So on this nice and hot day today

So on this nice and hot day today, I grabbed out the modules I had worked on last Saturday and found that, surprise surprise, the plaster was still wet. It had set, but was still holding a heck of a lot of moisture. Another reason I like foam - no water retention. 24 hours after using my special No More Gaps and Paint mix or No More Gaps and Vermiculite mix, it is dry and ready to use.

On closer inspection you could see that the Gauze Bandage one was much drier than the other two, as it has the most plaster in it and little actual material in the bandages. The Paper Towel module was holding a lot of water as you would imagine, since paper towels sort of are for mopping up water spills. The Chux module also held a lot of water as you'd expect.

Anyway, they still felt a little flimsy as well, so I decided to add a few more layers of Paper Towel and Chux to those relevant ones, whereas the Gauze one was actually pretty strong as is.

Once I had added some more layers and a bit of a slap of plaster over them, I left them in the sun for the rest of the day. I then brought them in at the end of the day and left them near the sunny side of the shed to get a few days of radiant heat. Normally you wouldn't leave them in the sun, but let them dry slower, but I am in a hurry.

Then it was time to shape the foam module. On Sunday I had glued a few bits of it together so I got out the 3 sizes of Surform rasps and hacked into the 2 different foams. 

The beaded Expanded Foam was first - it's the blue one in the pictures. I prefer the Expanded foam for carving as it is less dense and cuts with the rasps better. the Extruded Foam is more dense but also much stronger, but also a tad harder to carve and rasp. They both cut nicely with box cutters and hot wires and such.

When shaping both, they do make a mess that will blow around in the wind, but at least it does not stick to things like plaster does.

Expanded or Beaded Foam is on the left and the Extruded Foam on the right.

Now, when shaping with the rasps, DO NOT go super heavy handed at it. What will happen is that it will rip chunks out rather than shave the foam. In the shot below, the upper foam has been rasped lightly whereas the bottom one I went at it pretty hard. Mind you, you might be after that sort of ripped up structure - nice and rugged.

Here you see the Expanded Foam and what a good rasping looks like. The top of the photos shows a good rasping and the bottom what a knife cut looks like.

Once I have made a nice little mess I got the broom out and swept up as much as I could and then hoped for a bit more of a breeze to spring up to finish the job for me. The next job was to patch any holes or gaps I had in the foam with the patented miracle cure from PK Pty Ltd - nah, just pulling Scooters leg a bit. I can't remember where I read about it, but No More Gaps, I LIKE IT !

So here are my little spatulas and paint scraper. The spatulas I got at a RIOT art store. The Vermiculite was purchased at Bunnings in the gardening section for about 9 bucks for a 5 litre bag.

"Gap Filler" from Parfix. I get it from Bunnings and it is almost half the price of No More Gaps. Always remember, whichever you get, you want the water based one.

So I got some brown kiddies poster paint out and squirted a bit into my ice-cream bucket. I am always on the hunt in art shops, cheap 2 dollar stores and such looking for kids acrylic paints since I use it on all my sceneries. I use it for my patching and coating of foam as it gives a dirt or rock colour to the surface in case a chip of scenery comes off in the future. That way you don't see a white patch.

Anyway, then I put in a really good squirt of the cheap version of No More Gaps,  I add in about equal parts water and then stir it all up. Always mix the paint and Gap Filler before the next step - the adding of the Vermiculite. I added in a cup or so of the Vermiculite and then stirred it all up, or rather I folded the Vermiculite into the Gap Filler mix (think Sara Lee). If you go at it hard and stir like crazy, you end up crushing all the Vermiculite up and then it defeats the purpose. You should end up with a mix the consistency of Cocoa Pop Crackles.

Then you just get the mix and your spatula of choice and start puttying up your gaps, cracks and creases. You can squeeze the mix and flatten it out so it fills all sorts of gaps - the magic of Vermiculite is that it is like puffed rice and can be easily squashed.

You can even use the mix to make bumps and such to add more variety to the foam shape itself. Add a bit of water every now and then to the mix to stop it drying out. I also find that misting the mix after I have put it on allows me to smooth out the finish of the job and it is much less rough at the end.

