I am a 33 year old father of a 4 year old train nut he only talks lives trains I build a 5x8 track from a set. He wants something with rocks tunnels a bridge and track that looks real. I need to
know how to make a tunnel. I bought one at hobby lobby he was not impressed(foam tunnel) please I dont have a lotta time to build but want to do a good job any tips or ideals will be helpful.
OK, it is going to take *some* time. Making a tunnel is not really hard.
A quick way is to use 'blue foam'. Go to a building supply place (lumber year, or someplace line Home Depot) and buy a piece of blue foam insulation.
Then:
From a hardware store (probably also Home Depot) get a 'SureForm' tool. This will be a little tool that looks like a cross between a hand plane (fits in the palm of you hand) and a chesse grater. I'm
sure any hardware person can help you.
Now go to the hobby shop and get:
1) 1 carton each of Woodland Scenics Mold-A-Scene Plaster (C1202) and Lightweight Hydrocal (C1201). These will be in 1/2 gal sized waxboard milk containers.
2) While you are there get:
Several bottle 'earth' colors (different colors!)
A couple of rubber molds of rocks (several sizes)
Several bags of scenery mix -- some brown (looks like dirt), some green (looks like grass), fine and coarse stones, some green foam (for bushes), a bunch of trees.
2-3 spray bottle.
Some medium to large paint brushes (get cheap ones).
Some 'white glue' (such as Elmers).
A set or two of pre-made H0 tunnel portals.
(Everything but the paint brushes and white glue should all be in the same place -- Woodland Scenics makes all of this stuff.)
3) Go to the supermarket and get 2-3 3-5" flexable plastic bowls (tupperware, but cheap ones), Round ones with full sloping sides).
It is probably best if you bring your kid along -- he probably has his own ideas about colors, etc.
Bring all of this stuff home.
Find a place to work where a major mess is not a problem (maybe the basement floor?) You might want to collect several sunday newspapers to spread around. This will get real messy. Nothing really
toxic. Wear old jeans, etc. Not a time for fancy clothes.
1) Cut *rough* oval sections from the blue foam, in several successive smaller sizes (lose about 2-3 inches of radius all around). Use the white glue to glue these together in size order (largest to
smallest). This will give you a *rough* (stepped) pyramid shape. Give the glue time to dry. Time to think about things like details -- talk this over with your kid. When the glue has dried, use the
SureForm tool to carve off the 'edges', smoothing the shape and working in details, like canyons, ridges, etc. Now place this on top of your layout and press against the rails. The foam is soft
enough to take an impression. Use a small knife to carve away the foam from underneath. You'll need about 2-1/2" of clearance from the rails. Make the tunnel extra wide if there is a curve. Check the
'fit' and run a train or two 'through the tunnel' to make sure of clearances. 'Flatten' the places where the portals will go.
2) Mix a batch of the Mold-A-Scene (directions on the box). Smear this over your blue foam mountain. This stuff is textured and will create a textured surface. Don't put any on the bottom, inside the
tunnel, or on the (flat) surfaces where the portals will go. Set aside to harden and dry.
3) Mix a batch of the Hydrocal and fill several of the rock molds. Set this aside to harden and dry.
4) Time for a snack and to clean the Mold-A-Scene and Hydrocal off the fingers (large and small). Let the surplus plaster harden in the bowls. You'll tap and flex the bowls to clean them (plaster
won't really stick the bowls and will flake off the bowls).
6) Once the Mold-A-Scene and Hydrocal has hardened, you can pop the 'rocks' out of the rubber molds -- don't worry of the rocks break -- this is normal. Happens all the time with real rocks. Use the
white glue to glue the rocks to the mountain. At this time you might also want to glue the tunnel portals on as well.
7) Once the glue has dried, you can use the 'earth' colors to color things in various earth (dirt) colors. Cover over all of the white plaster. Real rocks are not white. Use browns for 'ground'
areas. Stone grey for 'exposed' rocks, etc.
8) Set aside to dry for a while and in one spray bottle mix:1 drop of dish soap with water
In the other bottle mix: 1 drop of dish soap with with a half and half mix of white glue and water.
The first bottle is your 'wet water' supply. The dish soap lowers the surface tension of the water so it won't bead up. The second bottle is what you will use to hold scenery materials to the
mountain.
