I did get some strange looks from the wife with the addition to my suitcase but what Model Railroader hasn’t seen that look?

A few minutes on the bandsaw and I had some nice looking logs for my completely unweathered log cars.

The bark is perhaps a bit oversized on this one but it is eons better than what I could do carving out and staining balsa.  It looks natural and I am happy.  I also cut up some of the ends for use as stumps.  The stumps below are patiently waiting along side the right of way to be ‘planted’.  Some clay might work well to create more of a substantial base.

My modeling has been moving about as fast as the stumps by the side of the road.  My usual summer slowdown is in effect.

Material List:

• Sisal Twine
• Wire – Lately I have been using 18 Gauge aluminum wire but I while I enjoy the flexibility, during the twisting phase the wire loop breaks sometimes. I will probably switch back to regular steel wire for the next batch.
• Walthers Goo
• Brown Spray Paint
• Coarse Ground Foam of desired foliage color. I prefer a bluish green.
• Block of foam to hold the trees

Tools:

• Wire Cutters
• Scissors
• Cordless Drill with hook to twist trees. Can be easily made from coat hangar. I happened to have a very light ground stake for a front-yard Christmas decoration.
• Vise to hold the trees during twisting

Steps:

1. The first step was to cut the sisal twine into approximately 12′ lengths and boil. Yes, my wife gave me very strange looks. After boiling for a couple of minutes I draped the wet twine over some pipes in the basement to dry. I attached a clamp to the ends to hold them straight. The boiling helps to straighten the fibers.
2. Cut the fibers into pieces ranging from 1/2″ to 2 1/2″. I typically put them in three piles – short, medium, and long.
3. Cut the wire into pieces approximately 2″ longer than twice the desired height of your trees. I typically create trees in the 4-8 inch range.
4. Now the fun begins. Fold the wire into tight V shape and apply Goo to one leg of the V leaving about an inch clear on each end. Attach the twine pieces up the wire working from wide to narrow. Spread the fibers apart using your fingers. The Goo gets tacky very quickly and will hold the twine for the next step.
   
5. Tighten the V together and clamp the free ends into the vise.
6. Twist slowly until the fibers rotate around to complete the tree shape.
7. Remove tree from vise and cut off top loop with wire cutters. Leave the free ends for a trunk to hold onto. Trim the stray strands with scissors and make it look like a tree. Next, apply fairly heavy spray paint. Your lungs would appreciate it if you did it outside. If you have to do it inside, use a respirator.
   
8. Sprinkle on ground foam from top, bottom, and sides. Shake off excess. If you are smart you will do this over top of something in order to recover the excess. Do not do it over the area you used for the spray paint step. It goes much faster if you batch each of the steps.
   
9. Stick it into foam until planting time and enjoy. Here are some completed trees waiting to become famous on the layout.
   

Only about 2000 more to go!

I have two big sources of inspiration for this project: How to Build Realistic Model Railroad Scenery by Dave Frary and a DVD by Darryl Huffman called Easy Rock Casting and Coloring.

Before I started I made sure to blend my castings into the surrounding scenery using Sculptamold. It will not come out right if you color the rocks first then try to blend. This way the immediately adjacent scenery is color blended into the rocks and there is little chance of white showing through.

The first thing I do is paint the casting with a thinned black acrylic paint. The purpose here is to cover the casting 100 percent with the wash. Although it is wash, the wash should result in a fairly opaque black. I work in small sections approximately one foot square because I immediately follow the black wash with my thinned basic earth color. The point is blend the black with the earth color to provide a more subtle base then stark black alone. I usually follow the earth color with another pass of the black while still wet to keep the base dark.

The following pictures shows the cliff face further along. Once the entire face was complete, I let it dry completely.

The next step is actually more of the terrifying step as it seems to require a bit of artistic ability of which I have almost none.

My color palette came from recommendations from Darryl Huffman. He suggested using colors that are pleasing to my own eye but I trust his more so I used his suggestions.

