# Mesquite Charcoal for rock structures



## Oboy Railroads (Feb 10, 2012)

I've been busy building an N gauge 1/150 scale Japanese Railway called the Shimoono-sen. A few days ago I began to model the water inlet on the layout and was trying to find cheap, around the house materials for modeling jagged rocks jutting out of the water. I wanted the scene to look of course Japanese, almost bonzai garden like. At first I considered buying aquarium type rocks but nothing fit the bill in appearance, size or price and so went back to trying to find something around the house. After looking online at the appearance of petrified wood and noticing that those fossils often had the look I wanted it suddenly struck me I had a bag of mesquite charcoal in the back yard. The charcoal is realy just scorched wood and so after sifting through the bag I found some pieces that looked good and I had my rocks.

The messy part was sifting through the bag. After finding the pieces I sealed them with white laytex paint. After drying I chose what angles I liked and then cut the bottoms flat. Acrylic paint was used for the coloration of the rock. The pieces were then sealed with a clear matte spray paint and while still wet, foam ground cover was applied and allowed to fall where it may directly on top of the pieces. Then everything was sealed again with the clear matte. Small trees were clipped from left over larger trees, holes were drilled in the wood and the trees "planted" with glue. There are still some small details I want to add to the rocks, the water inlet and trees to the surrounding hill as a whole so I want be pouring any resin for the water just yet.

I need a better camera as the flash washes out the colors. When I don't use the flash the colors look normal but then I have a hard time keeping the camera still with no tripod to use. Any movement without the flash causes a blur to the image

Anyway I thought the look of the mesquite for rocks worked out quite well. Don't know if anyone ever thought of it so I thought I might share the idea. Just wear gloves when sifting through the bag for pieces. Once the pieces are sealed then they are no longer messy.

The rest of the Shimoono-sen can be seen at the photobucket link below.


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## Ranger (Mar 4, 2012)

I've never tried that but those photos are awesome


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Boggles the mind where people get their construction materials!  They look great, very creative. :thumbsup:


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## Carl (Feb 19, 2012)

That is quite interesting.....thanks for posting


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## zorba (Aug 6, 2012)

some of the nicest cliffs ive seen


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

What fun to see a Japanese-themed layout ... very creative, and certainly something different than our average/normal layout.

Clever use of the "rocks". Thanks for sharing,

TJ


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