Topic: Scenery
Model railroaders are sometimes needlessly intimidated by the prospect of adding scenery to their layout. You shouldn't be because it is probably the most forgiving aspect of the hobby. Some of your best accomplishments might happen almost by accident. There is endless variation in nature. Therefore in most circumstances you don't have to be concerned with duplicating particular details. Scenery gives you the opportunity for personal expression and creativity. Even when modeling a particular prototype location your goal is to capture the character of the scene. Model railroads never have as much space as the real world railroads. As a consequence, you never will be able to replicate the scene in every detail. Your success will be making the scene immediately recognizable to someone familiar with the location.
When doing scenery there is no right or wrong way to do something. All that counts is the result. Scenery is also where you can develop your own personal style. This style is a consequence of how each individual perceives the same scene and of the techiniques by which the modeler chooses to express that perception. I use a variety of techniques in the creation of my scenery. My choice is dependent upon which I feel is best suited for the scene I'm attempting to create.
In this photo you can see three methods which I use in the creation of land forms. My method for building low lying hills is located closest to the camera and at the right corner of the photo. Tightly wadded newspaper is piled up and then held in place with masking tape. Plaster gauze bandages dipped in water are used to cover the piled up newspapers. A second method can be seen just above the newspaper method and to the right of the center of the photo.
With a hot glue gun, I have glued together scraps of pink foam insulation left from other projects on the layout. I then trim (with a hot wire tool) the foam pieces into the shape I want. Just as with the newspapers, I cover this with the plaster gauze material. Some people carve the foam itself into rock formations, but I have never been very successful with that technique and prefer instead to create all rocky surfaces with plaster castings. The castings don't adhere well to the bare foam so I must cover it with the plaster hardshell. I chose to use foam in this instance because I had a narrow space in which to create a steep canyon wall. I could have taped wadded newspapers to a profile board cut from a thin sheet of pink foam. Using all foam, however, seemed to me to allow more control over the finished form and permitted more rugged shapes.
I build big mountains, some more than four feet high. Stacking layer upon layer of extruded foam insulation or wadding up piles of newspaper have limited usefulness for the kind of mountain scenery which I prefer. Instead, I use wire netting ("chicken wire") as an armature over which to build my mountains. This mountain building technique has been around a long time. Some might even consider it out of date. But I give it a little different twist by using the wire in combination with polystyrene rigid foam insulation.
Most of our efforts this past year have been devoted to the urban area of the MK&P's layout. It wasn't until later this summer I began turning some of my attention back to the mountains. The highest peak on the 30 foot long mountain ridge I call collectively Strontia Springs seemed to be suspended in air since before Christmas 2004. This is not a good condition for a mountain. It needed some greater connection with the ground. The peak is located in a corner of the layout. Bringing the mountain back to earth meant turning the corner to move down the next wall. Turning a corner, even an inside corner, is no big problem with a track plan. You just put in a curve in the tracks. I was to find it is not always that simple with a mountain.
This represents my third attempt to arrive at a satisfactory form for making the 90 degree turn. My first idea here was to create a steep canyon with a dramatic waterfalls. But I had been forced by space constraints elsewhere to locate most of mining town into this area and there was not room in which to fit both town and waterfalls. My next attempt was a high peak and it also was too steep to be compatible with the townsite. What I finally settled on is still very steep but with further modifications made after to initial hardshell (which I will show) I have arrived at a form satisfactory to me.
A wire cutter and a Woodland Scenics low-temperature glue gun are my primary tools. I also use a razor knife for cutting foam. A word of caution when working with the chicken wire, the ends of the cut wire are very sharp. I recommend wearing safety glasses when manipulating the wire. The wire pieces tend to flop around and my glasses have saved me on more than one occassion. You might also want to wear gloves to protect your hands, but I find that too cumbersome. I have shed more than a little blood for my scenery! This is probably the reason why many prefer not to work with wire netting.
The chicken wire netting comes in large rolls and must be cut into sizes which are manageable and to fit the area where you are building your mountain. When first cut from the roll, the wire retains the curved form of the roll. I crumple the wire section into a loose wad and then stretch it back into a more or less flat piece. This begins to give the it the irregularities of a mountainside. I then further manipulate the section into whatever form I am attempting to give the mountain.
The chicken wire netting is not the easiest material to work with, it can have a mind of its' own. But I look on that as among the advantages of this material. It can take unexpected shapes as I manipulate it. This gives the mountain what to my eyes is something of a random, and therefore, natural form. It also keeps its' shape while still allowing easliy made changes.
As I shape the wire netting to form the mountains, it is necessary to find a way to anchor the netting to the foamboard which is the comprises the base of the layout. With its' fast setting time hot glue fills the bill. I tack down the edges of the wire at many points with the hot glue. Be prepared to use a lot of the glue to make all of the connections. The hot glue doesn't make a strong bond with the foam so you need numerous points of connection.
The wire netting will hold the shape you give it. Until, that is, you cover it with heavy, wet plaster gauze bandages. The wire must be given some additional support to prevent sagging until the plaster hardshell has dried. To give that support, I make struts from scraps of pink foam. The struts are held in place with more hot glue. After the hardshell dries you can remove these struts if needed for access under the mountain. All of these struts and foam may not look very attractive, but it is all going to be covered up. What is important is that it does the job.
