Here's what I do to hide the joints, and I cut with a knife too... First I spread spakling over it and smooth with my finger. Once it dries I paint, and then add scenery.
If the gaps are huge, then shove another piece of foam in there, and then use lightweight spackle. You can also use a foam filler like "Great Stuff". At first, it'll look like an anime apocalypic toxic spill: But you can carve, rasp & sand it just like the pink foam: It's a bit stiffer, and doesn't take paint as well as the foam. I had to spackle over the Great Stuff seams. I also use lightweight spackle to blend between foam & plaster rock castings: I think it really comes down to how you're going to texture: I knew I wanted more rockish stuff showing through, so I carved the foam & textured with spackle the underlying rock formations. Note that foam, spackle & plaster rock castings all take paint differently, and I've found plaster easier to "wash" while the foam & spackle sponge up the stains: You can see the plaster rock castings in the middle, surrounded by lighter spackle, all on the foam base (you can see the "bare" foam at the top). This was all pretty much the same wash. (maybe double on the plaster, at this point). But if all your foam & spackle are going to be covered with dirt & ground foam anyway, then ignore all the above blather! You're off to a groovy start! I know you're excited to lay track & run trains, but take your time. No use building a beautiful layout on a busted base! I have kids who like to build trees & paint rocks & run trains, so I'm always looking out for different type projects good for them. I'm looking forward to seeing your progress!
filled the cracks with spackle... since i have a ton of that sitting around as well. (im strting to notice i overbuy for home repairs) I'll let that set for a bit, then I'll work on track!
For a minute there I was like "wait, how come this guy's foam looks exactly like MC Fujiwara's layout?"
Well, it is "Great Stuff" Glad you went with the spackle, though. I find it much easier to work with, either waiting until it's 1/2 cured to shape or when its dry you can sand, carve & paint much easier. More picts of your progress!
ill throw some more pics up when it looks more interesting. right now imagine the first pic, minus the track, with the 3 gap lines filled with white spackle. didn't get around to the track last night. I might get it done by this weekend. lots to do not layout related.
Update! found some time here and there to work and get things done... in the breaks i got to work on the layout! biggrin: Slopped all the track back on and traced it out. Finally got the cork down. I would have had JUST enough if i wouldnt have changed the plan slightly and added an extra siding after i bought the cork. baffled: (got the extra switch and rails, but no cork! whoops!) So i'll need to run and get another length. Observances of a newb: Cork is a little tricky at first, but after the first two sections it gets a lot easier. Push pins are wayyyyyyyyyyyyy better than thumb tacks. too much glue is never enough to hold it down. And you have to be really really careful that the cork doenst come up when you pull out a pin to use in another section because you ran out! Next up! The last little bit of cork, then the laying of the rails! Question? How many electric feeders should i throw on? This is a single engine layout. tips on where to put the blocks if i need any at all...
Thanks for the photos on the foam to scenery. I've always wanted try that, and your pics are additional incentive.
progress has been slow. have a new passenger on board who's a month old now, so she's been eating up most of the free time. got the rails soldered and painted in the past week. everything runs fantastic after the soldering. still need to test after the painting. flat brown spraypaint did the trick. next step is to glue down foam for the hills and get it cut to shape.
Progress! Life keeps interrupting me. Ive done some ballast, started a grade crossing and the biggest thing (besides making a TON of rock castings) is getting the river gorge going! My original intention was to make the gorge with the rock castings, but after pondering how to get the rocks to fit AND look decent, i said the hell with it and decided to carve the foam. It came out pretty decent for a first try. After testing on some foam scraps, i finally settled with a watered down burnt umber. It needs a little more, some spots are a little thin. I cant bring myself to wash it over with another color yet, but i know the brown isnt exactly what i want. Had to widen the river by a couple inches to fit the bridges to the proper width. Looks a lot better wider. and no... hills are not done
honestly, i just ran a bright boy across the top right after painting. took a minor amount of scrubbing. I was surprised at how easily it came off.
Looking good! The benefit of hand-carved rocks is that they don't look like anyone else's! (One fun game I like to play is spotting the same WS rockcastings that I have on other people's layouts) Before you get any further with the river or coloring the rocks, I strongly suggest sealing the bottom and cracks between the foam and plywood with water putty or joint compound or laytex caulk or anything else that's waterproof. Otherwise, when you pour your water it'll "disappear" from the riverbed and magically reappear on your table, floor and carpet. With a riverbed that small you can even test it with a 1/8" pour of real water (after you dam the ends with painters tape or a strip of styrene caulked to the ends). This public serivice announcement is brought to you by The Voice of Experience [Oh, yeah: I, too, just spray painted the tracks on our shelf switching layout, scrapped the tops with a piece of scrape masonite, then bright-boyed them when all dry. Works great & takes 1/1000th the time of handpainting, though you can still go back and alter individual ties here & there)
Why about using earth tone paint pens for weathering track? I'm now thinking that might work, for me anyway. Working on a small, 2x4 foot N Scale layout.
I thought about doing that, but a can of paint was $2.50 and took about 15 min to do. so win for me on cost and time.
So today i decided the walls needed another wash of color. Added another Burnt Umber then lightened it up with some gray. May need to give it a black wash, but its looking ok. I added the piece free floating in the river for giggles and grins. breaks up the openness of it and will make it more closely resemble what im trying to imitate. I wanted to get the grade crossing going, so some 20 year old balsa i found while cleaning out grandpa-in-laws workshop came to the rescue. Dunked some in a vat of water and black India ink for a couple days, and *Poof* instant old lumber. I need to add some score lines so it doesnt look like giant pieces of timber, but other than that, the crossing itself is done. May be too wide. I seem to have misplaced my scale ruler, so it may be a 6 lane road for all i know, but i was shooting for two. The spackle between was a little tricky. lots of reapplication when i had it juuuust about right, then a big glob comes up when you just have to mess with it a little more. Oddly enough i learned that if it dries for about 5-15 minutes, its fairly east to smush around with your finger whie it keeps its general shape. So it worked out pretty well. Just need to color it somehow... white asphalt will look a tad... off. Ill get the rest of the road done when i figure out just where everything is going to go so i know which way i need to run it.
