Foam Uses

SURE CAN, BUT NOT AS NICE TO WORK WITH AS THE pink or green material

I just bought 3 sheets of the white stuff,i didn't realize what i had just bought,when i got home & started to cut it it made such a mess i just gave it to my neighbor for nothing,then i went & bought 6 sheets of the green stuff 2 days later. I wouldn't use the white stuff even if you gave to me for free,we live & learn.

The white beadboard has its uses but should be covered with a layer of plaster such as Structolite for protection since it is not at all durable.

My favorite use is to break off long thin pieces to form horizontal rock layers. The strips are hot glued to a flat vertical surface and then covered with Structolite. I break by hand to create a minimum of those little white beads. Hot knives are also a neat way of cutting it. Just avoid any sawing motion.

A few examples:

The cliff in the first photo in progress:

Jim

Yes, there is a use for white foam provided it is dense.  I constructed a plaster mountain and tunnel using foam peanuts that were customarily used as packing materials in items that I ordered.  I saved them for some use.  What I did was made a frame from wood and stuffed the foam peanuts with some spray glue against the sides, layer by layer, finally covering the whole thing with wire screen which I tacked all around with staples.  This gave me a bumpy contour that I just plastered over with plaster of paris.  It is very heavy, but solid since my train runs over the top of it on a portion of the wooden frame.  Painting was also easy.  I also used large foam blocks (almost the size of cinder blocks), gluing them together and sculpting them with a saw and also a hot foam cutting tool.  These large blocks eliminated a lot of layering with smaller foam sheets.  As a result I created a rather large mountain with a waterfall.  There is a faux pond at the top and also at the bottom of the waterfall, another stream.  If I had to do this with individual foam pieces glued together, it would take me a month.  Once these blocks were sculpted, I covered the entire thing with Durhams Water Putty mixed as a slurry.  This seals the foam for painting.  Admittedly, this is fragile unlike my plaster of paris mountain and tunnel, but it was fast and probably no less fragile than using cardboard strips and plaster cloth to create a mountain.

 The key with white beaded foam is too make sure its always supported. Make major cuts outside and use a hot wire foam cutter when using around layout

This is a base

goes to this...fusionfiber (1 oz per sq foot when dry)

....then trees etc..

Oh man, yes.  Most of the uses have been shown above.  However, I have also used some big blocks of it as the core of buildings: care the block into the shape of a warehouse, say, and glue printed paper on it (have to be careful to test a glue that won't melt the foam).  The building is quite light as a result of its construction and easy to lift and place back in that troublesome corner that is so far from the layout's edge, etc.