# Foam Facing Ideas



## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

I am using Woodland Scenics Inclines and Risers and am seeking ideas on how to face the foam and cover up all the gaps??


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## rzw0wr (Aug 28, 2013)

I use plaster cloth over the top.
Some down the sides if you want to slant the sides a little.


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

rzw0wr said:


> I use plaster cloth over the top.
> Some down the sides if you want to slant the sides a little.


That seems like too simple an idea, do you have some pictures of what you did or how it turned out?

I stumbled across something comparing woodland scenics plaster cloth to two other brands and the reviewer said that WS had more plaster in it and was a much thicker finish, any thoughts or comments on that??

I was wondering what is it that doctors use to make plaster casts for broken arms and legs? When I was 11 I broke my leg and was in a cast from my toes to well above my knee, and that thing was indestructible , I was running around and playing within a week or two, but the school wouldn't allow anyone with a leg cast to attend. Bummer, had to miss 6 weeks of 6th grade.


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## Magic (Jan 28, 2014)

Here is what I did. 

http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showpost.php?p=283060&postcount=80

Plaster cloth over the risers and some paint to start, cotton balls to finish up.


Magic


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

Bkubiak said:


> That seems like too simple an idea, do you have some pictures of what you did or how it turned out?
> 
> I stumbled across something comparing woodland scenics plaster cloth to two other brands and the reviewer said that WS had more plaster in it and was a much thicker finish, any thoughts or comments on that??
> 
> I was wondering what is it that doctors use to make plaster casts for broken arms and legs? When I was 11 I broke my leg and was in a cast from my toes to well above my knee, and that thing was indestructible , I was running around and playing within a week or two, but the school wouldn't allow anyone with a leg cast to attend. Bummer, had to miss 6 weeks of 6th grade.


I get my cloth off eBay. Cheaper then woodland scenic's. Plaster cloth is plaster cloth though some do skimp on the plaster I add some plaster to it. (continue reading for details))
It is the same stuff they use for your leg cast. But shop around for price it varies on eBay.
Some use paper towels coated in a plaster solution that they make.

You could do this too if you want to try. 
Have you ever made anything out of paper mache? It is a mixture of flour and white glue and water. I made a planet for the kids science project once. 
You take a balloon and coat it in newspaper after you dip it in the the flour/glue/water solution. Let it dry and it is as hard as cement. We had that planet for years after they showed it and when I went to bust it up I had a hard time smashing it. It took a big sledgehammer to smash it up.
I think I went to heavy on the white glue I added. 
The instructions were for making a pinata, I just made a planet instead. But if I had made a pinata and filled it with candy no one would have smashed it. 

If you use the plaster cloth what I do is buy some premix fast dry hole patch and add that to the plaster cloth as I go along. Unless you use a lot of cloth you will have some little holes showing from the material webbing. Now those holes won't matter if you are going to add dirt or grass, bushes and debris over the top.
If you want to add some rock outcroppings take small pieces of foam and just glue them on top of the plaster cloth.


You can also use some screen and add the plaster over the top saving the cost of the cloth. Old window screens work if you can find some.
Check out this thread for doing that.
http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showthread.php?t=6374

On my old HO table I used all screen like shown here.


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

Magic said:


> Here is what I did.
> 
> http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showpost.php?p=283060&postcount=80
> 
> ...


Thanks, you gave me some great ideas


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Bkubiak said:


> That seems like too simple an idea, do you have some pictures of what you did or how it turned out?
> 
> I stumbled across something comparing woodland scenics plaster cloth to two other brands and the reviewer said that WS had more plaster in it and was a much thicker finish, any thoughts or comments on that??
> 
> I was wondering what is it that doctors use to make plaster casts for broken arms and legs? When I was 11 I broke my leg and was in a cast from my toes to well above my knee, and that thing was indestructible , I was running around and playing within a week or two, but the school wouldn't allow anyone with a leg cast to attend. Bummer, had to miss 6 weeks of 6th grade.


As I posted in another thread, if Woodland Scenics had their way, we would all build our layouts using their products and nothing but. And you could do just that, because their product line does allow you to. The flip side of that is that there are a lot of other options out there, and many WS products are very common craft items which are often available more cheaply elsewhere. Plaster cloth is a great example of that. School supply and and medical supply places often have much better prices. It's your choice.

