Over all my last day off was good. Found a easy way of fixing Atlas Turn outs so the blades do not lose power, will post about that later but no mores stalls as a creep speed![:)]
Plus I started on a tunnel on my child like bench. Did my frist small detail small hill last week with blue foam, spaking, latex paint and must say I was happy with the results. So last night started the tunnel section.
As you can see it is sort of a good sizes section on the bench. In the first PIC you can sort of see the currnet farm and tress that will go on top when done.
After some hacking and wacking with my air power hack saw I got the foam and portal to the point both the A and B line would clear. Boy there is some after math (spell check) from the cutting step.
Best part is the cost of the foam! On the way home one day on the highway guess what I spoted, yep the 2" foam in 3 sections laying under a guard rail.
I all so learned something. Just like Auto Zone (I call Auto Stupid had a kid there tell me my 69 Charger R/T came with converters and not the one in the 727 tran’s) just because you work at Lowes dooes not mean you know what you are talking about!
Told me that Weldwood Contact Cement would work with the blue foam? Not, but does look sort of cool after it melthed the faom.[:D]</
For glueing foam, Nothing works faster than Low temp hot melt glue. It sets up in less than 3 minutes and if you are stacking and attaching little parts it is wonderful. If you just need to stack a couple of pieces and have a day to wait fot it to dry, acrylic caulk and liquid nails are wonderful.
I have built my whole layout with scavanged foam, so keep looking. You had one great find, there will be others.
There are many grades and styles and colors of insulation foam. I have used blue, green, yellow and pink, all together. The different weights and insulation qualities make no difference when the moutain is built.
I use ground goop to finish the foam. I vary the formula depending on the texture I want. Good luck and keep us posted, we are all learning this together,
I’ve been experimenting with many mediums, wood, foam, 1/8" thick brown card board stuff, etc.
For foam I use a hot glue gun and it works great. Mine isn’t low temp and I’d suggest using only low temp glue gun. The hi temp one once at full temp. it melts the foam a bit when I apply it so I have to keep unplugging the unit to cool it down (too cheap to by a low temp one LOL). Clear caulk works great too if you don’t need to hold a part in place whlie it dries. This is another advantage of the hot glue gun, you can hold an item for a minute and it is pretty firm in place. IMHO I’d use something other than liquid nails for no other reason than a knife doesn’t cut it well because it dries so “hard”. The other glue methods, like white or yellow glue work but hey become rigid so again cutting them once glued sort of “chips” away a bit. The caulk and glue gun glue seems to cut very nicely.
I’m at the same stage as you just now. Cutting my foam and sanding it down for some hill tops. If you’ve not sanded foam much I’d suggest using you basic filter mask or doing it outside, it creates some fine particiles that can’t be good for the body
Good job, Ken. Isn’t getting the hard knocks in this hobby fun? [(-D]
FYI, cheapo latex caulk is the way to go…half the price of Liquid Nails, and every bit as effective. Also, white glue, carpenter glue (not great, but it’ll do), and Gorilla Glue work very well with foam.
I was building my reversing “S” with a bridge the other day and used Marine Goop on foam. Amazingly, it looked just like that pocked surface you show. [xx(][:I]
I tried several glues with blue styro, as you discovered regular solvent based adhesives just disolved the styrofoam. I’ve even heard of melting styro in a solvent in a jar, and then using that as a type of plastic water (you pour it out and let it harden). I’ve not tried that but any type of solvent based glue and styrofoam insulation boards are ot a good mix.
Any of the water based (latex based) glues work. I have used glues like Gorilla Glue in a pinch but you would not want to work a large area with it.
For laminating sheets of the stuff together and getting a bond that is tough enough to take an electric sander or rough shaping tool, use LATEX Contact Cement, it will say Latex. It is less common than regular solvent based contact cement but should be readily available. One litre should do you a long time (quart in the US of A). Be sure to follow the directions, and give it the wait time before pressing the parts together. (Like my papa always said: If at first you don’t suceed try reading the instructions!)
Also, use weights of some sort to apply pressure and let the bond cure.
The images are from my website where I have lots of pics of building my foam mountain.
Hey Slector, nices to see you around again my helping friend.
Mr Hill, thank you for your input as well.
Fortkentdad, I see you lift as well. If plates work good I am set, have around 600 pounds of Yorks laying around.
Now the funny part, could the Grass Hopper found a trick the Master have not found? For holding the sections togather while I glue is setting up, or in my case melting. I was going to either use weights like Mr Fortkentdad has or clamps. Then a dim bulb pooped on, if you look closely in the frist PIC I think you will see a small round dot in the blue foam. Yep it is a 3" long drywall screw! Easy to install, depending on how the foam is going to be cut you can leave them in places. Plus in my case melt or no melt, you can move the foam.
Thanks again Slector for being of such great help in the past. I will add that work is going very well now that I have learned the ropes. My BLI fleet is getting bigger, just added a Heavy 2-8-2 Monon to my fleet. Sure beats the days when I was throwing stuff!
Ah, yes, screwing into foam, dry wall screws are good and I’ve used them, but what I really have had great success with are wooden Shishkabob Scewers. For 99 cents at the dollar store I get a bag of 7" long wooden spikes, they are even sharpened at one end. I found them especially helpful in the tunnel when the foam is a little on the thin side. Work like reinforcing rods in concrete. The trick is to coat the Kabob Scewer in glue first (good old carpenters glue is good) and it will really bond to the foam as you press in your scewer.
