I just went to the LHS and bought a sheet of evergreen 044 sheet styrene. The reason i bought this is because lately i have been fascinated with scratch building, and i would like to learn some new techniques, and ofcourse, save some money. I Want to make a retaining wall type of thing to run next to the track to prevent falling objects off the cliff. The area is about 6 inches long and about, 3 inches high. Can anyone help me with some ideas to build a wall out of styrene?
I’m not exactly sure what you are asking here - are you looking to build a retaining wall to help support a shear cliff/embankment, or are you looking to build a small wall fence on top of the cliff.
Either way, a sheet of plain styrene may not be the best starting point except for a poured concrete wall - then you can rough up the styrene a bit, and paint it an aged concrete color (or newer concrete color if just poured - newer seems to trend more grey, aged seems mor beige/tan/brown). Don’t bother with trying to model ‘form impressions’ (i.e. the impressions left by the wood used in the forms during the concrete pour) in HO scale (or smaller), you won’t even see these at any viewing distance. Weathering, on the other hand, with chalks and washes, really can give that concrete wall ‘texture’ and make it quite realistic.
I went to a plastics supplier in Spokane and bought a 4’X8’ sheet of 040 styrene and a sheet of 060 for $17 each. Lifetime supply of styrene. For omly $34.[:)]
Yeah, you’re not going to save money buying plain sheet styrene from Evergreen or Plastruct. The shapes are nice - I-beams, clapboard, etc., but for plain, flat stuff, get a huge sheet (www.usplastic.com, if nowhere else) or just go to Wal-Mart and buy a For Sale sign.
I’m partial to stone walls, rock faces and even wood planks as a way to hold back embankments. Stone and rockwork can be done using Hydrocal casting plaster (some prefer old-fashioned Plaster of Paris) and rock molds. Woodland Scenics makes a number of rock face molds, or check out www.bragdonent.com for other choices. Molds may be used many times, and the rock faces can be shifted around or inverted so you don’t notice that you’re repeating them.
For stone walls, I’ve ordered several really nice molds from www.mrscenery.com. Again, these are Hydrocal castings on my layout. If you’re careful, you can pour the mold flat, wait about 10 minutes, and then curve the mold around a form to match the curvature of the track you’re protecting with the wall.
Sanding it with a less than fine grit, so it seems smooth but has a bit of texture. This texture will be added to if you dust some chalk (in the base aged concrete colors of tan/beige/light brown/etc.). Concrete surfaces (especially outdoor ones on railroads) are generally not smooth, certianly not as smooth as metal or polished granite, and you want the viewer of your scene (including you, BTW) to see the supporting wall and think “Ah, rough poured concrete”.
That said, I can’t really imagine going anywhere but a concrete wall with plain styrene as a base, although I guess if you neatly score it you can represent concrete block walls (or deep grooves, to mimic the textured, decorative concrete slabs like you see in modern Highway Sound Barriers, or old-style workmanship like the LIRR’s elevent Montauk abutments…)
You might go back to the LHS and see if they carry the styrene sheets of brick or stone…they are a lot more convincing than just a flat sheet of styrene.
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I build retaining walls and loading ramps all the time, I use match sticks from the craft store, they are about the right dimensions as an HO scale rr tie, and you just cut them in half for proper length, since rr’s use what they have on hand, a wall of used ties is pretty common.
I cut the sticks to the desired length,build the wall, and then paint it…put it in place and I’m done. Usually takes a few hours for a fair size wall.
Three inches measures to twenty-one feet nine inches in HO Scale and that is a pretty healthy RESTRAINING wall.
Although awhile back I used styrene to simulate brickwork the scribing work was very laborous and tedious and I will build myself some sort of jig before I ever go through that again. On the other hand styrene is great for simulating concrete. In casting concrete masons generally utilize forms made from 4X8 sheets of plywood and these sheets leave their impression on the finished structure. The most elementary way of doing this is to mark your 3 inch by 6 inch styrene into 4X8 foot scale plywood sheets and then VERY CAREFULLY dab a thin line of cement into your scribed lines to craze the ‘concrete’ and give the appearance of places where the poured concrete oozed out of the form.
If you want to RETAIN something RETAIN an attorney.
It would be helpful if you’d provide a photo of the area you need to build the wall in. Retaining walls are important structures along the right of way, and you have to be careful to make sure your model is realistic, and doesn’t stretch the bounds of civil engineering…
Here’s a couple I’ve done:
This one is a timber wall, built from scribed Evergreen car siding (the horizontal ribs) and strip stock for the verticals. It’s laid in at a slight angle. Note how the wall stops well below the roadway it supports, and there’s an earth embankment between the top of the wall and the road. This is a remote engine house on a coal branch, so the timber structure represents a lower cost, less permanent construction than concrete or stone.