So that was it for today. Stay tuned as I will do the second part of using Gap Filler to finish the foam on Wednesday or Thursday, I think. But definitely before the "Model Railways for a Day" convention next Sunday

Workin' workin' workin'.

So yesterday and today I did more on the baseboard modules I am working on for the "Model Railways for a Day" convention next Sunday. I will also have Wed, Thu, Fri and Sat to work on them as well since I am on holidays again as of Wednesday :-)

So I did some more on the three non-foam modules yesterday while down at the club - messy stuff is plaster. So I messed up the club floor rather then my own at home. This plaster over a mesh is normally referred to as "Hard Shell" scenery.

For my first one I chose the wire insect screen module and used plaster pre-impregnated gauze bandage, the stuff they wrap your broken arm in. Now if you know a Nurse or Doctor who can get their hands on expired stock of this it is cheap - free. If you have to buy it, it is definitely not a cheap way of doing a layout. 

Mind you it is easy to use as you cut it up into 4 or 6 inch lengths (that's 100 to 150 mm for you modern kids), soak in warm water for a very short time and then place on the mesh. Now this could also have easily been the chook wire or cardboard I was laying it on. You layer it on overlapping your previous strip to allow for strength and thickness. I reckon 3 layers is good all up. But of course, more is stronger, so it depends on what knocks you expect the scenery to need to survive.

With your last layer being the top one, you smooth it over with your fingers to make the plaster cover all the gaps in the bandage. After only half an hour, but still sopping wet, you can feel the plaster already setup and the strength in the structure. But it will take many hours to dry.

Now for the front half of the same module, I used just plain 'ol bandage material. I had a few packs of swabs kicking around. I'd gotten the swabs as they were out of date items from a friendly Pharmacist. 

So with it being free, it was good. I used normal old Plaster of Paris as the binding material. So an ice-cream bucket with a few cm of water in it and then a cup of plaster in it and a good stir up and away I went making a Sara Lee cake - layer upon layer upon layer of gauze, making sure to overlap.

When looking at the gauze before I laid it down you'd swear there wasn't enough plaster and it looked too watery, but it was totally fine. As you got your way through the ice-cream container of mix it gets thicker and thicker - add more water - keep it like a very thin pumpkin soup.

When you think it feels about right, I smeared some of the thicker mix over the top to thicken it up a bit.

So that was the fly screen module plastered and ready for scenic materials.

The next module to be played with was the cardboard strips. These strips were of course just from various delivery boxes I had and beer cartons. Now being as they were of tree based material, I thought why not use the paper towel method over the top of them. 

So I got some thick paper towels, they work best, and proceeded to put them on like I did the gauze swaps on the previous model. Same plaster mix was used and a good hand smear at the end to smooth it out.

The last module I did on Saturday was the chook wire one. Of the three, I liked the potential of chook wire. It is easy to manipulate into all sorts of shapes like canyons, gullies, hills and such. If I was to use a hard shell method, this is the base I'd use for a very good terrain result.

I decided to use Chux over the top with the plaster on this one. I cut the Chux up into 25-30 mm wide by 100 to 150 mm long strips and dunked them one buy one into the plaster mix in the ice-cream bucket and then onto the wire, with of course a good overlay and made it about 3 or so layers thick.  A good finger smoothing at the end and I reckon she'll be good to go.

So then it was time to clean up and head home and do my weekly shoppin' and washin'.

Sunday dawned and the usual multiple hours of online news and comment reading, then out for coffee with family. After lunch I decided to go make a mess out back, so I got the fourth module out, the one that will be the foam based one.

Now I do prefer foam to build scenery. It is lightweight and rigid. It is easy to carve and shape. AND after it is done you can EASILY modify it. Try cutting into a chook wire and plaster hill to make a flat area for a new building !  Foam done the way I do it (not invented by me by any means - I'm just good at copying others!) with No More Gaps to seal it, it is light, strong, rigid and easily modifiable in the future.

