Count me in for just foam. Yes, annoying if you put a small hole in it but easy to cover up with tape or larger foam piece underneath.
It’s also easier/faster to put wiring through the foam than plywood.
I am a firm believer in doing whatever turns your crank.[(-D]
I have dabbled in all methods over the decades and this layout is no different. A few pics from this one.
Foam.
Were gettin there.
Mine is 6’ x 18’ and two of us carried it around the house from the garage into the train room easily. I climbed up onto it early on by putting a 2’ x 18" piece of ply down on the foam and kneeled on it. There was no trace of me being up there afterward.
Wow!
The second layout I did was on two 4x8 ply, one full piece, with the second sheet cut into strips for a double “L”. That was the one where I cut out the ply and installed riser blocks under for the elevations. Foam seems much easier.
When my friends would call, my wife would answer, “Oh, he’s down stairs playing with his damn trains!” One day, we got off work early due to some nasty weather, and I came into the house early, no wifey, but her car was in the driveway.
Guess who was downstairs “playing” with the trains?
Get a hot wire from WS and use foam, works great and finish it off with plaster cloth, you can get the medical stuff cheap.
I put plaster cloth over the cardboard strips here using old tea towels and used wire screen scraps for support elsewhere on the layout. I really like using wire screen that you can easily form before you apply the plaster cloth. I have boxes of expired plaster casting rolls from my wife’s Vet hospital, why they expire I do not know. I will donate them to a fellow modeler at some point.
I don’t see the point of putting plaster cloth over foam, I just gouged and carved, then painted. If you do want to use plaster, with the price of foam these days cardboard or wire or rolled-up paper seems like a much cheaper way to go.
I think Wayne uses a product called Durabond (SP?) I have a spot where a canyon to the floor is a perfect spot for me to try that stuff out. Also with all the renovations, I have been doing (four bathrooms so far) I have been running down to the train room with the leftover thin-set and grout after tiling and slopping it on the layout. Here you see the different colours of various grout, but it will look great once painted and had ground cover added.
I really like sculptamold.
I don’t care for switch machines, I use caboose manual throws. They hold the points very well.
The water depth can be quite shallow but made to look deep by the way you paint it, I will let others give you examples of how they did it, or you can check out some Youtube videos.
What determines how deep you cut into the foam is determined by how high you want the banks of the lake or river. You can always glue another piece of foam to the underside in the area you want to go with a deeper cut.
Hi Batman!
I am enjoying looking at photos of your layout.
I first built three 6by 8 ft frames, like a bed lattice frame you woud set a box spring set on, then laid in the 2 inch foam, and cut three 4x8 2 inch foam sections into 2 ft by 8 ft sections to make the foam 6 feet wide.
My purpose was if I ever relocated, the layoput being built in 3 sections can easily be taken apart and moved up the basement stairs out the inline door to the garage .The wood legs unboltand come off , making the entire layout easily moveable.
After seing several friends having to cut up and literallydestroying their layouts, I decided what a waste! So I came yup with the bed lattice wood frame and 2 inch foam.
I purchased my foam from a local Menards store and bought more of it whenever they had their 11% off sales.
Even though prices for foam have increased , I got my present stock at much lower prices.
I have about 12 pieces of 4x8 2inch foam on on saw horses in my garage along with about 1and 1 half, and 1 and 1and 1/4 foam 4 by 8 for future use.
I have found it very easy to work with.
I still have a long way to go on my layoutand can easily change things around if I want to.
I may add onto mine later on, but I want to finish up what I have now and not bury mself in another project until I am ready to do so.
Good luck on yours!