Plaster cloth is not the final layer on a layout. As a top layer, it's going to look like what it is: plaster cloth, no matter how much plaster is on it. It provides a rigid foundation for the other stuff, it can becovered with a grass mat, rock castings, prefab rocks, cliff faces, etc., or more plaster (and similar products), painted, and covered with scenic materials. 

The bottom line is that just about anything will work, and look good, but will depend on a number of factors: the amount of time, money and effort you're willing to invest, your skill level, and your desired outcome.

While some snobs will say otherwise, a layout can consist of a strip of unballasted track on a strip of raw plywood to the warehouse sized monstrosity that accurately depicts a real place in a certain time period (yes, they exist) and everything in between. Some folks want absolutely exact replication of prototype operations, and some want to kick back and watch trains run, some like varying blends of both. None of these approaches is inherently right or wrong, better or worse. It's all up to individual preference.

To minimize rework, it's a good idea to try to find out where you sit on these scales and what you want from your final product before you start buying and putting things together, but you're a little past that.

So, for the long answer to the short question: if your sole purpose is to hide the risers and give you something to put your grass mat over, then get the cheapest plaster cloth you can find, slap it on, and apply grass mat. Even simpler: locat some rock textures on the internet, print on heavy card stock, and glue it to the risers, thus hiding the unsightly gaps. The risers support your track; anything you do here is purely cosmetic.

If you want your scenery to look more realistic, then you'll want to take a more complicated and yes, more expensive, route and use screen wire, cardboard strips, newspaper balls, or half a dozen other options to make the general terrain forms, cover it with papier mache, plaster cloth, or any of a half dozen other options, and then apply some kind of scenery on top. Of course, before you do this, you will need to know how much of the real estate around your tracks you need for sidings, structures, etc., although you can rework later to incorporate these things if you don't mind ripping out and redoing.


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## JPIII (Jun 24, 2012)

For me, it depends on the topography of the area you are modeling. My area is mostly dirt with few areas of bedrock showing. Mostly, the bedrock areas have either pushed up or have been exposed by construction or erosion.....no big sweeping vistas here, I'm afraid and mostly hidden by trees.

Either way the foam itself needs a coating if you want dirt elevations.....I use spackle.
Foam itself needs only coloration....foam makes great rocks...I have done both with varying degrees of success...but have seen masters of the craft (& I ain't one) do some amazing things. I have also used real rock....shale is a good imitation of basalt as for coloration & texture. I have started on a rock formation using foam but am thinking that stacked up shale may be better....tho it is much harder to work with.

In real life, railroading right of ways avoid hard rock mining whenever possible. Going over the Sierra Nevadas was killer expensive. Progress was measured in the explosive tonnage per mile.......not to mention the ****** death per mile.


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## MtRR75 (Nov 27, 2013)

JPIII said:


> In real life, railroading right of ways avoid hard rock mining whenever possible..


True, but real life railroads often followed the river -- for the same reason -- to avoid tunneling or blasting through the mountain.
But to get a flat roadbed along the river, they had to notch out the rock on one side of the river. This often left a short, rock-face wall on the up-hill side of the tracks.


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## JPIII (Jun 24, 2012)

A pic.
Unfinished topography using some of the stuff I was referring to. That upper stack on the right ain't gonna cut it, me thinks. The shale is below it......the creek narrows down. I'll finish it off if I live long enough. I'm gonna call it phase III.










Another pic of the whole works.


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

Yesterday we went to Michaels, I wanted to get plaster cloth, they had a brand called ArtMinds and I grabbed two 4 in wide by 15ft long rolls at 4.95 each, I was shopping around and I came on a small display of Woodland Scenics stuff and they has some of their plaster cloth, it was a roll 8 inch wide by about the same length for 10 bucks and it weighed almost twice as much as the two rolls of the other. I guess Woodland has a lot more plaster on their cloth. I wanted to experiment so I bought the two 4 inch rolls. More later as I play with this stuff


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## JPIII (Jun 24, 2012)

Bkubiak said:


> I am using Woodland Scenics Inclines and Risers and am seeking ideas on how to face the foam and cover up all the gaps??


BTDT.....here is a pic of one option. Expanding foam in a can,(the yellow stuff.....window & doors is best) cover with spakle, coarse sand paper.
I didn't care much for the plaster impregnated cloth.

I have used the former method extensively and it seems to be the most efficient use of time. Never did a study on the costeffictiveness.