Anyway, so I got my foam sheets out that I'd gotten from Bunnings - the Extruded stuff. 

I had the 25 and 50 mm thick ones on hand. I also have some of the normal Expanded foam - the beaded stuff. So I used the Extruded on the back half of the module and the beaded Expanded stuff on the front part of the module. This is so people can see they both do the same job. The Extruded does cost money but is well worth it. It is about 20 bucks for a "Knauf Insulation 1200 x 600 x 50mm XPS Multi-Use Foam Board" from Bunnings.

The Extruded is more rigid than the Expanded - much more rigid. In fact I reckon you could use the foam itself to lay your track cork on without the need for plywood - but, I do prefer to make things bullet proof, so would add in a 4-5 mm plywood strip where the cork is to go just to make sure. Or like in the module, you use 9 or 12 mm ply to make the outline of the track area and then cork on top etc, with the foam butting up to the edges.

The Expanded foam is pretty good too and it is usual free - hunt around and you can find it on building sites (ask nicely and ye shall receive). It is in packaging it is everywhere. just DON'T use the really soft version - it's crap.

Anyway, with my trusted Surform tool for shaping both types of foam, my handsaw for the larger cuts of foam and a small saw and box cutter for carving, away I went. Liquid Nails (water based version) was used to glue it together.

Next I suppose it is getting colour and skin on th module and colour onto the 3 plaster ones. Then for scenery. Stay tuned.

It's hot. Damn hot! Real hot!

It's not even half way through spring and it's hot - yes, I am having a whinge. The heat, humidity, a headache or three and a deadline are not making me a happy camper. And to top it off last night I lost my phone !

Oh well, now down to it. In just over a week the "Model Railways for a Day" convention is on and I need to prepare. So I continued today on my four dioramas.  I managed to get a lick of undercoat on and the makings for three of them.

Chicken Wire. So this one is not too bad as you can mold it to pretty much any shape you want. My trusty mechanical staple gun holds it to the wood work nicely. I will on the weekend add the chux or plaster bandage or something in plaster over the top.

Metal Insect Screen. My least preferred. It does not mold easily like the chook wire. It is too stiff in my books.

Cardboard. Cheep by all means. It will work once the plaster strips and such are put over it, but it is clumsy and again, chook wire wins of these three methods.

The fourth one, yet to be done, will of course be Foam. I reckon the best of materials to play with for shaping, strength and ease of modification later on down the track.

Oh, and I found my phone at about 1 am this morning - It is a Samsung and I was able to track its GPS on google maps and of course... it was still down at the train club, wasn't it. So I was able to sleep soundly and go down during daylight hours to collect it.

Busy busy busy

It is all happening at once! First one of the N scalers at the club has retired as of last Friday. So I expect we will see Bus Driver at the club a lot more often. One of the guys at work I have known for 16 years also retired on the same day, and I've just put my notice in and will pull the pin in a months' time.

To add to this I got tapped on the shoulder to run a workshop at the upcoming "Model Railways for a Day" convention. So I am doing baseboards since I am good at making a big mess with foam and No More Gaps.

I went over to Scooters place on Saturday and we made up a couple of dozen A4 sized diorama bases with foam and plywood for the attendees to build on during the convention.

At home on Sunday I continued with my larger versions to show people what are all the alternatives. I will have a range to show them including chook wire, cardboard, fly mesh etc.

Spring Time

So a little birdie in the Toosdy Niters group sent out a reminder that Aldi had some nifty items available for last Saturday. Sooo one just had to pop in on their way to the train club.

So I am now the owner of two of the Multipurpose Supports as they call 'em. 

After reading the papers and entertaining some visitors for coffee in the morning, it was time to do something - assemble the Lego kit. Didn't take long at all, well it wouldn't have if I hadn't played the clumsy and dropped the dang washers and nuts all the time. Just in case, I wore my overalls and steel cap safety boots! Also, only 2 tools required... 3 if you count me I suppose (got in before ya Scooter!)

These will come handy for the day I start the layout, now won't they?