Landforms Around the Trestle--Part 2

Trestle scene ready for ground cover

The initial landforms around the trestle are now complete other than adding detailed texturing with gravel, soil, ground foam, shrubbery, trees, and water. In this post, I will continue to describe the steps I went through to get to get here from where I left off in a previous post.

Fascia clamped in place

While the land forms were roughed in with cardboard webbing and plaster cloth, they needed another layer before I applied paint or ground cover. Since the basic shapes we're present, I went ahead and cut the fascia panel for the bottom of the "U" seen in the photo. While I was cutting that fascia panel, I also cut the ones to finish off the Willow Springs side of the layout. After clamping the panel in place, I noticed that, in addition to gaps appearing between the scenery and the fascia, the cardboard webbing telegraphs through to the surface much more than I liked.

Materials 

My plan was to make a batch of rock castings, apply a layer of Sculptamold, and then apply the rock castings. I started by spraying the rock mold with wet water and mixing up some Hydrocal plaster. I mixed the plaster in a disposable plastic sour cream cup to avoid rinsing plaster down the drain. Following the AAP protocol (Always Add Plaster) I mixed plaster to the water in the cup until it was the consistency of a milkshake. After I filled the molds, I had a lot of plaster left.

This is where I went off plan. I decided to pour the remainder of the plaster into the river bottom and spread it out. While I was not yet really happy with the way it was smoothing out, the plaster started setting up. I rushed out to our driveway and collected some gravel and small rocks. I pressed some of the rocks and gravel into the plaster, pressed the hardening plaster into the banks with a putty knife, and smoothed out a path for the stream itself.

Back to the original plan. I mixed up some Sculptamold using recent dollar store purchases: a plastic bowl and rubber spatula. Then using a combination of the spatula, a putty knife, and my fingers I applied a layer of the Sculptamold to the hillside. My goal with this application was to hide the webbing contours and the mini-holes from the plaster gauze.

Staining the rock castings

After cleaning up the Sculptamold tools, it was time to release the rocks from the mold. I had read in a Dave Frary scenery book that  he liked to stain the castings while they were still "green" or not completely set up. I mixed a new jar of stain with about half and half 70% alcohol and water with a few drops of India ink. Then I used an orange-brown craft paint and a black acrylic to apply additional washes, wet-on-wet, to the castings. As the rocks dried, I experimented with different placements in the cut approaching the trestle and along the creek banks.

Castings on the cut and real rocks in
the stream bed

To attach the castings, I mixed up a small batch of Sculptamold to use as a cement and as a filler around the rocks. I was trying to have the rock castings appear to surface from the hillside rather than look like they were glued to the surface of the hill. When I get to the future step of applying ground textures, I will also attempt to emphasize that appearance. After this photo was taken, I mixed up more Sculptamold and applied more castings to the stream banks. I also built up some more bank at the backdrop to emphasize the appearance of the the creek curving behind the hill rather than meeting the backdrop directly.

After giving everything a day to dry, I came back and painted the hillsides with my brown base color of latex flat paint. For the stream, I used a latex black and blended the two colors for the stream bank. While I had the paint out, I painted all exposed plywood on the rest of the layout with the base brown color. Also, I attached the fascia panel and painted it with the dark Pullman green color I am using on the layout. With the completion of this layer of landform, the scenery is at a point that the track-work and operations plan can be tested before moving on to add additional textures.

Alco RS-3 and Weathering

When the Bachman Sound Value Alco RS-3 was on sale at Walthers last year I added it to my order. It has been waiting for the 4th Division to be ready for multiple trains, so I opened the box yesterday and tried it out. I used the program track to reset its address to 229 (the loco number) and ran it around a bit. The engine sounds cool and it seems to run okay. It has a bit of a lurch going from 2 mph to 3 mph, but I can try to fine tune that later. The "Sound Value" SoundTraxx decoder doesn't have a lot of extra features, but for now I am not using much beyond lights, bells, and horn anyway. In general, I am pleased with it, particularly considering how reasonable the price was.

Today, after reviewing an MRVP how-to video on diesel weathering with Cody Grivno, I tackled weathering the RS-3 with my Christmas airbrush. Well, I started off badly because the Vallejo White, that I intended to use for the thinned fade coat, does NOT thin with 70% alcohol. It coagulates into white splatter dots instead of a thin transparent white. The Microlux Rail Brown does thin with 70% alcohol, so I switched to using it for both a control, fade coat over the initial splatters and as the dirt along the bottom and the trucks of the locomotive.

Since I had a jar mixed up and loaded into the airbrush, I tackled three unweathered box cars. I grabbed them from staging and sprayed the bottom and ends with the thinned rail brown paint for a dusting effect. After cleaning the airbrush, I continued weathering the boxcars with Bragdon weathering powders and a white colored pencil. I brushed rust and soot colors on the roofs, and rust on metal parts and springs of the trucks. I used the white pencil to duplicate chalk marks on the side of a boxcar. Then I gave a quick coat of Dull Coat over the box cars.

Having regained my confidence, I returned to the RS-3. I mixed up a wash of Model Master Grimy Black and 70% alcohol to brush paint into the louvers and other details. After that had a chance to dry, I also used Bragdon powders on the locomotive. While it is a bit more heavily weathered than I originally planned, it certainly looks less toy-like than it did when it came out of the box yesterday. As a bonus, I now have had a little bit of practice with the airbrush.