9) Now for the fun part:
Spray the mountain with wet water until it is slightly damp. Sprinkle on various ground cover colors. Brown for places where there is no 'grass', green where there is. Be creative. Over spray with
the glue mixture to hold in place. Tear off clumps of green foam and stick on with dabs of white glue to place bushes. Repeat until the mountain looks like a real mountain. Plant some little
trees.
Now you have a mountain!!!
Robert Heller
I've got some open areas on my layout between the "roads" that I would love to re-create "normal" piedmont style rolling hills. I've considered dampening a large piece of plastic wrap with Pam, tacking down one or two edges, and then unloading a can of foam sound damping filler (or equivalent) under said canopy. The next step would be a careful massage of the expanding mound into gently rolling terra-firma.... Sounds good on paper, but do anyone of you choo-choo lurkers have knowledge or links to such a technique?
I could use plaster, but I'm looking for alternatives which are lighter and also I'd like to avoid the nuisance of having to drill many dozens of holes for the trees.
Foam and a Sureform tool.
I've thought of something like burlap glued over irregularly shaped pieces of cardboard box material. (I also want to avoid the use of metal screen wire because of possible inteference with electronics on the layout.)
Don't forget fiberglas screen!
A friend mixes sawdust with latex paint (left-overs mixed together into a drab brown) and paints screen with it -- makes a tough, flexible "ground" easily covered with ground foam, etc. Should also be able to create the kinds of flat-land variations previously mentioned (Saskatchewan would be screen pulled flat...)
I use a thin layer of Perma-Scene over Shurform carved foam, then real dirt and/or ground foam. For narrow ditches and the like, you can use solvent moistened rags (a long thin one for a ditch, larger one for a pond). With proper ventilation, lay the rag on the foam -- watch carefully and remove just before the contour you want.
I would add using a paper Mache product mixed with latex paint for the "dirt". I use the "sawdust" from cutting my own roadbed from Homasote but I think there are several products that are used for making paper Mache that will work. The color of the latex paint can be your soil color. I mix in enough Homasote sawdust to make a thick paint or a thin paste that I can paint on the form. While the paint is drying I sprinkle dry paint pigment to add to the soil coloration I want. If the paint is the right color for your dirt, you can add ground foam for grass and foliage now. One advantage of the paint/paper Mache mix is that you can still poke holes in it much easier than through plaster for trees, telephone poles and trunks. Its much lighter than plaster too. It is also more flexible (used this mixture on two modules that went through 15 years of monthly setups and takedowns after being hauled in the back of my pickup. No problems with cracking (or people leaning on the surface). Dan
I'm looking for general suggestions about what material to use for forming my "land" which will be covered by the usual dirt/foam/etc to model a grassy plain with patches of trees.
Take a piece of Glad-wrap and place over foam board.,br>
Shoot a little of spray foam under the Glad-wrap.
Use a paint roller to push the foam into place.
Donald
An interesting note to the spray foam idea. Our Ntrak club has a corner module built back in the early 90s. The fellow used spray foam to create a 6 inch high by 3 foot hill and covered it with plaster. It wasn't pretty and had a lot of cracks at top. The rock face was right up to the track. As a result, our club members with double stack container cars could not use that line, the rock face would derail the cars.
A couple of years later, the fellow passed away. After numerous derailments, the club decided to carve the foam back some for the double stacks. Worked great.
The next show, the cars started derailing again. So they decided to carve some more. Worked great until the next show where it derailed the cars again! The only explanation they said made sense, was that the foam is in a state of continual expansion.
So last year someone took it upon themselves to carve the hill down to about a third of it's size and covered it with a layer of plaster. Next show, cracks started appearing, and the show after that they where noticeable wider. I haven't seen it since.
I'm not sure if plaster cloth would of prevented this from happening, but I plan on never finding out.
Don
Don ----- That's why the packaging industry used plastic sheet to line the box and cover the products to contain the foam. Because of the chemical reaction, it may take days to completely harden throughout. Without air, the reaction seems to stop. When the skin of it is removed (aka carving it away) the reaction starts over again in those areas that have reagents still volatile. This is the first time that I have heard that years later it still expands, but that is the reason. ----- Ger