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Still taking a break from the mountain range and installed some foam border along the mainline. I have always been a bit concerned of a derailed train taking the plunge to the floor. This is the base layer. Screen will be laid over it and wall plaster applied for the ground texture. This 30 some feet of foam took about 45 minutes to mark and cut then glue into place. The shaping will be done with a tool sorta like a cheese grater.
Sitting at the work desk and had another flat car just sitting there, begging for a load. I pulled out the box of spare wheels and grabbed a handfull of them and took them over to the spray booth for some rust coating. A few pieces of rail fixed to the flat car, some chain and here's another open load.
Back to the landscaping with foam. Filled in this corner this evening. I'll let the glue dry for a couple days then shape it and add the wall plaster and ground color later this weekend. I like how the foam can fill the gap right up to the fascia board. I do this by laying the raw foam on top of the fascia then using a magic marker from below, draw a line along the shape of the fascia board and road bed then cut the foam with the Cerf saw. Once again, the foam will not glue to other foam without a waiting time of a week or so for the glue to dry. It has to be glued to wood or some other porous material.
Once again, the foam will not glue to other foam without a waiting time of a week or so for the glue to dry. It has to be glued to wood or some other porous material.
Have you tried Liquid Nails for Projects? It sets up in maybe one day. I notice that on the latest video on the MR Red Oak project layout, David Popp also recommends it for foam.
When I see all of the people using foam, it really makes me old. When I started my layout, foam like this was no around. Some times styrofoam would be used, but I never tried it. Guess I'm behind the times.
When I see all of the people using foam, it really makes me old. When I started my layout, foam like this was no around. Some times styrofoam would be used, but I never tried it. Guess I'm behind the times.
It's the cutting edge of technology. I've tried the newspaper over cardboard strips and the hydrocal. What an absolute mess. The paper begins rotting after a few years and smells like dead animals in the basement. This is pretty easy to work with. When the landscape is finished, I will move the fascia up a little bit then trim the top edge to follow the contour of the ground.
It would have made things a lot easier. Here's my mess from last year. I built up the contours I wasted using pieces of styrofoam or some foam sheet over paper or cardboard and covered it with window screen material I had on hand and used hydrocal. I bought a few 50 pound bags of hydrocal years ago, and with our low humidity and being stored in the train room, it was still good being stored in the original bag in a plastic container.
Once the hydrocal had hardened, any of the material that was used to form the terrain was removed. No smelly rotting cardboard was left. I'm not at all worried about the weight of the hydrocal and the thing I really like about it is the strength it has. I have in the past leaned on it with my entire weight and no cracks or breaks. After the initial terrain has been formed, I will usually add additional coatings and rock castings to forn the terrain the way I want it.
Foam like you're using sure would have been a lot easier. This is probably the last of the hardshell that I need so I used what was on hand.
Got some more painting done on the mountain range this evening. Not sure how many scale gallon of paint that would be, but it was a lot. I'm using a textured paint base that give the paint a rough ground look. I bought a one gallon can of flat dark brown paint and mix it with the textured paint to give it the ground color. This is the base coat for color. I will go back and detail it later for various shades of ground.
I also added some card board stock to the inside of the tunnel portals to extend the roof of the tunnels back a couple of feet so that when steam locos with smoke are coming out of the tunnels, the smoke will plume out of the tunnels with the train. Looks so cool. I installed these from under the mountain so I can remove them if necessary to do track repairs later on.
That last shot reminds me that especially out here, the railroads have all sorts of heavy construction equipment that's used along the right of way, including cranes, backhoes, graders, front end loaders, pickups, etc.
I've been slowly accumulating stuff as I see it for a scene like this.
Pushing right along with the scenery. Got this stretch of work done the this afternoon before and after. I'll apply the ground color tomorrow. The lower tracks lead to the staging and storage yard.
I don't to anything with the track. I'm just careful not to spill stuff on it. If I do, I use a small paint brush to clean it out of the ties. I haven't laid ballast on this part yet, so no real problem.