I’ve found lots of good uses for these scewers. Bought a couple of bags (more from misplacing them than using the whole bag full) and see them as a part of my box of tricks.
Here one is used to apply preasure to a plaster cast rock to glue it to the cliff. If you look real close you can make out a wooden scewer in the foam behind the rock.
One day I might even try using them with meat on the BBQ [:D]
Bought a Hot Glue gun and bag of glue sticks from Deals for a whole $2.00! Stuff works great. Only problem was it seems I needed more glue than the gun could heat up so there was over 15 seconds before I placed the new section. There seems to be no bonding problems, after 1 minute I could pick up the whole section and handel with no problem.
I have WS’s gun and, once hot, it will punp out glue as fast as I can squeeze the trigger. However, for its cost, I can wait a few seconds. The problem would be on large pieces, things could cool before you are ready. If you are trying huge mountains, you may want to upgrade the gun. You probably have thought of this, but if you have regular hot glue sticks in a low temp gun, it will not work quite right.
How about some pics, I love to watch terraforming.
If you think styrofoam scraps and grommets wafting all over the house are rough, I had that, plus, the chuck key for my drill press got mixed in the mess and is currently MIA, meaning the drill press is useless till I replace it.
(Yeah, I know about the “two screwdrivers” trick, but don’t want to hack up my chuck.)
Just so you know, spray paint melts styrofoam too.
Instead of screws or glued bamboo skewers, we used bamboo skewers set in at opposing angles to hold foam in place for auditioning purposes. Good for holding large blocks of foam together while carving too.
For final assembly, we used craft glue specifically designed for styrofoam, available for cheap-cheap at craft stores and possibly Wal-mart’s craft department, with the skewers and a few weights holding it in place while the glue set up.
I am moving at a snails paces with the hours I work but here are a few PIC.
Front of the hill with a pair of BL 2’s coming out.
The center, black stuff is called guied coat, I use it when I am doing bodywork. Reason is I sprayed it and the bench so I could tell where to sit the hill after I cut or glued more foam on it.
Rear is where I have the most work to do. I hope to have that done later today then it is time to fit the portal.
Hill will not have a back wall, so in the summer time I can open the garage door for any work that might be done. When done the hill will be a lift off set up. I don’t have many derails any longer and all most none in this turn. But we all know how that goes don’t we.[;)]
Top of the hill will stay pretty flat, there will either be a small farm there or a large county home.
I have a question though about how your tunnel is built. What do you do in the unfortunate event that rolling stock becomes derailed or something like that in your tunnel? I have a similar setup and I’ve been thinking through different options to make sure that should something come off the tracks it is someplace I can reach it. Was curious about how you would handle this.
General Question: What is the “best practice” for maintaining access to tunnels and such should any equipment (rolling stock, engine, product, etc) get in the way (derailed, load fell off, etc).
Access?? - I have one tunnel where the side panel comes off and four where the mountain comes off the top. This is not only important for derailments but for track maintainance, of which there will be some.
Paint?? - all water based spray paint will work on foam. Sometimes it is called Acrylic on the can. To be sure, check the cleanup directions. If it says water, it is ok for foam, if it says anything else, it is not.
ALmost all foam based scenerly gets one or more coats of some kind of plaster. Almost, some finish the foam, but many, perhaps most use plaster of some sort. I’ll remind some that drywall mud is a kind of plaster too.
SO, having said that, I decided to skip the messy part, I hate the foam flummers more than anything! Those static charged devils make me look like I have been in a pink or blue snow storm.
I took a step back to Linn Wescott’s thinking of hard shell and now use the foam as a light weight backboard and bracing to hold up metal screen fastened temporarily to the foam support with drywall screws. The more you wad up the screen (gloves recommended) the better the moutains look. Then cover the screen directly with your plaster. I use Hydrocal and a paint brush to apply.
I’m at a stage now where I’ve been trying to find the “best” way for me to make my sceneary / landscaping. I will use plaster if I must but I really don’t want to. I like the lightweight foam options but I’ve done a couple of “rolling hills” and sanding the pink 2" foam is a MESS.
I’ve not done a search for paper mache, I’ll do that in just a sec but would paper mache be a replacement for plaster? Like if instead of using the plaster joe-daddy wrote about, what if you used paper mache over the screen?
Jason, the part you missed is when I am done the whole hill should be able to be picked up and taken off the bench. That is for the winter time when I don’t want to open the garage door and frezz my ball bearings off like tonight, 25 out side. I hope to find away to cover the gap with a section of rock up crop that will be mounted to the bench in front of the hill.
On the fumes from cutting the hills, not here. I use a air power hack saw (all so from my body work stage of life) and it cuts it like butter and very little fuzzie stuff is left. I all so use it to cut some details so no sanding off the foam.
I am using a lite weight fast dry drywall compound, I will rethink that later at $15.00 for around gallon. But it is light and drys very fast. I mixed in some water based (latex) brown paint called “burnt clay” and color came out pretty good. I was able to cut, plaster, sand plaster and add grass in around 3 hours.
I was pretty pleased with how it turned out for my first try. I used brushes and plaster knife to spread the plaster. On the side where you can see groves was with a brush.
May I mention that the trees in the right end portal is a little too straight like a line of Gyrenes?
Im thinking that the trees will be in small groups with one and two big, not so big one and then several smaller ones working up from bottom to top and becoming less populated at the top.
Safty, they do look straight in the PIC but are curved and stagger in person. I need more trees, most are with in a 1/2 inch of each other. Think about a camp ground in that section.
