Glue Shell Scenery

[John]

In the current RMC, Howard Zane has an article on making scenery using a technique he calls "Glue Shell". Most of us who have / are building layouts have probably tried many of the tried and true techniques .. hard shell plaster over some sort grid, styrofoam, or variations thereof ...

Howard ( whose layout I have visited ) has some of the most fantastic scenery I have seen .. a sample is here http://www.horailroad.com/piermont/piermnt.html, and even though it is HO, can give inspiration to us N scalers .

Glue shell is a variation of hard shell, but instead of putting plaster soaked paper towels over a cardboard grid, he uses a brown builders paper, called rosin paper, and elmers glue ..

I am trying out the technique in a small area of the upper level, to see how it will work (pictures will follow soon) .. I hot glued and stapled a cardboard grid made of small strips of cardboard to the benchwork/fascia. I glued the first layer of the brown paper to the cardboard strips, then brushed on a slightly diluted coat of white glue .. the glue/water mixture helps the brown paper to settle nicely on the cardboard grid, and gives a good base for subsequent paper / glue layers .. About 3 layers of paper and glue seems to do the trick .. The form dries very nicely, into a pretty hard shell.

[wm3798]

I'll be interested to see your results, John.  The pictures of Zane's layout don't really show me much.  Perhaps it's just the photography, but aside from his well-detailed vignettes, the layout just looks like a typical HO spaghetti bowl.  The scenery looks complete, but there's nothing exceptional about it to my eye.

I'd rather look at Ed's door layout with a single track wandering through some nicely done trees than Howard's overwhelming stacks of tracks.

Lee

[tom mann]

I was impressed with the foam techniques in the November '06 MR.  Instead of stacking foam sheets horizontally, the author stacked them vertically to avoid the "wedding cake" look.

[elogger]

i've got a coworker that is going to use this technique on his layout... right now he's in the tracklaying stages though... he's got a website somewhere that he's been posting his progress on... i just don't know what it is...  ??? i'll have to ask him how he's coming along and if he has in fact posted anything on said website...


later
jeremy

[Ian MacMillan]

I am trying this on my new layout also. However instead of the cardboard web I am using metal window screen material because I want more support for things like trees and line pole.  I went out and got the rosin paper at Lowes last week, $8 for a 36"x100' roll.

[Catt]

Being of Dutch extraction I kind of like doing things as cheaply as possible. That said here is my way of doing basic scenery.

I start with shaped pieces of blueboard (or what ever colour I can find) then cover them with the used drier sheets my wife would other wise pitch in the trash.

Depending on what the scenery will be I will either soaked the sheets in Elmer's or just glue around the edges letting the scenery adhesive do the securing.

The drier sheet material (cloth?) is available from your local fabric shop too.I believe it runs about $1.20 a yard,but like I said I'm a Dutchman (and a damned cheap one at that  ;D ).

[John]

Ok .. something to show you ..

This is the new NOLIX area .. I have to get the track to rise another 4 or 5 inches ..


Here is a shot of the bubble


A closeup



and another closeup

[Ian MacMillan]

Hey that looks pretty good John. About how long it take you to get that far?

[tom mann]

not bad at all!  sprinkle that with groundfoam! ;D

[John]

Hey that looks pretty good John. About how long it take you to get that far?

about 3 days .. 1 - 2 hours each day .. it needs a good 24 hours to dry ..

[tom mann]

John, maybe a coat of sculptamold to smooth it all out?

[John]

John, maybe a coat of sculptamold to smooth it all out?

well .. most of that will be covered by trees / but I think those areas that will be just "groundcover" will need some smoothing .. probably a skim coat of drywall stuff ..

[Caleb Austin]

Plus, its kinda hard to add sculpamold to glueshell. the glueshells to slippery

[wm3798]

AHA!  Envirodude hit the nail on the head!  When wetted down for the application of other materials, the white glue would get slimy, no?

I knew there was something about this recipe that didn't sit well with me.  I wonder if you mixed up a runny batch of hydrocal and "painted" it on if that would help to stabilize the surface.  Either that or a coat of paint?

What's the recommended process for that stuff?

Lee

[John]

Well .. lets see how this develops ..