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## JPIII (Jun 24, 2012)

Semi-finished. 
I use a rough sharpened (a serrated edge) filleting knife to cut the foam to the desired shape.


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

All you guys up North have a big advantage over us Southern boys, you have basements, down here the homes are built on slabs, because the water table is only 4-5 ft down. My workbench is in the carport and my train table is on the back porch in a corner my wife gave to me. This is my first layout other then track on a flat table or around the tree at Christmas Time.


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## JPIII (Jun 24, 2012)

Heh......all you Southern boys have an advantage over us Yankees. 
You don't have much winter to speak of.

My layout is built in my shop and I have to heat it in the winter....but when it doesn't get above freezing for a week or so, the shop becomes untenable.......and our winters ain't that bad by comparison to the guys East of here......none of that below zero nonsense for us West Coast guys (at the lower elevations).


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

You have a shop???? Damn, I have an 8 x 10 shed full of mower and assorted boat stuff

I gets real cold down here, I have had many days when we could see our breath

and furthermore, I am a transplant, down from Long Island NY, 40 odd years ago

Is that a tree farm on your table, we have then all around here, tall pine trees they eventually cut down for phone poles


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## JPIII (Jun 24, 2012)

Ayup, those smaller ones are farm trees.
I've made larger ones and am making more...200 footers.....as we speak.


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

JPIII said:


> Ayup, those smaller ones are farm trees.
> I've made larger ones and am making more...200 footers.....as we speak.


200 footers, what does that scale down to 8 inch's?

Are you modeling a sawmill?

Is that snow I see on the bush's outside your window?


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## JPIII (Jun 24, 2012)

Bkubiak said:


> 200 footers, what does that scale down to 8 inch's?
> 
> Are you modeling a sawmill?
> 
> Is that snow I see on the bush's outside your window?


200 feet in 1/87 is about 27.5 inches. The largest I'm making now is about 24 inches.

I intend to build a sawmill. I'm looking at one made by BTS. Nice rig & I have just the spot for it. .
http://www.btsrr.com/bts8300.htm
Not time for it yet. I've got a forest to build.....with a RR running thru it.

Not snow, bright sunlight glare to the camera.


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

Remember forest's don't grow trees in nice straight lines and WOW thats a lot of DINERO for a model


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## MtRR75 (Nov 27, 2013)

Bkubiak said:


> Remember forest's don't grow trees in nice straight lines


Not necessarily true. There are places in the Pacific NW (where JPIII lives) where the forest has been logged, then replanted. Planting of tree seedlings is usually done on a predetermined rectangular grid -- to get the most out of the planted trees. If two seedlings are planted to close to each other, one will lose out and die -- a wasted seedling.

And 200 ft trees are also found in Pacific NW. Some in California reach over 300 ft.


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## Bkubiak (Oct 20, 2013)

MtRR75 said:


> Not necessarily true. There are places in the Pacific NW (where JPIII lives) where the forest has been logged, then replanted. Planting of tree seedlings is usually done on a predetermined rectangular grid -- to get the most out of the planted trees. If two seedlings are planted to close to each other, one will lose out and die -- a wasted seedling.
> 
> And 200 ft trees are also found in Pacific NW. Some in California reach over 300 ft.


My brother used to live just adjacent to a 20 acre tree farm in Ocala, it was laid out much like a military cemetery and just driving past and looking at the trees all in a row made me dizzy and if you looked back at them from an angle they were still in rows. those trees were around 60-70 ft high, all some special breed of pine that only seemed to have green growth at the top part, and then one day he told me a big logging crew showed up with tree cutting machines and after a few days they were all cut down and hauled away. Like you said, a few weeks later some people came from the forest service and planted little baby trees, those trees are all about 15-20 ft high now.


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## JPIII (Jun 24, 2012)

There has been considerable debate over the maximum height of Douglas Firs.
I read some ago that it is theoretically possible for a Doug. fir to grow up to 460ish feet based on the capacity of its water pump. Then there is the below....good luck with that.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/trees/msg0201135815998.html


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## kcjones (Sep 12, 2014)

MtRR75 said:


> True, but real life railroads often followed the river -- for the same reason -- to avoid tunneling or blasting through the mountain.
> But to get a flat roadbed along the river, they had to notch out the rock on one side of the river. This often left a short, rock-face wall on the up-hill side of the tracks.


Fwiw, that's the exact situation I model, using foam, no 'coating' just carving and airbrush.


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