How to make lightweight Landscapes.

Hi TheBufoon,

Welcome to the forum

I use the insulation board on my layout extensivley to create rockfaces so cant reccomend it highly enough to create landscape and scenery quickly with light weight.

Some pictures of it here ......... http://www.modelrailforum.com/forums/index...5965&st=105

QUOTE (TheBufoon @ 16 Mar 2009, 01:09) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Thanks for the welcome,
I like your post, but I do prefer using moulds for rock faces, I get the effect of true Limestone from the Woodland Scenics moulds.
Although getting the right colour is somthing I am working on !

Hi,

Try using woodland scenics pigments for the cast rocks .... dont get any glue on the rockfaces as it forms a barrier and the rock will not colour with the pigments.
Also a search on google images shouldd give you good ideas for colours.

This video on the Woodland scenics site may be useful ...... http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com...ColorRocks.html

A visit to the main page has more videos on some are silent but good tutorials ........
http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/index.cfm

Personally, I wouldn't use polystyrene - it's flammable and gives off toxic fumes and some people say (although I've never had this experience because I don't use it), that it interferres with insulation on wires.

I would highly recommend using plaster for rocks or any kind of stone work. Plaster has a natural absorbant capability which means it is a very good medium for water colours, which I assume is what the Woodlands pigments are. The following in an article about a tunnel mouth I built using plaster and water colours:

http://www.mrol.com.au/TunnelMouth.aspx

This one is the same technique with a viaduct:

http://www.mrol.com.au/Viaduct.aspx

...and the parapits to a steel bridge:

http://www.mrol.com.au/SteelBridge.aspx

The ket yo using water colours is to use __VERY__ watery coloured washes. You can darken water colours, but you can't lighten them. Progressive washes with tone changes along the way can give some very reallistic effects for stone and rock. I honestly wouldn't do it any other way.
Don't forget the weeds on the rock ledges!

Graham Plowman

POLYSTYRENE WARNING

The effect of polystyrene on electric cable / wire insulation can be very dramatic to look at, sort of skin cancer for plastic.
If you can imagine something like UHU glue being dabbed on the cable in big blobs and bits of polystyrene stuck to it which are impossible to remove completely.
The polystyrene and the insulation literally melt together and the damage can completely eat through the insulation to the wire if given time.

Before the inert forms of loft insulation became more common in the 1970's bags of broken pieces of polystyrene were sold for that purpose, (there must be hundreds of houses with damaged mains wiring), and it has been used for insulation in the cavity walls of property for some years, my own property has it so any cabling that passes across the cavity has to be done with that in mind. Being a bungalow cables now go over the top of the side walls but some installed before we moved in were damaged. The armoured type of cables used for garage feeds or from external meter cupboards to internal fuseboxes, from what I have seen, do not have the same problem, due to a different chemical composition of the insulation to that of normal T&E (twin & earth). No doubt someone will correct me if I am wrong.

There is a problem for people like myself who are using baseboards with a polystyrene core, White Rose Modelworks in my case, when putting in the track feed droppers as they will be affected in time. I am intending to fit a suitable size sleeve, probably metal as opposed to heat shrink, through the top and the 40mm of polystyrene core.
Although this adds to the cost, the advantages of not having to consider framing when locating point motors etc. and the deeper sides (99mm) giving a 50mm space inside the frame for DCC decoder boards and connectors is, in my case well worth it.

There was a warning about using polystyrene for scenery and laying the wiring in/on it in, if I recall rightly, the June edition of Model Rail.

Sorry to ramble on a bit but it is something that needs to be considered when choosing the scenery materials and if anybody does use it, I would not recommend shaping it with a hot wire or anything else unless there is VERY GOOD VENTILATION with some form of extraction preferably. The fumes are not nice to say the least especially if you suffer from chest or lung problems - just don't consider it in these cases.

Chris