i am doing some mountains for my layout, covered foam with paper mache and now i'm ready for the final coats. what kind of material can you use for the final coats? i was told i could use drywall plaster which is great because i got a 20 litre pail just sitting around!! any advice would be great.
That would be a good start, as long as you keep the weight within the limits of the table. If you think it might weigh too much you could use hydrocal, which is like light weight plaster.
Dear Newfie,
I use plaster cloth, available from micro-Mark or Woodland Scenics. I paint it with dull green paint and cover it with ground foam turf.
Have fun!
the Bach-man
You can also use the the material that casts are made from and it is usually cheaper from a craft store e.g. Michaels.
Don
Plaster cloth is also frequently available on eBay. C heck shipping costs.
Gene
I tried that plaster cloth.......works great, easy to work with and it sets up in minutes!!! I found it at Michaels,,,,pretty cheap actually, i got a 15 ft x 8 inch roll for 10 bucks with one of their 40% off coupons.
Love those 40% off coupons.
Don
As noted elsewhere on the forum, in tight places you can lay in the plaster cloth, then spray it with water to activate the plaster. A little smoothing with your fingers can help too.
Quote from: grumpy on April 23, 2008, 12:41:31 AM
Love those 40% off coupons.
Don
Now ours has 50% off coupons....
Love those even more!
Good birch trees at Michaels with 50% off .
Don ;)
Thanks grumpy, I am searching for good looking birch trees, so far my search has come up empty. Actually, I havent been able to find any evergreens that look good either. Maybe my standards are too high, I live in the woods and so far have not really seen any HO scale trees that look good. In most cases the trunks of the trees are too thick for their heighth. I have been searching outside for natural type material to use for the trunks of trees. So far the dead twigs from a Potentilla bush looks to be the best bet for birch tree trunks. Of course I will have to paint them and add foilage. But I think they will work, as well as maybe some sprigs of a Spirea bush may provide a trunk with branches. Very small pinecones with the lower husks removed and painted a very dark green wih tinge of black make pretty good Colorado Spruce. The search goes on. - rock
Dry wall mud is really not the best choice for scenery. It is heavy and it cracks when dries. I've used the plaster gauze in the past and it worked fine.
While at Michael's, pick up some tubes of acrylic paint. You can dilute it with water and use it to color the plaster scenery. Try burnt umber, raw umber, burnt sienna, raw sienna, yellow ochre, white and black. Experiment with mixing them and adding white or black to change the hue. Don't use them as is; these colors are much too strong and a little yellow ochre goes a long way.
Just around Christmas Michaels will discount their Lehman Christmas display products .Lehmans make some pretty good birch trees with much better quality and detail than Woodland Scenics.
Don ;)
I have used the micheals plaster cloth the last two times and it worked great......my scenery looked awesome!!!! I was at a local hobby shop in edmonton and figured i would get some more and bought the woodland scenics stuff and to say the least .........it was garbage, it wasnt workable like the michaels stuff....you would dip it in the water and when you put it to your scene it was almost dry and not workable. I tried leaving it in the water longer then all you got was cloth. Long story short the michaels brand was the best for me!!!
As noted, lay it in place and then spray it with water
Gene
We don't have a Michaels store up here. Since most of our scenery will be sagebrush, we are using small pieces from the hill behind our house, sprayed with flower preservative. I can't find suitable kit trees either, we have Ponderosa Pine, Aspens (Quakeys) scrub oak, and cedar on the mesa. Along the river in the valley are mostly Cottonwoods and messy willows. Modeling alfalfa and Pubescent grass will be a challenge.
This area produces great honey due to the abundance of various clovers, so we plan to model beehives. We have our own hives so we enjoy gallons of honey each year.
Bob
a good place to get all your scenic supplies
http://www.woodlandscenics.com/ (http://www.woodlandscenics.com/)
I have been using sprigs of Sprirea (its a garden shrub), with the dried flowers still on top for the Woodlands scenic foam to stick to it. Then using WS course light green and a little WS dead grass(fine) and WS green grass(fine). Painting the trunks white with dabs of black for white birch trees. Its satisfies my taste so far. My goal when I started was to make as much from scratch as possible, and have been finding that very fun and interesting. Another shrub sprig I have been using is from a Potentilla bush, the sprigs are rough so it looks like bark, and they make great dead looking trees. Thanks for the tip on using hairspray for adhesive, my wife has a full product line already LOL. Ohhhh, good clover honey is great! (I don't mean as an adhesive........hey wait a minute.... let me think...) LOL - Rock :)
Rocknblues,
You might want to heat or nuke real twigs to kill any varmits that may be living there.
Gene
I am searching for good looking birch trees, so far my search has come up empty. Actually, I havent been able to find any evergreens that look good either. Maybe my standards are too high, I live in the woods and so far have not really seen any HO scale trees that look good. In most cases the trunks of the trees are too thick for their heighth.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First off, it is "height", not "heighth". Now, there are several sources for trees; deciduous species can be found via "Scenic Express"-and these trees are real winners! Two options: They sell ready made, or you can save a wad of scratch by rolling your own.
