I’ve been experimenting with using pink foam in some spots on the new layout and I use the term experiment literally. Although guys have been using it for quite some time now it’s something totally new to me. Ok so I get the part about gluing multiple block on top of each other and shaping them with the surform file, and various other knives, rasps etc. but my question is do you just paint and ground cover right over the top of the grated up foam or do you smooth it out with sand paper, I am looking at sections that look kinda nasty and have the urge to cover all the foam with a coat of hydrocal or sculptamold etc.
The second part of the question is how to you apply ground cover to the foam, the same way you do hard shell? I typically use either plaster cloth or red rosin paper and white glue, I will then coat the hard shell with straight white glue and apply my ground foam. I will be the first to admit my ground cover leaves something to be desired as far as I’m concerned. People have complimented me on it but I think it looks like a hodge podge of different color mud.
Do like you suggested and lay a coat of something over the foam first. This will smooth it out some, fill in the gaps between the foam layers, and give a better base for paint, scenery materials, and plaster castings. I have used paint and ground foam scenery directly on foam insulation. It looks fine at first but every little dent or ding is permanent and stands out. A hard shell coating is more durable and easier to fix.
There are different ways to go about, what you are trying to achieve. I am in the process of getting my MMR cert for Master Scenery, and the judge said he wanted to go home and cut up his layout after seeing the one he judged me on, so I hope this helps. I am a professional, and have not only built multiple layouts, but also help educate others, and try to get more people interested in the hobby.
Once you have your foam glued, shape with various tools. It is important to remembe that you are not limited to just what yu have read or heard someoneelse uses. I mean hey if those rocks look to uniform, and you pick up a screw driver (as example), and just so happen to drag/scrape it across the foam and “add texture” to it so be it. One of my pet peeves when it comes to scenery is seams. In my opinion they are unrealistic, so I try to cover them. If you are scenicing a smooth terrain, I would use the rasp to ensure a smooth trasition from each piece of foam to ther next. You can fill seams with plaster if you already using it, and if your not just use the loctite that used to glue the foam with. If you use the loctite you will have to wipe away excess, this shouldn’t be done in large areas that are to be sceniced, just seams. If you want to apply plaster in other areas you can as desired.
Then, simply paint your desired color. If you choose to use loctite to fill the seams, you don’t have to wait to paint your base color, either. Just don’t apply pressure when painting over the glue. Some people apply ground foam in the wet paint for texture. Personallly I only do this for areas that will when fully seniced represent dirt, or if I am going to have an area that will have a heavy pile of rocks. After this dries, I then go back through in various stages and colors of ground foam, clump foliage, rocks, ect.
I hope that I have helped answer your questions. Good luck in creating your model railroad.
I’ve watched a lot of that guys video’s his video taping leaves something to be desired but he has a lot of good information and techniques,
I have t throw one more question in the mix, how do you guys apply ground cover to vertical surfaces. All I have done in the past which seems to be very wasteful is paint the surface with straight white glue and take the ground cover and either put it in the palm of my hand or on a piece of paper half folded like a slice of pizza and blow it onto the wall etc. If you guys have any other methods I’m all ears.
In the Woodland Scenics video, they show a method using a piece of paper slightly rolled into a ‘J’ shape. Then put a little ground foam or whatever in the curved area and point it at the vertical face-- the open side toward the scenery. Then blow gently down the long part of the ‘J’ and the curve lifts the material and deposits it nice and neatly where you want it.
I discovered pretty early on that flat doesn’t look real. So, I gouge and build up flat areas of pink foam. The kind of large-size bumpiness that you get from gouging pink foam isn’t too good, either, so I often use plaster cloth to cover bumpiness.
I mix up a thin batch of Gypsolite with water and a few squirts of cheap brown acrylic paint, and coat the foam and plaster cloth with that. That gives me a surface that is rough, but no longer bumpy. With paint, turf and ground foam it comes out looking like a natural surface.
My portable modules are made of pink and blue foam inside a pine frame. I painted the bare foam with a real thick coat of paint and sprinkled ground foam, dirt and sand into the wet paint. If I needed more texture than the old white glue straight out of the bottle and more texture. The sand pit is made of blue foam with a plaster cloth covering then painted and textured like normal. To do the banking’s I mixed paint and white glue 50/50. Put a good thick coat on and sprinkled sand and stones from the top and let it lay naturally. I added more with white glue after the first layer had dried. Mixing paint into your plaster will hide minor damage.
The only problem I have with them after 7 years is they are easily dinged. A small ding or dent sticks out like a beacon in the night. At one train show a man just leaned over the rope and rested both elbows on one of the modules. I kindly asked him not to do it and he argued with me. He said it was wood. I said I built it and I know whats its made of. He was shocked to see 2 dents where his elbows were. Another time a gust of wind sent one across the parking lot. Another pink dent! I can usually hide the dents with a real rock or stone. Sometimes a small building.
Though my Yuba River Sub is built on a base of 2" pink Corning foam, I haven’t used stacked foam very much for the scenery–I’ve built most of my scenery with the usual support/lattice/newspaper and plaster cloth method. But in the few cases that I have stacked foam, I’ve carved the foam to a rough shape, then formed the contours with crumpled newspaper covered with plaster cloth.
