My son and I are putting in a small marsh on our HO layout. Just using WS realistic water.
Obviously, we need to put vegetation simulating cattails, rushes, etc in the water.
Should these items be installed before or after we pour the water ?
Do the water last. Drilling holes for cattails will make sawdust enough to alter the scene. I did put a little long grass downn after the water, but I don’t think it looked as good.
Warning ( I just learned the hard way this weekend) Be sure the basin that holds the water is water tight before you do any scenicing.
Good luck with the scene. I am looking forward to pics and to see how you did the cattails.
In an article in either Model Railroader or Railroad Model Craftsman it showed using a bath towel to simulate marsh grass. Of course you will have to paint it. All preparation has to be done before you pour your “water”. Besure to have a good dam to keep the liquid where you want it.
One thing you might want do is check out the track and ties in the area you intend to model. Many marsh areas that have track through them use extra long ties spaced closer together to distribute the weight of the rolling stock better. The track ends up looking a lot like bridge track, so that would be an easy way to model it.
This is a shot of some track as it leaves a bog area on the Belfast & Moosehead Lake RR. Note the track itself and the ties. You can see it change back to regular ties in the distance.
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j319/pcarrell/Belfast%20and%20Moosehead%20Lake/BML_WaldoBogs.jpg
Thanks everyone. Philip, I’m having a deck girder bridge go over it, but thanks for the info.
I add all the vegitation before I pour the water. I think it looks better, and there’s less chance of damaging the water.
While this isn’t a marsh…it should give you some idea how it would look.
Nick
Good stuff Nick, thanks !
Another thing railroads commonly did was fill the aria where the tracks were to go and tamp till solid then build track and finally ballast. Thats what both the Milwalkee and NP (surviving track is now the North West Railway Measeum in Snoqualmie) used this method in the Snoqualmie Valley.
Definitely before, but if you are pouring in layers you can add some of the vegetation after you pour the bottom layer(s). a drop of glue to hold them then pour the upper layers. Cattails and tall grasses should go into the ground.
You can make cattails out of fine florist or piano wire about an inch long. I used .025 diamater but it was a bit too thick. Paint the end but not the tip with nail polish in multiple coats. Brown is hard to find but a top coat of paint works. The fluffy part should be abt 1/4" tall and the top spike a bit less.
Algae and such shallow water greenery is easy to model with a final coat of envirotex. It seems to work just fine over realistic water. Pout a thin top coat, let it set up for 20 minutes, then touch the tip of a toothpick into green paint (floquil coach green ???) and touch to the water. The green will diffuse into the material over the next hour and look pretty realistic. Keep it to shallow areas and experiment first to ascertain spacing for “tracks”. I’ve not tried it directly on the realistic water.
Sorry I don’t have any closeups (no macro capability on the digital) but you can sort of see some cattails among the grass at the right.
Happy modeling,
Karl
Nice Karl ! Thanks for the tips.