# Plastered myself into a corner, need ideas



## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

I have worked my way all around my simple, (to me), layout with plaster cloth, plaster, bubble wrap and curled up newspaper. Now I am at the corner where I have a tunnel and a raised run across a hill and I am kinda stuck on how to proceed. I plan to have a house on the top of a small hill overlooking the layout that will light up. I would like the raised track to look like it is running on a ledge carved out of the hillside.
I am looking to all the experts here for ideas how to make it and look OK. There is no theme to this railroad, we can call it the caddywompus line
here are photos of where I am.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

The way I did what I understand you need is to build a self standing
scene, in my case, a gentleman farmer 'farm' atop a mesa. It was
designed to fit a certain space on the layout, or in your case, go 
atop your tunnels or mountain.

It makes it easy to do all of the tiny detail stuff without disturbing
other parts of the layout. Then when it's ready you just place it
and connect the lighting wires. 

One trick for the wiring if you have a thick base, drill a hole and put
a thick soda strawd in it. Your wire will easily slip down thru
it without snagging on foam particles.

I tried to find my thread that I thought I had titled, Home, Home
on the Mesa but search couldn't find it. It had pictures.

Don


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

DonR said:


> The way I did what I understand you need is to build a self standing
> scene, in my case, a gentleman farmer 'farm' atop a mesa. It was
> designed to fit a certain space on the layout, or in your case, go
> atop your tunnels or mountain.
> ...


I got a mock up of what I think I want to do, the paper towels give and idea of the hill rolling down to grade, it will be bumpy and rocky. wondering if the back drop behind the house is too high, plan to start the hill from on top of that, the house will be in a sorta flat area surrounded by the hill and overlooking the layout


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

There are pics in current posts here on the Forum of some pretty big
mountains that you might take a look at. What do you plan to use
to form the slopes of the mountain? Some use wadded up newspapers,
or even screenwire over some sort of support. Nothing wrong with
a big mountain the way you are designing it. 

Don


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

DonR said:


> There are pics in current posts here on the Forum of some pretty big
> mountains that you might take a look at. What do you plan to use
> to form the slopes of the mountain? Some use wadded up newspapers,
> or even screenwire over some sort of support. Nothing wrong with
> ...


I plan to use a combination of wadded up newspaper and bubble wrap covered in Plaster cloth, I am getting really good with the use of plaster cloth.


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

Today was my first experience using Woodland Scenics plaster cloth and I don't like it very much, it is very thin, plaster dust is falling all over the place, it leaves way to many little holes to fill in and it dries very fast making it difficult to work in smoothy, and it makes a very big mess, I think I prefer the brand ARTMINDS that I got at Michaels Craft Store for about the same price. Now that I have it, I guess I will have to use it up.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

Dry wall paste over various kinds of support materials is easy
to work into the shape you want. You can also make rocks and
boulders of it simply by slinging it onto a surface. Paint after
it sets.

Don


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

DonR said:


> Dry wall paste over various kinds of support materials is easy
> to work into the shape you want. You can also make rocks and
> boulders of it simply by slinging it onto a surface. Paint after
> it sets.
> ...


Did a lot of trimming the cardboard sides and cutting the risers to the shape I want before I get into gluing everything down and starting the newspaper wadding and plaster cloth work on the mountain. Waddyaguys think so far, you gotta think how it will look when its covered


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

DonR said:


> Dry wall paste over various kinds of support materials is easy
> to work into the shape you want. You can also make rocks and
> boulders of it simply by slinging it onto a surface. Paint after
> it sets.
> ...


FINALLY got up the cahones to start the mountain, Did some more trimming here and there and added piece of foam in a few places I thought made it look better and started with the plaster cloth. I noticed something about plaster cloth, when you measure a piece and are sure it is the right size, it seems to shrink the minute it gets wet, my advice is to cut it at least 10% bigger then you think you will need. ANYWAY, as soon as the cloth got dry and hard a little about 10 minutes or less, I mixed up a thin wet mixture of plaster and water and painted it on the cloth and let it run where it wanted to go, even that stuff sets up fast. You can take a wet brush and do a lot of smoothing out right after it gets firm to even things out.


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

When I get the whole mountain done, I plan to paint at least two more coats of wet plaster over it and install some rocks or boulders here and there. On the flat piece on top I am gonna cover that with grass maT and put the house on that, gonna run a wire with a light on it to light the house, I think I have an old Loco headlight somewhere, if not I will run two wires up and tie them off where a light will go


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

Bkubiak said:


> When I get the whole mountain done, I plan to paint at least two more coats of wet plaster over it and install some rocks or boulders here and there. On the flat piece on top I am gonna cover that with grass maT and put the house on that, gonna run a wire with a light on it to light the house, I think I have an old Loco headlight somewhere, if not I will run two wires up and tie them off where a light will go


Coming along slowly, found the loco light, it is attached to a loco truck, might be able to use it to light up a caboose, anyway here is where I am so far


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## Kiss4aFrog (Oct 18, 2014)

It's a nice build, please keep the photos coming as you progress.


