Thursday, November 22, 2012

Building Hills


I have been building some scenery and trialing different methods to build the land form on the Bogong & Geehi. I had planned to use wire netting as it is cheap, and easy to shape. It has the advantage that you can quickly see the finished contours with out making much of a mess. I then cover the mesh with no brand dish clothes soaked in white glue. The disadvantage is when one wants to cover the hills with trees to simulate a forest. The mesh hill doesn't really provide much support  so I have tried wiring sheets of Styrofoam to the underside to give me something to poke the trees in with mixed success.
 
 
I have seen layouts that have used white Styrofoam for their landforms and I have used it in the past but finding it our here in the country at a reasonable price  has been a challenge. A recent visit to Bunnings found that I could buy sheets of Styrofoam sold in packs for insulation. I brought a pack home and have been experimenting. It is certainly messier and slower to build, but....it does make a more stable and more versatile land form. The train shed has its own vacuum cleaner which makes dealing with the mess as I shape the foam a lot easier. I have also covered the foam with the dish cloths soaked in glue.
 
I think the foam option will be the way I will go. Even though the cost is higher, for me the positives outweigh the negatives.
 
 
It is nice to finally see trains running through some scenery even if the hills are bare and lacking vegetation. I need to put a layer of soil to cover the blue. I tried just painting with a brown paint and sifting my usual brown grout but I can still see the edges of the cloth so I will need to add something to hide them.
 
Cheers
 
Murray