, the key to dealing with these your hot knife. Cutting it with a knife or any kind of a saw is going to be messy. Better have the vacuum available before the missus sees what you have done!

Also, use scultpamold or vermiculite (from the florists shop - used as potting mixture) - or a mix of both. Vermiculite used to be available as Permascene back in the black and white days of Model Railroader. Plain plaster is just too smooth by itself. Just remember, only roadroad yards ever appear to be totally flat.

[twhite]

WickhamMan

I thought that water products like Envirotex would seap through the foam. Is that only with beaded foam?

If so, I will likely just go with painting and spot placement of joint compound or something to cover the seams when needed.

 EdW

 

Ed:  The water products will not seep through the foam itself (the pink or blue extruded stuff from Corning), but it will seep through any joints in the foam.  Just to be safe I coated all of my river and lake beds with several coats of plaster gauze, kneading it into a flat surface with my fingers and letting it dry for about three days before I poured the 'water.'   As to the beaded foam, almost ANYTHING will seep through it.  Unfortunately, out here in California lately, that's just about the only kind we can get, so I use a lot of plaster gauze, or Sculptamold over it. 

Tom

[MadSinger]

I am fairly new to this, but in my experience, just plain spackle works fine on a relatively flat area (i.e. town).  I haven't gotten to the hillier part of my layout yet, so I don't know about on hills.

 Hope this helps,

MadSinger

[wm3798]

I cut the foam to shape, then schmear it with a batch of Sculptamold that's blended with some brown and black craft acrylic paint.  Basically like frosting a layer cake!  What you see there is the beginnings of a puffball forest...

Here it is in the raw...

 

And here it is more or less finished...

Hope this is useful...

Lee