My previous railroad had a painted background and it looked pretty good, however, thanks to computers one can now make photo backgrounds and then fix them to something flat and pliable and then mount them. I know MR had an artile about this last year. Based on some articles I’ve read sheet plastic should work. For those of you who have some experience with process: where did you get the photos printed? What kind of plastic did you use and how thick was the plastic? How did you mount the photos onto the sheet plastic? Any pitfalls to be aware of?
I think this is a very interesting approach. If I am going to model Betty, NV, it would be really neat to have a photo of mountains behind Betty on the backdrop. - Nevin
Some people use Kinkos or another printer that has large format printing available. There are also model RR specific vendors you can work with if you have a custom background in mind.
People typically use sheets of styrene (thickness depends other support behind the plastic and how it’s hung), although aluminum is another option.
For bonding large areas of plastic and other materials, I use 3M #77 spray contact adhesive.
I did this on my around the walls shelf layout, which I just tore down. I used .080 styrene plastic I got from a sign/packaging maker. I cost me $26 including citing it :-). I used the 3m #77 mentioned, but didn’t like the results. The paper came loose in several places. I got my backdrop from the Backdrop Warehouse. I needed a 87’ long continuous scene and they had them. The scene repeats but they all fit together.
Typically, there’s three ways a 77 application will fail. Indequate coverage is kind of obvious.
Another way is if you don’t wait a minute or so before bonding the pieces together after sparying. 77 comes out “wet” and needs a little of the carrier to evaporate before it starts to get tacky. This property is actually useful to let you reposition things, unlike most contact cements that grab instantly, if you move in quickly with it.
Then you need to roll or otherwise apply some pressure to seal the bond. Simple contact often works, but if it’s big or heavy, best to roll it.
I do all my photo back grounds on a regular Canon printer and scanner. Actually it’
s a three some because I use a Canon Camera also, but that doesn’t mean any other combination can’t be used. Block your photos when shooting them. To show you what I mean, take your picture, check some point on the very right of the shot, then standing in the same place shoot the next shot with that land mark on the left. When the two shoots are printed, over lap the land mark. To enlarge you your shot, with your croping tool cut the scan into quarters then enlarge each quarter to the needed measurement. I print on heavier bond paper and cut out the image that I want, then I staple it, or use regular white glue, spread extreamly thinly on regular poster paper. Usually a light blue. that way I can put several mountains and hills in front of one another. You can even custom down trees, your own home, or your favorite car in the picture. If you need more backing, Veneer plywood, as long as you don’t have sharp bends, thin styrafome sheets, or even the cardboard that momma’s new washing machine came in all work well, just don’t get them wet.
I’m not sure if the two techniques that wall paper installers and plastic laminate workers use were covered in other posts are not.
Counter top workers use a dry sheet to seperate the dry to touch, glued laminate from the glued counter top. They slide the end off a little bit to start and position correctly, then proceed to slide the seperater out as they carefully watch for complete contact. This works best with a ridged laminate and contact glue.
Wallpaper has a slow drying glue and can be positioned and bubbles smoothed out with a large 12" brush as you unfold the glued paper and let it come in contact with the entended surface.
A search for these techniques might be a help to you.
Like your idea of early forties school bus. One of my uncles was a carnie, he and his family lived in the front of the old school bus and the ponies lived in the back while they wer on the road. He was ahead of his time, the bus had two sets of headlights. It woould make a great model.