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

Thanks, I appreciate the compliment, I was trying to make that upper wall look like a concrete retaining wall and my wife said the one on the right looks like steps and why don't I figure a way to make a path or ramp down from the house over towards the steps, what the heck that sounds like a plan to me.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

I think you're doing a great job too. Looking better all the time.

As you surmised, a real railroad would have excavated soft soil, in which case they would use a retaining wall of timber, concrete, or laid stone (or cut it back at a geologically stable 45 degree angle, but you don't have that kind of space. You can model these yourself using strip wood, popsicle sticks, or a wall card along the flat surface. Your friends at Woodland Scenics make plaster ones, and Chooch makes resin ones. There are others as well.

For bedrock, the railroad would have blasted through, leaving a nearly vertical cliff face with a regular pattern of verticle lines from the boreholes. You can do these yourself, too, either carving thick plater to look like rocks, or using plaster or resin castings, wall cards, or rubber / foam faces (Mountains in Minutes, Chooch, and others, make these). 

Just make sure that what ever you stick on there isn't too close to your trains.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

BTW, those steps your wife likes are more like terraces 3-6 scale feet high. You can make ramps for them out of plaster, or buy prefab stairs.


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

CTValleyRR said:


> BTW, those steps your wife likes are more like terraces 3-6 scale feet high. You can make ramps for them out of plaster, or buy prefab stairs.


I made a ramp, but I don't think I am gonna use it, unless someone has a better idea, see pics below.
Those walls are supposed to be concrete retaining walls and will look better once painted flat primer grey
I plan to mix the nutmeg paint about 50/50 with water and paint a base coat on all the work I have done then get the grass mat down and lay the track, then my wife and her sister can do the detail painting with all their crafting stuff, I just wanna run the trains soon


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

My Challenge now is after I permanently attach the mountain top to the layout to properly run the hill out into the valley below, I plan to make is smooth with some hills and bumps using lots of folded up newspaper I wanted to make the moutain removable but that was a task for a much more advanced modeler then myself. It is what it is and I am happy with it.
I'll put another picture of the mountain when I get another coat or two of plaster on it to hide all the seams and smooth out rough spots.


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

I started painting today, it is starting to look pretty good, I also learned a lesson.
I sprayed rustolium primer gray on an area I want to look like a concrete retaining wall which I had covered in plaster cloth and then painted plaster over but there was a small section I just left as white foam. The lesson was that Rustolium Primer melts foam, luckily for me the area was not a viewable part of the layout, it was a part of the support structure for the mountain, damn it turned it to mush


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Good heads up on the Rustoleum. I didn't know about that product specifically, but I guess we should have warned you that solvent based paints often attack foam. That's why I only use interior latexes for base coats and hobby acrylics for detail work (well, that and the smell of solvent gives my son asthma).


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

ctvalleyrr said:


> good heads up on the rustoleum. I didn't know about that product specifically, but i guess we should have warned you that solvent based paints often attack foam. That's why i only use interior latexes for base coats and hobby acrylics for detail work (well, that and the smell of solvent gives my son asthma).


The mountain is done, just gotta clean up the mess and get to painting


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

CTValleyRR said:


> Good heads up on the Rustoleum. I didn't know about that product specifically, but I guess we should have warned you that solvent based paints often attack foam. That's why I only use interior latexes for base coats and hobby acrylics for detail work (well, that and the smell of solvent gives my son asthma).


It is painted and the grass mat is down, I decided to make the pond into a little lake area so I did not cover that in grass, got a bit of paint touch up and grass touch up to do, then I can start laying the track


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## Greg903 (Dec 27, 2013)

Your plaster cloth looks like a masterpiece. Nice job.


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## Magic (Jan 28, 2014)

Hillsides looking pretty good. :thumbsup:

Magic


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

Greg903 said:


> Your plaster cloth looks like a masterpiece. Nice job.


Thank you both very much, It is turning out better then I expected/.

Started to lay track yesterday, trying to get every joint perfect is not as easy as one would think.

was wondering how to get each joint fitted almost perfect and asked my neighbor, a retired machinist, if he any small files and he presented me with a set of jewelers files, a tool set I did not know even existed, 12 files in a small carry case, all diff shapes and all very fine, I can file rail tops as well as sides, I started to notice burrs and slight misalignment I did not notice before, who knew?


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

Magic said:


> Hillsides looking pretty good. :thumbsup:
> 
> Magic


Got the train running really good, no more derails or clunk as they pass a rail joint, I started on the scenery got a ways to go. The model house is a kit from Faller made in Germany, every parts fits perfect to the next and it is incredibly detailed down the the gutter and downspouts and a mailbox and window treatments it is called the Klinkerhaus,


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## dsertdog56 (Oct 26, 2014)

Nice work!


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## cosmos2002 (Jun 14, 2007)

:appl: keep at it . Looking good. Keep adding detail. It will make the layout come alive.


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