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When it comes to scenery we are truly spoilt for choice, for instance the German company, Faller, has buildings ranging from a full blown fairground to a plate layers hut, a catalogue of hundreds of buildings. Put these products together with hornby scaledale, Harburn Hamlet, Knightwing and others too numerous to list, you have at your disposal the means to build a small city. No layout is complete without fields, trees, streams and the like and this market is well catered for as also. Woodland scenics do a vast range of scenery products including a set of learning packs created to teach the art of scenic design. A couple of these I will be trying and showing the results on this page.
I have already shown the basics of ballasting on the trackwork page and on this page will endeavour to demonstrate my other scenic efforts
.WOODLAND SCENICS ROCK FACE
These kits cost around £12 and initially will make 3-4 rock face sections. Each kit comes with 1 rubber mould, pigment, plaster mix and plaster cloth. The moulds are made of thick rubber and can be used over and over again. Start by placing some kitchen roll in a suitable container big enough to sit the mould in. this is to give the mould support and catch any drips from the plaster, I found that the box the kit comes in is ideal. Place the mould on the paper making sure all is level. Lightly “paint the inside of the mould with water mixed with washing up liquid, this will help disperse any bubbles in the plaster when it is poured.
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The Fig 1 above shows the mould ready for pouring. The plaster takes about an hour to set so do not mix the full packet all at once. Mix a cupful of plaster powder with 1/3 cup of water in a mixing bowl until all the powder is dispersed. Pour the mixture immediately into the mould ensuring the plaster reaches all the nooks and crannies by pouring slowly at first covering the whole of the base.
After an hour carefully turn out the mould and trim any excess plaster from the sides of the new cast and leave over night to cure before painting.
Fig 3 shows 3 large casts with 2 of the smaller casts and a broken small cast. Even though one cast snapped it can still be used. There is still enough plaster mix to make one more large cast and by not filling the mould up fully you can select different depths of the mould to make smaller individual castings unique to your layout. Even though the castings are all the same subtle differences in painting can make them all look distinct.
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Making your own rock mould
Having recently toured a model fair at my local sports centre I was a bit dismayed at the price, even at the fair, of cork bark for cliff and cuttings. I know that this is not a new idea and many who look at these pages will have done the same as myself and made their own rock face moulds for plaster casting.
I began with a trip to a local log merchant for some suitable bark lumps. Next came a visit to hobbycraft for latex and plaster and a big bag of lichen – the lichen has nothing to do with the casting except for disguising the joins.
I selected a piece of bark with plenty of nooks crags and fissures. My reasoning behind this is that if you are going to try something new make it as hard as possible so that you can determine whether it is feasible or not. As you can see from the photo that my trial piece is approx 8” long, this will give a good indication of how much liquid latex I would need.
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I began to “paint’” the whole of the top of the piece of bark with a thin coat of liquid latex making sure that all the nooks and crannies were completely coated.
Once this coat had gone off I applied a second coat, then a third. When I thought that there were enough layers to make a sound foundation I literally poured liquid latex onto the top coat to give the mould thickness and durability. When this last coat was completely dry (24 hours minimum) I very carefully began to peel the latex from the bark. This part took nearly 15 minutes as each nook and cranny had to be teased out to avoid tearing the latex.
For the plaster I just use light plaster from hobbycraft which is available in bags of 1KG for £2.99. I mixed the first batch and poured. After 30 minutes and a quick pint round the blacksmiths I tentatively returned to a hardened plaster cast. Being careful not to tear the mould and break the cast I separated the two. Then getting my paint box out I began to randomly brush colours into the surface of the rock. A complete disaster!
The colours were all wrong and the stark white of the plaster added to mayhem. I was perfectly happy with the casting however so decided to mix some more plaster but this time I added a few drops of black water based paint. The new casting was a great improvement as it came out of the mould already rock coloured – ish. Less vigorous strokes with a paint brush using only browns and greens produced this
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