HO stone walls from clay?

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

I would like to build a small shed with stone walls in HO. I thought it might be a good idea to use clay to construct the walls. Can anyone tell me of their experience using clay to simulate stone walls? And what clay would be good for this? Woulld you build it on a base of styrene or card stock? etc etc

Thanks

wdcrvr

2

Certainly an interesting idea.

I s’pose a person could also use wood. If one was a woodcarver. Or, for that matter, styrene (no grain).

When I was a wee lad and just getting into HO, I carved a stone wall out of balsa. Not very big, maybe an inch high and 3 inches long. I filled the grain with some whatever, and painted it with different whatever. It looked rather good, consider a beginner did it.

Ed

3

Stone can be replicated by carving soft wood like balsa, and ridgid foam insulation. You could also use air-dry clay to simulate stone walls.

4

There was a group in this area , of British modellers.

They made stone and brick walls and building out of DAS clay.

Make a structure to glue the stone walls over.

Roll out a small section of DAS until thin, I forget how then, and about 3 inches by 4 inches. Then you poke in the stone lines with a small chisel or similar device. A small section takes most of an evening. Peel off the surface you were working on, cut square edges and let air dry. When hard glue on base, and then colour.

Sorry that this is sketchy, but I took a one evening class/learning session twenty years ago, and decided it was tedious and never did any.

Dave

5

Hello all,

If I were to tackle this project I would build a frame the size of the wall with the frames thickness that of the desired wall(s).

I would make the frame out of styrene. Then place the frame on either a sheet of styrene or plywood covered in wax paper.

Then spread the clay in the frame. Using a straight edge to make sure the clay is level with the outline of the frame.

Next allow the clay to set. Then scribe lines to replicate the desired texture or brick work.

Once the clay is fully cured peel the wax paper off and release the wall from the frame, using a #11 hobby knife around the edge.

You could also use plaster of Paris or possibly Hydorcal.

Hope this helps.

6

Yup. That would look great. I’d pour me a slab and carve it up.

Ed

7

Wdcrvr that sounds like kind of a neat idea. Clay already looks like Stone and with some color washes I think that would look really good.

Hobby Lobby has oven bake clay. I carved a bunch of walleyes and hung them on a Stringer out in the corner of the porch years ago.

An HO building wall is quite a bit thinner than a bunch of walleyes so I’d do a test first.

Tape some oven parchment paper on the counter. If you roll it out with your wife’s dough roller don’t get caught.

Cut a piece of poster board to the size wall you want. Put it on the clay and cut along the edges with a pizza roller.

Throw the parchment paper and clay in the oven on a pizza stone or a cookie sheet and check it out.

If it doesn’t curl up on you you’re good to go. If it does curl up on you, just make the whole building out of a hunk of clay. An HO shed isn’t that big anyway

Happy modeling

PS. You may already know this but if you’re not done with a clay project and you leave it overnight you have to cover it with a wet towel or it cracks.

8

My favorite material for sculpting surface detail is “Kneadatite” made by PSI Systems.

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There are plenty of tutorials on how to work with it. Most modelers call it “green stuff” as the slang term. A layer about 1/16" over 0.060" styreme is how I would approach it.

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After it fully cures, it will last forever.

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-Kevin

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9

My curiosity got the best of me from the OP’s idea of making a building out of clay.

I stopped at the Hobby Lobby on the way home from work and picked up some oven bake clay and ran my own test, dido from my post last night.

Here’s the stuff I used

It took about an hour to do two sides of the building and 15 minutes to bake in a preheated oven at 275.

This stuff is way better than it used to be. After it cools it’s like a plastic rubber consistency. It remains rigid but you can bend it if you want to. You can easily cut or carve it.

I will definitely be using this to build my round house or slide house.

Disclaimer. I have no affiliation to this company or product.

I just like it.

Edit. I will post an updated picture after I do color washing and dry Brushing in a day or two.

10

track fiddler

Wow! Looks great. Please give more details on how you produced these walls.

wdcrvr

11

Wdcrvr.

I rolled the clay out to about an eighth of an inch with a wallpaper seam roller.

I took poster board that I cut for the shapes I wanted for my building and lightly traced the pattern onto the clay with my pizza cuttter.

I used the pizza cutter to roll the horizontal lines of the brick thickness the same direction I used the wallpaper roller.

I took a Jewelers screwdriver and put the vertical brick lines in.

I found it best to do the whole bottom row of the brick pattern, then do every other brick every other line all the way to the top to keep them evenly spaced. Than I filled the Stagered ones in between.

Then after my whole brick pattern was done I took the pizza roller, cut my shapes out and threw them in the preheated oven at 275 for 15 minutes.

Practice makes perfect have fun with it.

Track fiddler

12

Wdcrvr

Took a little time this evening to do washes and dry brushing. I’ve done better I’ve done worse.

I really like this stuff though.

I did find out, oven baked clay is only flexible up to two hours after it comes out of the oven. But really think of the long retaining walls you could do on a cookie sheet and bend them while there still warm.

Two hours after it came out of the oven I told my wife look how flexible this stuff is and it snapped in half. Oh well, it looks like a building with a stress crack. This was only a test and a fun one.

13

Wdcrvr

I would like to personally thank you for your brainstorm of building a model out of clay.

So unlike the modeling standards of what everyone else has been doing through the years, yours is different.

If it hadn’t been for you I would have never found this new technique.

So thank you. I’m going to grab this one by the horns.

Sometimes it takes an optimist to lead a new role of standards.

Thanks for the inspiration.

Sometimes we don’t even know we are the inspiration giver, but you are

Track fiddler

14

track fiddler

Thanks for your comments. But thank you more for the information on your experiment. I would hope that you continue to post to this thread as you paint, assemble, cut openings for doors and windows, etc. The information you are providing will help a lot of people who are interested in this method.

Thanks

wdcrvr

15

wdcrvr. Slow to getting back to you as I’ve been on vacation for a week.

Unfortunately I will not be continuing my test as the Prototype was HO scale and I Model N scale.

But there is a similar project in the October 2017 Model Railroader page 24. That modeler cut his doors and windows with a diamond blade Dremel.

There’s also a free way to achieve what you are thinking of doing. I did not come up with this technique but saw it on a YouTube video.

A modeler had his wife save styrofoam hamburger Flats. He took a ballpoint pen and Drew random Stone lines on the styrofoam and then did color washes.

Here is a 3" by 1/2" retaining wall using that same technique with no color washes.

Here is the same technique on half inch foam with color washes for a train portal.

16

What is wrong with making a stone wall out of STONES!

LION put window caulk on cardboard structure and placed stones thereon one at a time until the wall was finished. You thet the stones from an aqauarium dealer, the smaller the better.

ROAR

17

Nothing. Looks good to me.