Hello All
Now that I have my foam bed down I’m deciding on whether or not to use plaster cloth over it. My last 2 layouts had it but I was wondering if it was overkill. Do others here cover the layout with plaster cloth or just in certain areas such as foam seams and hills?
Thanks
I don’t put anything over the foam. For big joints I fill them with the least expensive latex caulk I can find. I like to use tan or brown, and then paint the foam with a thinned latex paint in earth color and sprinkle on the base coat of ground cover while the paint is still wet.
Below shaping the area and some brown caulk to hide the joints.
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| From Georgetown Branch - 2010 |
Here is the same area with just basic ground cover.
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| From Georgetown Branch - 2010 |
I usually keep the plaster cloth for doing the seams, mountains and water affects and just paint the foam with a brown paint. That gets rid of the blue or pink that toally clashes. Then I do my ground foam on top of that, or like the other guy suggested, which I think I’ll try next time, is to sprinkle your base layer of ground foam into the paint. Then layer it up with alcohol and matte medium later.
I don’t like the dead flat look of foam. Even where I don’t want any hills, I skim-coat it with Gypsolite (with a squirt or two of brown craft paint for color) before adding turf and ground foam. I often use scraps of foam to create small elevation changes, along with some foam-gouging for slight depressions and ditches. Where I end up with sharp angles, I use small amounts of plaster cloth just to taper the edges and get smooth transitions.
This is a picture of the scenery behind the Clampett place, after I’ve applied tinted Gypsolite and then added some blotchy green paint, but before turf and ground foam.
I just paint the foam with tan paint, and fill whatever joints and holes I have with Great Stuff. I too dislike the “pool table flat” look and I use thin slices of foam molded in with cellu-clay to create some minor elevation changes. I’m a plaster cloth type mountain builder rather than foam.
I also end up with numerous depressions on the layout from knees and elbows. My wife refers to the elbow divots as “think holes” arising from me resting my head on my hand as my elbow slowly sinks into the foam while I’m figuring out what to do next. On this new layout I was worried about the depressions, but they’ve actually added a lot to the layout.
I use foam for all my scenery. I carve it and glue mounds and hills on top of the flat plane with foam pieces. Any cracks are filled with latex caulk or Spackle. Then it is painted with latex paint and grass or other ground covers are applied.
Most of my mountains are made in the shop as modules, where trees, grass and rocks are glued on. You can’t beat the weight factor. Some mountains only weight 1 lb. After completion they are positioned on the layout but can be taken off later for repairs or additions.
In my opinion hard shell scenery over foam is like taking a shower with a raincoat on. It is not needed. But everyone knows what works best for them and their layout. So experiment with different techniques and see what you like best.
Doc
You can get plaster cloth cheap from art supply house, I cover it all in cloth, that way I don’t have to be too exact in the foam carving and if I need to add a bump or two, scrap plaster cloth (you always get a bunch from trim for this and that) and a new coating of plaster cloth and done. Also trees seem to hold better as they have a rigid fulcrum point which doesn’t mater unless you need to straighten a tree or two.
Thanks all. After seeing the price of plaster cloth today. (It went up quite a bit recently) I’ll be trying out some of the ideas here for sure.
I saw on a MR video one of the editors used some kind of plaster he smeared it between the joints with a putty knife. I bookmarked the page so I could go back later for a refresher… It’s one of the short videos I highly recomend you take a look.
Best of Luck,
Chris
Thanks for the link. [tup]
As far as i am concerned you can’t beat the ease of using foam for that rugged rock look. However for rolling hills or pastures old bedsheets, tea towels or whatever dipped in Plaster of Paris and thrown over weaved cardboard looks great. Let the dips and bumps occur where they may. I then throw real dirt and WS ground cover and Static Grass on top of that and I am happy. You can even throw a plaster soaked towel directly on the foam with no weave for smaller undulations.
I think making rock faces using molds gets old real fast on a layout of any size. No matter how hard I tried, I would see the same few rock faces from the same few molds, no matter how they were turned around.
Carving rock in foam gets as random and as none repeating as mother nature herself. I think people fuss too much when carving or laying out the landscape. Just fly at it and if a “oops” does occur, caulk a chunk of foam back on.
A little before and after. This is my first attempt at foam rocks. A whole lot less messy than the goo method.
Brent
I use a product called Sculptamold (basically, a mixture of ground up newspaper, glue and plaster) to “flesh out” the basic shapes of the foam hills and to add some undulation to the landscape. A big bag at Michaels with a good coupon is pretty cheap ($12 for a ten pound bag… which goes a long way).
I used to cover my foam with plaster cloth and then a coat of a mix of sculptamold and gypsolite. This can make it a booger when planting trees through the hardshell without making a mess. Now I stack and glue the foam with a foam safe caulk and then use my hot wire knife to make cuts as I see fit. You can really make nice contours with the hot wire. I then use Lou Sassis ground goop recipe to fill in any seems that need work. I then paint the whole thing with tan latex paint thinned a little. The ground goop is tinted with the same color so you don’t notice any difference in color. What’s nice is that the ground goop has a few days to set up fully so you can add your ground texture and trees all in one shot while it’s still pliable. There are a million ways to do it so do what works and looks best for you!!..Tim