I think plaster is a very cool material. It would be interesting to learn what you all use plaster for in this great hobby. Maybe we can all learn something out of it.
basic scenery, moulds, glue. I paint it on WS cloth for effect and over foam. Globs make rocks and all leftovers are painted and make talus.
I told you plaster was better than that other stuff you were looking for. Just watch using it on any joints that flex. It can crack. They do make other more “elastic” plaster type materials for those applications.You can make a flat wall mold and after it’s dry, take a hobby knife and staight edge and cut brick or stone shapes into it for retaining walls.
Glad it’s working out for you.
There are some plaster buildings available. Some of them are very elaborate. Also tunnel portals, culverts, etc.
Dave Nelson
I weight cars with it. A soupy mix forms itself to the interior locking itself in place and it is cheap. I use it in box cars, covered hoppers and tank cars. If any gets on the outside it can be left as weathering or wiped off with a damp rag.
Mostly you can just build stuff with and use it like glue. Works with buildings, roads, trestles and even streams. Thats what I use for at least.[alien][2c]
Plaster can be used for a lot of things in this hobby. Some have been mentioned already in the forum. One of the greatest things that I have seen is what the Reid Brother’s do on their fantastic N scale layout. This is not to sell a tape, but if you want to see what they do, Great Model Railroad program number 10 by Allan Keller, demonstrates this well. Mixing a small amount at a time in a butter dish with a spatula and applying it to the mountains, within a very short period of time you can carve the hillside. Take pictures of rock formations and carve them with plaster. Watch your drying time. Even experiment, you can buy small dental tools at Micro Mark for carving the plaster.
Stain the the plaster with thin washes, alcohol and India ink, and paint washes and watch the results. If you have molds, or can even make molds of cars and vehilces with latex, then use the plaster in the molds to make replicas of the these vehicles It’s a cheap way to populate the layout. Make sure you use a mold release. Paint the vehicles and place them on the layout.
I’ve got two retaining wall molds and one tunnel portal mold that I picked up from another modeler. I can make as many of these as I like for just a few cents each compared to several dollars at a hobby shop.
This is an early photo of my subway station, still under construction. The walls and floor of the station are both hydrocal castings. I made latex rubber molds of two sheets of Evergreen styrene. The floor is about a 1 cm grid, painted with gray spray primer. The walls are about a 2 mm grid, painted with a gloss cream-colored spray.
Sorry about the reflective ceiling. It’s a piece of glossy white masonite that I’ve since painted to reduce the glare. The rounded support beam in the center was made from a piece of 1x2 (inches) lumber, with the front edges rounded off with a router. Then I poured another mold of the wall tiles, waited about 10 minutes and folded it around the wood, giving me a shaped tile wall fitted around the support beam.
The black fence on the left side is from Model Power. I hope to fini***he station and post some photos for my Weekend Photo Fun debut on Sunday!
MisterBeasley,
Love the way you did that support beam. What a way cool idea!! Glad to see your subway station is coming along!!
Electro,
What am I best at doing with plaster? Spilling it all over the floor!