On Conifers: Unless you are prepared to spend a lot of money for quality trees, you will have to build your own. I use spruce square, the type used for model aircraft construction. Most conifer specie tend to grow relatively straight, so this material is suitable. There are mucherino sources of information regarding construction techniques, finishing, etc, so you will have to do your own research and find a method that is "suitable to your standards". Also, this is a relatively time-consuming project; so unless you have patience, you might want explore other venue.
THe Old Reprobate
One shouldn't correct the spelling of a word and then use a term like mucherino, which is not a word either. Just a thought.
Quote from: rocknblues on April 29, 2008, 09:21:58 AM
One shouldn't correct the spelling of a word and then use a term like mucherino, which is not a word either. Just a thought.
You're not seriously saying that you've never heard the term "mucherino", are you? Ahh, the sheltered lives some of us live... ;D
Mike
The word mucho I assume is Spanish for much, but adding the suffix "ino" is making up a term that has no more validity as a word than a mispelling of one such as heighth. Now surely you are not saying that no ones deserves having a bad dictionary day.
I take offense to the way the post was worded. Starting off with the phrase "First of all". In communication classes that are taught in college, it is not considered good communication skills. It can be interpreted that the person is saying "Before I can lower myself to your level to answer your question, I must correct your spelling or grammar errors".
I think any reasonably intelligent person would have known what I was talking about even though I incorrectly spelled a word. There is no need to talk down to someone. Have you ever read about different dialect from different areas of the United States? The mdwest pronounces words differently than say someone from the east or west? I have been around the block a couple of times myself. Let's get back to railroading rather than nitpicking (did I spell that right?) the spelling of a word. Have you ever heard the phrase "People who live in glass houses......" or do I need to finish the phrase to get the point across? - Rock
Just a thought, stick to the topic - Scenery info. If you want to debate grammer and spelling go to the NEA Website - you'll have a grand time!
John, it just so happens that the error is quite common. In fact, I caught myself using it twice before I caught it. :D I've found precious few discussions on grammar on the NEA website. Perhaps that of the NCTE - I'll have to check. As a retired English teacher and a still active sub, I've found lots of kids who allow web/text/IM language to creep from away the electrons. Now Rocknblues is not a kid, I'm sure, but I think Rich just used the opportunity to point out a common error performed by many literate writers. The fact is we have seen many questions to this forum so mangled that it was impossible to figure out what was needed. Clear communication needs to be precise. It was a garbled field order that caused the Charge of the Light Brigade, and there are plenty of other examples.
The fact is he gave excellent advice on trees and nobody has seen fit to comment on that.
Gene
RocknBlues;
If you take offense to my posts, tough! After some of the insipid tripe I have seen that gets indiscriminately plastered upon this site, I feel no more remorse than the little red snake in a poem you are probably more familiar with than I, considering your age.
If you want to mispell words like some miserable little cretin, and cream the king's English in front of spelling and punctuation sticklers like Gene and myself, go ahead-and take the heat for it. Mucherino heat.
Have a nice day...
The Old Reprobate
Bob;
On grass:
Try again, Scenic Express, but also-and I really like their product here-Woodland Scenics "silflor"@ grass. Check out their websites.
As for Sagebrush: I have seen some really convincingly nice trees made from that and Nandina bush. We have a native growth called "Old Man's BEars", and I find it makes excellent brambles and hedgerow filler. Dave Frary once told me that I can find Lichen Moss in abundance in Connecticut. I have as yet to fnd it other than in the hobby shop or AC Moore. Besides, cleaning rabbit pellets out of it isn't exactly my cup of tea.
Autumn is a great time to gather scenic stuff. Besides being generally beneficial, a walk in the fields can yield some excellent material. I bring Cody with me, as he likes to 'splore.
You know who also has great trees? Jains trains. She has put together material and t echnique that is really convincing for specie like birch, aspen, etc., and you can pull off some other hardwoods also.
Colorado is tough to ape for cenery, but New England is tougher-more trees per. Geologically speaking, it is also a much older, settled area than the western United States, which more readily lends itself to that endeavour.
The ol' reprobate
Of course, you can always got the "hard core" route and grow your own tree armatures. Teloxys, or "Seafoam" is popular for this. It grows ~10" high. A picture of the growing plant can be seen here:
http://www.katzkuntrykuttins.biz/seeds.htm (http://www.katzkuntrykuttins.biz/seeds.htm) almost at the bottom of the page. A couple packets of seeds should yield a good sized forest (or two).
Remember guys, it's just a hobby.
Mike
You guys are hilarious. Typing is difficult for some people. Heck, I can barely see the keyboard but luckily I am a touch typist. The font is so small in the post box I usually write in Wordpad then paste it here. I keep a dictionary by the computer and spell check everything, heaven forbid I should ever make a typo. "Typo" is in the dictionary.
Please remember that everything we post on this forum is read by millions around the world, can we not try to make a good impression? My goodness everyone makes mistakes.
In the summer we have ground cover with tiny leaves that would make good trees. I think if a person took some time to look around there are lots of possibilities for natural scenery.
Bob
Correction:
Silflor@ is a product of Scenic Express and not Woodland Scenics.
"Old man's Bears" is a typo. it should have been: "Old Man's Beard".
It grows on the trunks of trees in this area; and assumably, other areas.
"Jains Trains" should be "Jane's Trains".
The Old Reprobate