Mountain progress on the right of Misty Falls

Progress marches on as I continue to build the mountain area

The latest progress is building the mountain to the right of Misty Falls. I use the cardboard web / plaster cloth method as that's what I'm comfortable using. It's no better or worse than other methods, but since I've got a bunch of plaster cloth, why not?

**** Click on pictures for a larger view ****

I start by punching holes at the top of the mountain in the foam "distant" mountains and feeding through a piece of cardboard web, which I wrap back around and glue it to itself. As the woven web is made I hot glue each junction. Some like to staple the intersections, but to me glue is easier. While the glue is setting I use clothes pins to hold things together. The web is complete and it took about 45 minutes.


The web needs some individual hills and I find it easier to do this by using wads of paper and tape them in place. With this method I can easily move them around, add, adjust, etc. Here I've added contours to the top of the mountain and about 1/3 of the way down.



I saw a hint in a magazine (don't remember which one) that suggested covering the cardboard web with masking tape. I like this idea for these reasons: 1) It helps me to visualize the area and contours without actually applying the plaster cloth; 2) By not pressing down the tape on each web strip, I can "bridge" the strips to make smoother hills without the "ribs" that sometimes show when cloth is added directly to the web; and 3) With the tape I can seal edges so the plaster cloth doesn't droop through gaps / holes. The taping process took about 15 minutes.


The fun part - applying plaster cloth! I start by apply a double thickness (pieces folded in half) around the edges. Next, I apply larger pieces starting at the top and overlapping each piece by 50%. The result is the entire area is covered with at least a double layer of plaster cloth in less than 45 minutes.

Here I've added the hand-carved plaster rocks. After carving the rocks and letting them dry, I applied the "Leopard" method of coloring (as shown on the Woodland Scenics(tm) web site). After that dried I applied grass and bushes.

A closer view of the rocks at the top of the area

A closeup of the lower rock section. Next will be adding the grass mat.

Trees & More Trees

I need a ga-zillion trees for my landscape, and it would take me years to make even 1/10th of what I need. I found a supplier on ebay(tm) that has nice trees at about 20 cents each that come in a pack of 10.

Coming all the way from China they get a little scrunched up from the trip.

A little tug here, a little tug there.

Now, that's much better! It's looking like a tree, but a bright green tree (too bright for me!).

To get rid of that bright green, I'll need to add some darker colored ground foam, so it goes for a dunk in the 50/50 solution of white glue & water.

While submerged, I'll give it a twirl to make sure the glue penetrates the tree completely. Once dunked, I'll lift it out of the glue (keeping it in the container) and twirl it between my thumb & forefinger to remove excess glue.

Here's the tree with the light coating of white glue

Next the tree get tossed into a container full of a special (top secret) blend of ground foam

Once in the container it is rolled around and covered with the foam until all surfaces are coated

After coating the tree is tapped against the edge of the foam container to remove any excess foam

Because the dunking in white glue also coats the tree trunk, some of the grass flocking sticks to the truck. I use my fingers to wipe away the foam on the trunk while the glue is still wet.

Here is the finished tree with a darker and more realistic foliage

Here's a holder with 30 trees - only a ga-zillion minus 30 more to go!

Piedmont Open House Sunday, July 19, 2009

Today, Sunday July 19th was our turn to host the open house for our layout. Because of our far North location we weren't expecting many people to make the trek, especially since there was only one layout this Sunday (usually there are two). We did have 14 people come by and I can honestly say it was nice with that number as I had time to spend talking to each visitor individually and getting to know more about them and their layouts.

Another advantage of having the open house is that it FORCED me to once again clean up my basement. Apparently someone have been sneaking in a night and making a mess! We had a refreshment table, a information table, and greeting table. I ran both of my new locos - the C420 (Atlas Gold) and the F7 (Intermountain RR). Both ran flawlessly the entire three hours and never missed a beat. I almost had a rear end collision as I was yapping and didn't notice the C420 had almost caught up with the F7.

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures as I was having too much fun with the visitors!

F7 over the trestle & a Look-Around

Click on start button to view video - it has sound

This is a short little video of my F7 crossing the trestle by the waterfall. The area is still under construction. It was shot with my old Sony P8 still camera and is jerky.

This is just a quick look-around of the layout and is more about testing uploading video to my blog.

Mountain Work Continues

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The grass mats have been added along with rocks, grass on the rocks, and some bushes. There is also an N scale truck on a road near the top back of the mountain. This is the N scale charm I did earlier.

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This view shows a closer view of the truck rattling along the dirt road towards the house to the left (out of the picture). The truck is barely visible; however, it will help with the forced perspective.

Mountain Progress with Misty Falls

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The plaster cloth work has been completed for the upper left part of Misty Falls connecting it to the tunnel area. I painted the cloth with my squeeze bottle filled with "oops" paint ($5 per gallon at Home Depot) leaving out the areas where I'll add hand-carved plaster rocks. One of the advantages of hand-carving the rocks is that they can become smaller further up / away from the viewer to reinforce the forced perspective of distance. For the lower painted areas, I'll have to experiment to see if they are too steep for trees and will need need grass / bush mats made from black poly fiber stretched thin and covered with ground foam of different sizes.

Misty Falls Complete!

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Well, it took about 20 hours all together to complete Misty Falls. The falls "module" is about 3 feet high and about 8" wide in the middle. Midge put her "Midge Magic" on the falls today adding the additional details that really kick it up a notch. The next step is to attach it to the layout and then tie it in with the cardboard webbing, plaster cloth, and landscaping.

Charming Z scale truck

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In my hints, tricks & shortcut section I talk about using charms from a charm bracelet for Z scale vehicles. This "silver" charm cost $1.99 from Hobby Lobby. I cut off the ring from the front bumper, and used Testors flat blue to paint it. The black lines were alreay on the charm, and I just left them there when I painted the truck. For scale the truck is shown next to a dime. It may not be exactly Z scale, but that's not important to me as it will be viewed from 6 feet away (see my other post on this).

On Top of the Mountain

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I'm using forced perspective in the mountain area, with HO scale at the bottom, and getting smaller at the top & farther away. Visitors to my railroad can get no closer than 6 feet from the mountain. I needed something very small for the top of the mountain, approximately Z scale. Since Z = $$$, I went the cheap route and used software to create & print the house, and a charm for the truck. From 6 feet away, it should be convincing.