This wall is along the main line, which my prototype built in 1912. By then, poured concrete was the typical material used for bridge piers, tunnel portals and retaining walls. This is a commercially available retaining wall, which is nicely detailed with the impressions of the wood forms that were used when the concrete was poured. Notice again, the wall only holds back the lower part of the embankment, with a slope above to the upper level track. From an engineering standpoint, this makes a much stronger structure to hold back the upper fill.
This is an urban scene, where a highway rises to cross the railroad on an overpass. This is a vertical wall about 20’ tall (scale) built of reinforced concrete. The highway above presents far less of a load than a railroad bed, so there’s less need for the offset embankment at the top. This type of structure is fairly common
Keith … you may obtain a copy of Evergreen’s book on modeling with styrene that may help you. I’m not saying I reccomend it becuase I have not read it.
I really like Lee’s photos of the retaining wall he built. The advice from Lee and others may be all you need. Try experimenting with small sections first, and that may help with learning.
This is one wall I made using a Dave Frary stone wall mold. Part of the embankment is free, but I brought the wall up on the left side. The mold itself is actually about 3 inches high by 6 wide, so I cut this section out of it:
This casting was made for a turntable pit. It’s a tighter curve than you probably want, but it shows you what can be done with Hydrocal. It’s the same mold, just bent around a form:
Here’s a wood plank fence, which I use as a retaining wall. I glued coffee stirrers on to a strip of styrene. I applied a decal directly to the fence for the sign.
In the background here, you can see a longer retaining wall. This is a different Dave Frary mold:
For any of these, you can get an expanded picture by clicking on the image.
Styrene is one of the most versatile products out there, it can be used for almost anything, It bends, easily cut. easily glued ,strong, and most of all it can be scribed with anything you want, bricks, stones, cement, wood, simply use an x-acto blade and freehand stones, boulders etc, or use a steel ruler and make a brick wall, the harder you press the deeper the impression, use a dremel tool but be careful. also cut into strips for bridge construction or buildings. It is easily bent(just run under hot water and let it cool) Watch the glue(the type that melts the styrene together) the fumes are toxic.
One approach that might work better than I have a material, what can I make out of it, is to find something you want to model and then figure out how to make it.
For a retaining wall I would suggest drywall rather than styrene. Take a piece of drywall, draw a grid of lines spacd 1/4 to 3/8 in apart. using a hobby knife or a utility knife, cut through the paper facing on every horizontal line and every other vertical line, staggering the vertical cuts between rows. Then use the knife to chip, peel or scrape the paper off the plaster. When you are done you’ll have a nice stone wall. The gypsum board is very porus so I like to paint it with latex paints rather than try to stain it.
For styrene, if you are committed to that, take piece of coarse sandpaper and sand lightly horizontally. Do NOT go vertically. Then scribe lines every 1/8 in across the piece. Touch it up with the sandpaper again.Then paint/stain/wash it with a variety of dark brown and grey paints to look like old wood. Then get 1/8 in dowels and paint/stain/wash them similarly. Cut dowels as long as the retaining wall is high and glue them to the face of the wall every 1/2 to 3/4 in. You now have a “wooden” retaining wall.
Or cut strips of styrene 1/8 to 1/4 in wide. They all have to be the same width. Make sure they are very smooth and have smooth flat edges. Cut a piece of styrene to the size of the wall. Glue the strips onto the wall, spacing them the same distance apart as the strips are wide. So if you used 1/4 in wide strips, then space them 1/4 in apart. When you are done paint it grey/black/primer and detail it with rusty browns (this month’s RMC has an article on modeling rusty colors). You now have a steel sheet pile retaining wall.
Dude, please feel free, if you absolutely wish, to extend the definition of keeping or stabilizing i.e. retaining to holding back an embankment; I prefer - as do engineers - to contain or confine i.e. restrain an embankment.
Cofferdams retain a stream within its banks; a dam restrains a stream by interrupting its flow!
Sorry, RT, It’s a Retaining wall. Look it up in your Funk and Wagnalls. The wall is there to retain the embankment’s shape or elevation, not restrain it from moving about on its own.
Drywall seems a bit extreme. If you happen to have a chunk laying around maybe, but styrene is so much more versatile and workable.
I agree with the point that you need to identify a structure you’d like to model, then figure out the best way to model it. However, styrene is an excellent place to start.
I am looking to model a timber or wooden type of retaining wall.
I have been tossing the thought of popsicle sticks back and forth in my mind for that type of wall, but cant come up with something that makes me happy.
Even with wood there are several varieties. The example I showed consists of planks that are secured with vertical posts. Another common type of timber retaining wall is called “Cribbing” where there are beams pushed horizontally into the embankment, and nested with other timbers running parallel to it. The rocks/dirt are visible through the cribbing. I don’t have a photo of that style, but maybe someone else can chime in with one.
If that’s what you’d like to do, it’s easier to build with stripwood, or with strip styrene painted to look like wood. The timbers are typically treated with creosote, so they’ll look more black than grey or brown.