Most needed rockwork has been done with ‘soupy’ Sculptamold and Bragdon rock castings, sometimes in combination with Cripplebush ‘rubber’ rocks.
In my case, I have mild COPD, so using a hot knife on foam is out of the question because of the fumes. I’ve seen some terrific examples of carved foam, though. But I think that even these examples have been finished with some kind of plaster-work.
I get a kick out of techniques I see where foam boards are used and then they are covered by some sort of plaster. To me it is like taking a shower with a raincoat on. Why not go all the way and carve the foam and then apply the scenery materials to it. It provides a good base to add trees, bushes and signs, etc. and is easily painted with any latex paint.
I have made mountains, bridges and structures all out of 1” pink foam. I make most of my scenes as a module in the workshop then place them on the layout. They are very light in weight. If I want to change it or repair any damage I pick it up and back to the workshop it goes. It is so easy to work with.
Doc Everything you see is made from 1” pink foam.
I’m building an N-scale layout that will have several tunnels through mountains. I will not be able to access the track in the tunnels from below so I was thinking of building the mountains from 2" foam and having the top layers removable so I can access the track from above. My question is how do you realistically conceal the loose joint between the fixed and removable foam layers in the mountain side? Can you show some examples of this?
I’ve got just such a scenario. It’s quite easy, actually. I used 2" thick foam, and simply built a section above the tunnel that isn’t glued to the section below. I added a plywood base, though as it’s fairly large, and I didn’t want something that would lose its shape.
I don’t have immediate access to a clear photo of it as a lift out, but here’s what it looks like in place.
You can see the small gap in the trees that runs across the base of the joint, and the brass handle that’s attached to the fascia on the left. When all hell breaks loose, I grab the handle, pull out the top of the mountain, and send in the troops.
This view shows the base scenery without the trees and top on…
I have subways beneath the surface of my layout. So, there’s a whole layout down there. This first picture has 5 foam-based liftoff sections on it:
This is what it looks like with the liftoff sections removed:
And here are the liftoffs by themselves:
I first build and fit the foam section. I try to use irregular shaped edges, as the eye is drawn to straight lines. Then, I put a strip of plastic wrap (Saran Wrap or generic equivalent) on the fixed base part, and lay plaster cloth on the removeable foam section, overlapping the gap by a half-inch to an inch. Once the plaster cloth hardens, it is firmly attached to the removeable piece, but separates easily from the plastic wrap. At that point I can remove the plastic, put the section in place and apply paint and scenic materials. Once that all dries and sets, the section will only stick a little bit at the edges the first time I lift it off. Flocking around the actual separation line hides the joint still further.
My Foam Lift Out The biggest foam lift out I made had 2’ high mountain on a 2’x3’ base. It only weighed 1lb. I use natural lines in the scenery to cover the edges of the foam modules. Usually a row of bushes or trees on either side will cover the edges. Sometimes a roadway edge or fence works. Look carefully at the first photo and try to find the module edges than check the second one when it is lifted out.
Hi. Just remember when you carve the foam everything is very sharped edged. Run your fingers over the foam to smooth out those edges and to get all the little pieces broken off. It seems to make it look a lot better after you do this little step. I did y first pink foam carve this year and was leary on how it would turn out while I was carving. But I love how it turned out. It is a lot better for me than carving wet plaster. Mike
I merely painted my foam with an earth brown indoor latex paint. I found a can at Home Depot on the “we mixed it wrong” discount shelf. I thinned the paint out about 50-50 with water and painted every thing with a sash brush. I sprinkled “grass” (actually sawdust dyed green) into the earth color paint. I used three colors of grass, medium green, dark green and light green. I laid down a good base of the medium green and then added light and dark green for accent. Came out pretty good. Bare patches show up as dirt brown which looks good.
Then I added balled-up newspapers to create some “puffiness”. Next I used strips of masking tape to hold the newspaper balls in place.
Next came a single layer of Woodland Scenic plaster cloth.
Then came the sculptamold, which really made a nicely textured landscape.
This first pic shows (on the left-hand side of the trackage) the Sculptamold applied over the top of the Woodland Scenics plaster cloth, newspaper “pillows” and masking tape. The right-side has not been Sculptamold-ed yet.
I think the Sculptamold made a big difference.
Here’s a shot of just the right-side of the trackage sans Sculptamold…
And here the Sculptamold has been applied…
The Sculptamold really took the “cragginess” out of the scenery. Made it look much more representative of the topography that I’m modeling.
My self, I like painting over the foam with nothing added for work faces. I all so left the gaps in the foam. In retrospect, I wished I filled some of the gags so they are not so straight, but still pretty happy with it.
My whole mountain lefts off. Even the section with the mining company. Makes it so much easier to work on. Plus, you can make the mountain hollow for hidden stagging and saves of cost of foam.
I need some strong and lite to span the hidden stagging. Used a aluminum stud.
Everything you see is made from 1” pink foam.
