There are often times where one is left with gaps or odd elevation changes where trying to use cardboard strip and plaster cloth scenery would not work and it is too large of a gap to cover with Sculptamold. Here is an example:

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!

For many this is going to be a no-brainer but since I struggled with it, I thought I would share and hopefully prevent someone else from wasting money on rail joiners. Use Micro Engineering Code 83 Joiners! They fit perfectly and are very small in size which will be nice for future picture taking. The Peco joiners are on the left and ME rail joiners are on the right:

Here is a summary of rail joiners I tried and the results from worst to best:

• Atlas - Too big and very loose fitting. Had to squeeze together with pliers first. I do not recommend even though they claim to be for code 83 track.
• Walters - Small in length and height but do not fit at all. I do not recommend.
• Peco - Fit well but they are similar in size to Atlas in terms of length and height. If ME rail joiners are not available, these are nice back up.
• Micro-Engineering - Perfect.

I have never used Sculptamold as I could not understand what was so special about it based on descriptions from magazine articles. It was described as a paper-mache like product. The only thing I could remember about paper-mache is that it smells and sometimes molds due to its organic nature. I used regular plaster to blend the rock castings and create the terrain in the past. A wet paintbrush worked good to provide a nice smooth surface. Using plaster presented two huge drawbacks: it can weigh a ton and installing trees usually required drilling.

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.

After completing the plaster cloth scenery, it was time to make some cliff faces using latex molds and plaster.

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.

I think it was Tony Koester that provided a good description of a Model Railroad layout: “World’s Longest Shelf”. As I have began working on scenery, finding a flat spot to set down spray bottles, plaster bowls, cups, rock molds, paint, brushes has become increasing difficult.

Tonight, I came up with the plan. It involves a fairly good size cart that I can use as a work station and intermediate storage which working on the railroad. When not in use, it can be tucked around the layout. I broke out SketchUp again and threw together a quick diagram. After trying to draw scenery contours using SketchUp, I got frustrated and put it away for a while. I am fairly productive drawing mostly rectangular shapes so this was a good re-acquaintance with the tool.

I have the plywood on hand and plan on using my brad nailer and glue to fasten the pieces together. I will head up to Harbor Freight in the morning for the castors. I should be able to throw this together fairly quickly and turn my layout back into a layout instead of allowing it to become a shelf. Look for an update soon on how the actual construction went.

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My friend Tom, emailed me on Friday to let me know that there was a Train Show up in Estes Park this weekend. Estes Park is neat little mountain town right outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. With the weather expected to be nice, Erin and I made plans to head up on Saturday. Train shows are generally hit or miss with the smaller ones being more miss than hit usually.  I had been looking for a opportunity to get up to the mountains to find some dirt, real mountain type hopefully decomposed granite type dirt, for scenery.

After lunch at the Estes Park Brewery where we sampled some nice Honey Wheat and Raspberry Wheats and left with a growler, I dropped Erin off downtown so she could do some shopping while I continued back to the Holiday Inn for the show. The Estes Park Holiday Inn has a decent size (for a mountain town) convention space but the vendor tables were still strung out throughout the hotel area with the layouts primarily within the meeting space.

There were some nice layouts at the show. Almost all of which I had seen previously at the Denver Train Show. There were even two nice On30 layouts. One had a working sawmill that cut scale size planks. It was a crowd favorite. There was also a nicely put together Scottish themed layout by the Estes Park Club complete with kilt wearing club members. The scenery was great and the top castle picture was from that layout.

The vendors on the other hand were a disappointment. Old model railroad stuff apparently never gets thrown away and instead gets carted around and attempted to be sold at train shows for the next 20 years. The Tyco box car from 1976 was not worth $5 new and certainly is not worth it now. Model railroad technology has come so far in the last ten years it makes the older stuff worthless unless we are talking about brass steam engines of course. If I ran Train Shows I would screen the vendors and throw out anyone that brought old Tyco equipment, anything with Horn Hook Couplers, Atlas Switches complete with above table snap switch machines, or Brass Snap Track. Any beginner that was unfortunate it enough to bring it home would most certainly leave the hobby in short order.

There was a couple of tables with some unique old books, pictures, tools, and modern DCC equipment. I did not buy anything though.

Overall, I give the show high marks for the quality of layouts and the great job they did to engage the kids with a treasure hunt game. The vendors were a disappointment, as usual.

Next stop - The Great American Train Show Feb 23-24 in Denver.

I was in San Francisco this weekend and I was absolutely thrilled to see all the street cars along the Embarcadero. They were painted in many different but bright colors. One has to wonder why as a country we fell so in love with our cars that we were blind to the benefits of public transportation, particularly rail based. It is nice to see it making a comeback with modern light rail equipment in cities like Sacramento and Denver as well as putting these old street cars to use in San Francisco.

When thinking about the size and quantity of buildings I wanted to construct on my layout from strip wood, I realized that it would not be cost effective to buy it all. Kappler makes a great product but the cost materials can add up quickly. I decided to try cutting it myself using the Microlux Tablesaw from Micro-Mark. It was a significant investment for a tool whose only purpose is for modeling.

It has taken several hours of experimentation to be able to produce usable strip wood. One of the first things I bought was the 24 tooth carbide blade and the feather board/high fence attachment. The big drawback of the carbide blade is that the kerf is wide compared to the size of the strips I am cutting and much of the material ends up as sawdust on the floor. The high fence very nicely allows a feather board to be clamped on in order to keep the strips flat on the table saw bed.

Another accessory that I bought was the zero clearance blade plate. I managed to break both of them trying to bring the blade through. Once with the 24 tooth carbide and once with the stock 80 tooth blade. I now have another set on order with a 168 tooth blade that I think will work well for cutting scale 1 - 2″ stock.

Originally, I was cutting the stock down using my 10″ table saw. Making the 1/4″ cuts on a full-size table saw is certainly doable but I feel much safer on the Micro-Lux. For material I am using 5″ cedar fence pickets from Home Depot. It is not the best material in the world but by carefully selecting the most knot-free pickets possible, it is usable. I also put it through my surface planer first to get nice smooth and square sides. I am using cedar because I like the color. I have experimented with Norway Spruce and it is much easier to work with compared to the cedar. Boone Morrison uses Redwood and I think it looks great. The only Redwood I have been able to find here is 2 X 6″ stock but I plan on picking some up shortly to experiment with.

This weekend I cut about 2 dozen each scale 10″ X 10″ beams and 4″ X 10″ pieces that I plan on using for my Engine House. I also cut some scale 1 X 12″ material to use as siding on my Machine Shop. I spent a couple of hours trying it out on the foam core mock up I built previously.

I am not sure I like the color that resulted from an India Ink wash. It does photographs darker and better than it looks in person though.