Chatting with a friend on the phone I suggested applying masking tape to the back of the screen. He came up with a better method and cheaper.
After twisting, scrunching and tweeking the screen to your wanted contour. Lay the screen on newspaper, back side up, spray with adheasive, apply plastic wrap (Saran wrap) and staple or hot glue in place.
Wet the plaster so that is brushes on and apply a light coat. Drys quicker and more even and then apply thicker coats as needed.
There wasent a drop on the carpet from seepage( other then dropping my d-- brush), its as strong as other areas with no backing and I think I actually used less plaster then before.
Perhaps this method has been done before, but if so, unknownley reinventing the wheel is kind of fun. Take care have a great day…John
the way i do it, is cut newspaper into 2" strips, coat the strips in a bowl of wet plaster and then lay the plaster laiden strips of newspaper across the screen (or chicken wire)…chuck
I use plaster cloth from Woodland Scenics. You buy it in a roll, lay it down on your layout, then wet it. The dried paster on the cloth performs just like dipping it on without the mess.[:D] Otherwise, I use foam.
I posted in another topic but thought I’d add it here…
Get yourself a roll of the sticky-back woven drywall tape and criss-cross it over your screen or use it to seal down the edges where scenery meets the flat plywood areas… pretty handy stuff and easy to cut. I think there’s fiber-glass in it so it’s tough, too!
Sticks real well to foam board.
I use the more open chicken wire type of screen. This allows me to make shape changes just by squeezing the screen and it will hold its shape. The holes in this screen are about ¾” and to keep the plaster on this I use larger pieces of newspaper and just wet them down. The wet paper will conform to the screen and will sag to meet the screen. I then use 2” newspaper strips dipped in plaster and slap them on. I will use 1 or 2 layers of newspaper. After this sets up I then go back and brush on a soupy plaster mix to cover up the edges of the plaster strips that show and to give an overall thicker plaster coating.
The nice thing about not getting the plaster attached to the screen is if I need to make changes I just smash up the plaster and pull off the newspaper and make the changes and reuse the screen.
I use plaster cloth used for casting broken memebers. Cheaper that woodland scenics (at least down here). I just place the dry strips over the screen, and then I pass a soaked wet brush over it. It works great, and without the whole paper and plaster mess. The problem with the plaster is that it cracks. In this case, the cloth prevents that.