The Royal Blue said:
Again Paul Sorry for the Hijack.
I am interested in what is said about other methods of landscaping, I would realy like to see how Scott has gone about it just for another view. when I did my first layout years ago it was done with bird wire and paper mash'e and a good amount of ply wood for elevation.
Paul
I haven't any photos — I still live on a piece of plywood — but i have done some landscaping (terraforming?) on a large club layout in town.
Basically, the slope runs from one level to the next, up to 12" in height, with wooden benchwork for the track runs. Overlength strips of cardboard about 2" wide are stapled to the bottom, spaced 3-4" apart, given some artistic kinks, and then stapled and trimmed at the top. Plaster tape, which is sort of like 2½" strips of plastic cheesecloth, is then glued over the cardboard with white glue. Once it sets, tinted plaster is mucked over it, sometimes with moulds, sometimes sculpted with fingers and blades while wet, usually mixed with fine fibers to bind it together. It is quite light and very strong once it dries. It can be painted with anything — water-based tempura is best — it's very cheap, penetrates well into the plaster, and can be applied with a 0000 brush or a 2" wide brush or sprayed, full colour or a thin wash, whatever is required. It looks good with some practice, doesn't cost much, and properly done is both light and strong.
As to Fred's comment — foam, be it extruded or beaded, comes from petroleum. While it may be the case that extruded foam "shrinks" from an ignition source, it will only shrink so far. Sooner or later will reach a flashpoint, fire retardants notwithstanding. ("notwithstanding" is a famous Canadian word that means "all bets are off".) It's like saying asbestos is safe as long as you don't disturb it. It may all melt away to nothing more than a puddle on the floor, but if it gets hot enough, that puddle is going to turn into a Roman Candle.
And to cpN — I agree, a couch with a burning cigarette between the pillows is much more likely to turn into a bomb. Comfy furniture uses different foam products, much more volatile, and there are hundreds if not thousands of house fires each year started by careless smoking and combustible furniture.
But my point is that we do not need to increase the potential danger of a fire by packing our train rooms with combustible products when there are safer alternatives. We don't have electricity in our couches. We
do have electricity throughout our layouts, and not everyone knows enough about wiring to eliminate the risk of a short-circuit.
Plaster doesn't burn. The underlying wood certainly will, but at a lower temperature (easier to knock down) and without the fatal toxins that plastics produce.
It boils down to risk assessment. I could probably store a jerry-can of gasoline in my basement for fifty years without having it explode. But I would never do that, because accidents, fires, are never planned, and having a couple of gallons of gas in the basement could/would make a bad situation very much worse if a fire broke out.
So for me, my choice is to use non-combustible materials for my layout when I can. My paint booth is in the (detached) garage, and I store all my solvents and paint there, alongside my lawnmower and my jerry-can. If the garage burns down, I'd be very disappointed, but my house would be safe. More important my wife and my kids and I would still be alive.
It's just a point of view, and something
never mentioned when talking about landscaping a layout. Which is why I mentioned it.
Cheers
Scott Fraser
Calgary