Great Stuff and aluminum screen

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
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I’ve been looking at a few different options to landscape some of my hills, mountains, etc. Some of my layout is wood, others are hard-board, some is foam.

I don’t want to use plaster unless I really have to. I don’t care for the texture, weight, etc but I know some items I’ll need to use it (tunnel entrance/exit, etc).

Something I was looking to get feedback on was a technique I’ve begun testing / playing with. I purchased some of that “Great Stuff” foam filler / expander from Home Depot. I also had some old aluminum screening from a repair on my front storm door during summer (big dogs + weak screening = upset UPS man).

I took the screening, some old cardboard, and the Great Stuff, layered on a thin coat of the Great Stuff onto the screening, used the cardboard to lightly smooth out the great stuff so that is pushes through the screening a bit, only using one pass so I’m not going back and forth with my cardboard spatula, just one pass to smooth and push it through.

Once dry (and eventually I’ll start posting some screen shots) it became a pretty flexible, thin, aluminum reinforced, sheet of foam. I could nearly bend it at a 90 degree angle and the foam didn’t “break”.

Anyone ever tried using something like this or maybe post an experience you’ve had with “Great Stuff”.

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Is this “Great Stuff” the canned expanding yellow foam that you spray into nooks and crannies? I remember seeing an article where someone used that same material for scenery. I think the spray can foam is actually a 2-part epoxy type material, and you can actually buy the two ingredients separately and mix them together yourself. Apparently, doing it this way it has a slow reaction time and takes a while to harden. What this guy did was to spread the stuff between two layers of standard bubble wrap, then attached the bubble wrap sheets to a cardboard lattice structure (I’m not sure how they did this - with hot glue or something?). It hardened into a really tough, but really light scenery shell.

Unfortunately I lost the link I used to have to it, but maybe someone else will remember?

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Yeah it is the yellow stuff from any home improvement store. It doesn’t really “harden” though, it stays soft enough to push tree roots and stuff through it so you would need some bracing.

I’ll be attempting more of this over the weekend and I’ll take photos, just won’t post them up yet LOL, need to do some screen shot post tests.