Attention must be given to providing access to any track under the mountain. Whereas the open grid benchwork has been covered with a two inch thick sheet of pink foam, at this point you need to have removed portions of the foam. This is done with either a keyhole or drywall saw. You can see in this photo where foam has been removed between the cross supports of the benchwork. You can also see how foam was used to support the Woodland Scenics foam incline, risers, and track.
With the wire netting and foam in place, the mountains are ready for hardshell. I use plaster gauze bandages to do this. This material is available from Woodland Scenics at local hobby shops. Because I am using a lot of it and need to save money, I procure mine from PEL Medical Supply in Ohio. You can also use the time-honored method of dipping paper towels in Hydrocal plaster, a more time consuming and messy method. Wait at least a day or two for the hardhshell to dry out before proceeding further.
I am not done with hardshell, however. You now have a much clearer view of your mountain with the hardshell in place. No doubt you have failed to see the complete shape of the mountain with only the wire netting in place. Now you will be able to recognize some things which need changing. There will also be some formations and details which you want to add and which aren't easily given shape with just the wire netting. More foam and hot glue to the rescue! Scraps of foam can be attached with hot glue to the hardshell in areas which need correction and additions.
Not all of the foam additions must be done with pink foam. This is one place where you can use the white beaded foam such as comes as packing materials around computers, TV sets, appliances, etc. This foam lacks the structural strength of the pink foam. Also, unlike pink foam the white beaded foam is highly flamable. Neither of these failings is important here, as the foam will be completely encased with plaster hardshell. After attaching the foam scraps they can be further shaped with a hot wire or hot knife tool. More hardshell is then applied over these foam additions.
I wasn't done yet with the hardshell modifications. The base still seemed to too small for the mountain above it. We made a wedge-shaped addition to fill in the corner and allow a small extension to the mountain. More foam scraps filled out the front of the mountain putting it on a better footing.
You can see from the photo that I have already applied rock castings to much of the mountain. These rocks were cast with the molds made in Colorado. I described in an earlier entry how those molds were made. I make the rock castings by filling the molds with Hyrdocal plaster. I use Hydrocal because it picks up the detail of the molds better than other plaster types. It is also faster drying which is both a curse and a blessing. Your window of time to work with the plaster is limited, but this also means you can make castings more quickly.
To mix you your plaster, add plaster to water. Don't pour water into the plaster powder you are going to mix. I am always asked about the recipie for mixing water and plaster. Frankly, I don't have one. There are too many variables to give an exact proportion of plaster and water. What is needed changes with mixing time and conditions. Very roughly speaking you are going to end up twice as much plaster mix as the amount of water you start with. For me it seems to work best to slowly add the plaster powder to the water and wait for it to aborb the water. I then gently stir the plaster until it is thoroughly mixed. I next add some more powder and repeat this process until I have arrived at mixture with the thickness I desire. There are a variety of descriptions of the desired thickness. I guess I'd say it was like cake batter.
After I have filled the molds with plaster I wait until it has set sufficently that when the mold is moved and flexed small shallow cracks open and then close in the plaster. If the little cracks don't fill in immediately you have waited too long. As soon as the plaster has set to this extent, I apply the mold to the hardshell surface of the mountain. While waiting for the plaster mix to start setting in the mold, I have prepared the hardshell by misting it with water. This encourages the casting to grab hold of the hardshell when it is applied.
The plaster-filled molds are flexible enough to conform to the shape of the hardshell. This means you can apply the same mold again and again without creating a repetitious appearance. The underlying shape changes and this causes the surface appearance of the rock castings to change. All of the rock casts on this mountain were made with just four molds. Leave the mold in place until the mold begins to warm slightly. This warming happens because of a chemical reaction which occurs as the plaster hardens. The mold may become very warm to the touch if it remains in place. It is best to carefully remove the mold before this, however, as it becomes more difficult to remove the mold after the plaster hardens. This will increase the wear and tear on the mold and it also means the plaster will be too hard for even minor modifications to be made to it.
To avoid your cliff having the look of mosaic tiles, you must overlap the edges of the castings. If you have removed the mold from the new casting before the cast has become too hard, you will be able to chip away at the new casting with a putty knife, screwdriver, or other small tool to blend the new casting with the previous one. If you remove the mold too soon bits of the plaster will remain in the mold and you will lose details in the rock cast.
Because of the waiting time between when you have filled the mold with plaster and when you can apply the mold to the mountain, there is a temptation to continue filling additional molds. I advise against doing more than a couple molds at a time. The interval during which the molds are best applied to the hardshell and the time which you have to blend the new cast with the prior one is very brief. It is likely you won't have time to work with more than two molds. You may, in fact, find it difficult to accomplish with more than one during this limited time. I also find I may get confused about the placement and orientation of each mold. This may not always be crucial but sometimes it means you will feel you need to remove an improperly placed casting. This can require you to replace the hardshell as well because the rock casting has become too firmly attached by be removed separately. (I assume you don't have to be told how I know this!)
After finishing all of the rock casting, I prefer to wait at least two or three days before you begin coloring the rocks. I'm not sure there is any good reason for this since fresco painting is done on wet plaster. In an earlier post I have described my technique for coloring rocks. You can find that by clicking on the "Scenery" button in the topics list. I wanted a "volcanic" character for this mountain and used grays in addition to umbers and ochre for coloration. Of course I followed my usual practice of beginning with black tempra powder and finishing with titanium white to bleach the rocks. So that's how I got my newest mountain. The Nighthawk townsite awaits more buildings before it too can be completed.
