Dirt

 

Dirt.  It's the base of the earth, at least the part we see everyday, right?  Dirt has finally arrived in the coal mining area. I've got approximately 20% of the railroad now covered with dirt, along with rock detail, and some of the track ballast. 

In the photos above, the area is still wet from the glue, and will take a few days to completely dry.


Some detail on how I do it - there are as many ways to create model scenery as there are models and modelers.  I chose to try, for the first time, a rigid foamboard base.  The material is expanded polystyrene (EPS) sheet - it's the stuff you see at HD or Lowes known as rigid insulation foam.  More often than not, you see it in a pink color from Owens Corning;  most of mine happens to be from Dow, and is light blue.  Same stuff.

What is not the same, but similar, is white beaded styrofoam, commonly used as packaging material for TVs and such.  This would work, but because it is made by compressing beads of expanded polystyrene together to create a form, is can be a real mess when you cut and shape it.  Plus, the flat sheets of EPS, which come in a variety of thicknesses, are better suited to cover large areas.

That's not to say, working with EPS is not messy!  It does cut, sand and shape very nicely, with a variety of tools, but the material cut away can hold a lot of static - it actually jumps up onto my arms and clothes as I sand it!  So, I try to do cuts with knives and hot wire tools in the basement (less mess), and most sanding in the garage.  A shop vac and compressed air are very necessary!  The foam sections are glued in place to the benchwork structure.





Some photos to show the foam being fitted into place:
Left, structures in the "company town" - some are just the floors at this point - are fitted where they will go, and a roadway is sanded in.
Below, the narrow gauge mine track is being laid out to go from mine to headhouse.
Bottom, the coal tipple foundation piers are located and glued in place.

 

Rock detail is cast in rubber molds from Hydrocal plaster.  See the new page on the sidebar to the right on rock finishing.

 With the foam in place, it (and any exposed plywood) is then covered with the "crust" - this is a cellulose and plaster-base material called Sculptamold.  Very nice stuff to work with, blends everything together.  Some small details and plaster rock castings are "glued" in with the Sculptamold at this time.  Above, you can also see some background hills on the wall.  The hills I'm building here will also be covered in trees.

The crust is then painted, and with the paint still wet, covered with a sprinkling of real, sifted dirt.  I actually took a sample of my main dirt color to Lowes, and matched the paint with that.  After the paint is dry, the dirt is further held down with first a spray with 70% isopropyl alcohol (as a wetting agent), then a dribbling of a 50-50 mix of white glue and water.  The white glue dries totally transparent, and rock hard. 

The final step for the scenery base, before moving on, is to ballast the track - you can see that best in the 2nd photo at the top of the page.  Very time consuming, but necessary.  I use Highball brand real crushed limestone (made for model railroading).  It is poured on, spread between the crossties, and shaped to a nice slope down the sides while dry , then is held down with a 50-50 mix of matte medium (an artist's material from Michael's) and water.  The matte medium also dries totally transparent, and holds the stone in place very well, but dries a bit softer than the white glue mix - this deadens the sound a bit better when running trains.

I need to finish building the structures in this area - the coal tipple and headhouse, some company housing for the mine workers, a company store, and a few railroad buildings - and blend them in with the dirt, before adding more layers of scenery - grasses, weeds, bushes, rocks, trees and undergrowth - as well as people, vehicles and man-made clutter.  So I'll be working on completing those buildings.

This is a good stopping point before completely finishing the scenery, to move on to covering the next area with foam and dirt, which will continue around the corner, under the TV, and include the river and viaduct scene.