Here are the colors I used:

• CeramCoat Flesh
• Apple Barrel Sandstone
• Folk Art Teddy Bear Tan
• Titanium White
• Black

I did experiment with other colors but these seem to produce the results I was looking for.

My general technique is to blend the colors together and dry brush the castings using a fairly stiff brush. The blending is intended to duplicate natural variations. The picture belows shows the final result of this step.

This was allowed to dry thoroughly before the final step.

The final step was to apply a thin black wash to highlight the details. The picture below shows the face while the wash was still wet.

The final result is below.

Here is a close up view.

I am fairly happy with the result and I am looking forward to completing more scenery projects.

There seems to be a trend towards starting with a black base and dry brushing color on top of the rock face versus the more traditional staining techniques. Staining rock castings can be challenging due to different batches of plaster accepting stain differently and it can be difficult to create a stain with the right amount of pigment. I was anxious to try the new dark base technique but had mixed results. I think the pure black base from Darryl’s technique is too stark. Dave recommends immediately dry brushing an earth color over the wet black to tone the black down and I prefer this approach.

You can see the progress in the two pictures above. There are still many layers of scenery to go but it is nice to start to get a sense of how things are going to look. The rock faces in the left picture were created using the stark black base and the ones on the right were done using the more muted dark earth base.

Another thing I have been very pleased with was the decomposed granite material I grabbed up near Estes Park a couple of weekends ago. When it was wet is seemed too organic but once I dried and sifted it, it was perfect with a great texture.

Things are starting to take shape and I have learned a lot in the last couple of weeks. I look forward to creating more detailed postings about some of my techniques.

A solution that I have found is to use foam in a can. Great Stuff is one particular brand that is available at home centers. It costs around $5 a can and try to find the most expansive stuff you can find. I get the red can of Great Stuff for ‘Gaps and Cracks’.

Once, I built an entire 4 x 8 layout worth of scenery using aluminum screen and spray foam. It was expensive, the scenery was not rigid enough for me, and it can be difficult to shape.

Some things I have learned from using the material:

• It is EXTREMELY sticky. If you drop it on some track or the floor, do not try to ‘wipe’ it up. It will be fruitless without a serious amount of industrial strength solvent. Just let it set and cut it out.
• It keeps expanding for 30-60 minutes after you apply it, so leave some room for expansion.
• Try to use the entire can. It is difficult but not impossible to use the same can for several applications.
• A serrated steak knife works great for the first shaping followed by a Sur-Form tool.

When faced with some odd gaps in either plaster cloth based or foam scenery, spray foam can be a great tool!

I decided to take the plunge with this layout and give Sculptamold a try. I was amazed at easy it was to effectively use. Obtaining Sculptamold is not easy as my local hobby shop, Caboose Hobbies, does not carry it. This is the first thing I have not been able to find inside the store as they seem to carry just about every Model Railroad product known to man. Amazon carries it through Joann’s and I ordered it through them.

Here is what I like about Sculptamold:

• Light weight but rigid when dried.
• Easy mixing. It almost mixes itself.
• Easy to work with and finishes nicely.
• Easily fills in the inevitable droops of plaster cloth scenery.

I highly recommend using Sculptamold as a finish coat over the plaster cloth scenery and to blend the rock castings into the scenery.

UPDATE 2008-03-24: Caboose Hobbies does carry Sculptamold, they just happened to be out of stock when I was looking for it previously.  Another great option if you don’t happen to be in Denver is to order from Joann.com.

Here are a few tips:

• Mix the plaster in approximately a 2 to 1 ratio of plaster to water. It seems that I have more problems with air bubbles if the plaster is thicker rather than thinner. I use regular old Plaster of Paris obtained from Home Depot or Lowes but Hydrocal is often claimed to be superior for this purpose.
• Use a shallow box with styrofoam peanuts to provide an adjustable base for the initial pour.
• I highly recommend the flexible rubber bowls from Micro-Mark for mixing plaster as cleanup is a snap. Just wait until the plaster is set and flex the bowl to break out te residue. Combined with silicon spatulas from Walgreens, I don’t have to use the kitchen sink to clean up the mess.
• Spray ‘wet’ water into the mold before pouring the plaster to reduce air bubbles. Wet water is water with a few drops of detergent to break surface tension.
• Tap the mold after pouring in the plaster to reduce air bubbles.
• Wait until the plaster sets enough to cause the plaster to show cracks when flexing before applying to the plaster cloth hardshell.
• Use a dental pick to pick away at overlapping castings and blend them together.

