A new Layout

Welcome Rich, I think that you are in the correct forum.

Some people glue multiple pieces of foam together and start carving with various tools to make it look like a hill or mountain.

Some build forms out of cardboard strips and cover them with plaster of Paris or similar materials.

In the upper left hand corner of this page there is three white lines on the blue area. Click and use the search function. Put in "foam" and see what you get. Should be a ton of info.

There are also a lot of folks on the forum that can write books on scenery. I'm sure that they will chime in.

Thanks Sean.  I’ll look that up.  Fun to start a 3 rail layout again, since I was ten with my first one!  My grandkids are more grown now, but I still have one 8 year old, that’s still into trains, since her Mom is too.  Looking forward to a new challenge.

Sorry Sean, but I have to ask if you can print a screen shot of your page with the 3 white lines in the blue upper left corner.  In my upper left corner of blue, I have nothing until the links starting with "HOME" and going across the screen to the right.

Chuck

Rich, when you hit the three white lines you will see this menu which includes “search”:

If you have a lot of time, you can read my continually running, 8 year thread that covers every single aspect of building an O'gauge, scenicked, model railroad with lots of scratch-built and kit structures. It includes a substantial mountain built of cardboard strips covered with plaster-soaked paper towels. All the details are included… including all the mistakes and "miraculous" recoveries. Don't let the title fool you. I change it each time I add a new project. Some of the projects are massive and have appeared as magazine articles. Others are modest, quick, like making a decent-looking parking lot and everything in between.

https://ogrforum.com/...he-pandampprr?page=1

Thanks Trainman.  I look forward to looking at your site.  No doubt will provide some sage advice.

Great! I'm here whenever you need me.

I like the paper glue shell method pioneered by Howard Zane.  The mountain and hill forms are made by hotmelt gluing cardboard strips to the base, and to each other.  Once you have a basic shape, you bend the strips to form variations in the shape.

Then using the cheapest paper you can find- a favorite is the red "rosin" paper that movers spread over carpet to protect in from foot traffic, but any will work, including brown paper.  The rosin paper is about $10 for a 3 ft. wide X 100 ft. roll at a big box store. The paper is first crumpled  then opened up and hot melt glued to the framework. 

The "shell" itself is white Elmer's glue-bought in gallons at the same store.  Howard dilutes the glue slightly (maybe 10%) using tapwater, then he "paints" it over the paper shell using a large brush.  If the layout is big enough, by the time you get around to a second coat, or the next day, you paint a second coat.  Create variations in the surface using plaster, drywall compound - anything.   Allow it to thoroughly dry then paint the whole thing using any earth-colored (dark) latex house paint.

For "dirt" I used sawdust, stained with used coffee grounds (start with a bucket of sawdust, and mix the grounds in each day).  You can also use real dirt (AFTER you microwave it for a minute to kill off all the critters that are in the dirt!). Spray or brush thinned white glue, then sprinkle the "dirt".  Color it using thinned paint.  I make rocks from Hydrocal using rock molds,  some real rocks,  and carved "Great Stuff" foam.  Add trees and ground foam, and viola'- scenery.

I make trees out of sedums painted, and with ground foam for "leaves".

Thanks Mike.  I’ll give that a try this Spring, after the board is up.

@Rich N. posted:

Thanks Trainman.  I look forward to looking at your site.  No doubt will provide some sage advice.

Welcome Rich!  I can vouch for Trainman that he does indeed give sage advice!!  I've been following his topic for years.  It is true, he shows his mistakes and how he works his way out of them to salvage all kinds of excellent looking scenery and structure construction.

My current layout is still wood and track, but over the years I have used different methods of building hills.  Years ago, I used to build up wooden forms supporting screen wire, on later layouts cardboard strips instead of screen, either covered by plaster soaked towels and nowadays you can buy plaster cloth kind of like what the doctors use for casts.  Quite a few years ago I started laying down pieces of extruded Styrofoam insulation board and carving it to shape.  In effect, it is rather similar to what you do outside with mounds of dirt.  There is a lot on the Forum besides Trainman's ongoing topic.

When building the mountain with the tunnel on my layout, it reminded me of Richard Dreyfus in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, when he built the mountain in his kitchen (or maybe it was his living room).

LOL, Arnold

Arnold, If memory serves, I remember that Richard Dreyfus built his mountain with mashed potatoes.  That might be a problem on a train board...I might want to snack on it!  Seems from all of the comments, that stacking foam and shaping might be a good alternative in my case.