Some people create the castings on the workbench and hot glue or plaster them to the hardshell. I find in most cases that the rock appears more natural when cast in place. There are a few places where I think I will need to tile the castings into place due to fitting the rocks into a smaller, irregular space.

Casting rock faces and blending them together takes some time, be patient.

If you use your imagination one could imagine snow covered hills and track covered by blue tarps.

Designing a realistic trestle to fit around the corner is going to be a challenge.

Above is a shot from the Camp One side of the peninsula. I have started using a tripod and aperture priority shutter setting combined with a 2 second delay to try and take better pictures with my digital camera. Unfortunately the lighting in this area of the layout does not help out much.

I am awaiting a recent order from Micro-Mark as I ordered two of their rubber plaster mixing bowls that I plan on using to mix plaster for the rock work. Also in the mail is some Sculptamold that I ordered from Amazon. The Sculptamold will be used as a finish coat over the plaster cloth to smooth the terrain. Now if this snow would just melt I could get up to the mountains and find some perfect decomposed granite.

I have already received some new latex rock molds from Bragdon Enterprises and they are standing by awaiting their opportunity to mold. I have had good luck with his products in the past and order an entire new set for this layout. I now have 7 of his molds and they are all amazing. They are in a completely different league than the typical hobby store brand.

This post is a follow up to an earlier post about construction of my cardboard strip and plaster cloth scenery.   Make sure to read the earlier post called Cardboard Strip and Plaster Cloth Scenery.

For my last layout I used styrofoam for scenery. I found that approach to be expensive, time-consuming, and messy. The cost of cardboard strips is essentially nothing. Additional money can be saved by using plaster and paper towels instead of plaster cloth. A 25 pound of plaster from a DIY store like Home Depot is very inexpensive comparatively. Many modelers use Hydrocal or dental plaster but in my experience, regular of Plaster of Paris is inexpensive, readily available, and works just great.

List of tools and supplies:

• Hot Glue Gun
• Cardboard Strips 1″ Thick. I buy mine from Micro-Mark to save time and aggravation.
• Clasp Stapler. A good 25 sheet capacity stapler from an office supply store will work just fine.
• Plaster Cloth. I used Micro-Mark again for this also.
• Large bowl or small bucket of water for wetting plaster cloth
• Scissors to cut cardboard strips to length and to cut the plaster cloth

I start with the vertical strips and attach them every 4 – 6 inches along the backdrop using hot glue to begin defining the landform. Pull the strip over a piece of benchwork to make it more flexible.

The horizontal strips are then woven in to provide strength and further define the shape. The joints are stapled using a clasp stapler. This will go much faster than using hot glue.

Using the plaster cloth is very easy. The roll is about 8″ wide and I cut it into pieces between 4 to 8 inches long to allow me to pick the right piece for the given space. Dip the piece into water just long enough to soften the piece but not so long as to allow the plaster to wash off. It takes about 1 to 2 seconds. Drape the pieces on the cardboard strip form and try to overlap in order to provide double thickness as much as possible.

After experimenting with the plaster cloth for a bit, I went crazy with the cardboard strips for a couple of hours.

Tips:

• Make sure the track looks like it was cut through the terrain. It is easy to base the scenery on the roadbed but the result will be unrealistic.
• Test clearances on corners using a standards gauge or your biggest expected railcar. Be sure to consider the thickness of any castings.
• Build the basic form with just a few horizontal and vertical strips then go back and fill in.
• Don’t be afraid to make changes. It is very easy to make changes at the cardboard strip web phase. Just make some cuts and lengthen or shorten the strips to suit.
• Tape the track work and protect the floor with plastic to avoid an industrial size mess.

The next step is to add rock castings and start bringing things to life.