Still more about creating the landscape

I spent today's session laying the last of the roadbed supply, then went to get more before work. Plenty to do tomorrow, now!

I also did some more carving, mostly forming the river shore on the branch line right by Commercial Metals and Ergon Inc. I cut the 1" foam at an angle to form bits of river, hopefully enough to suggest a large body of water lying just "beyond the layout," and put in the actual river surface in the form of foam core board that I had lying around. Will post pictures soon -- we're due for a progress gallery.

To blend the banks into the water, I used lightweight spackle. I have been using the same stuff to form "fillets" between the track-level ground and the bottoms of the foam hills, in order to blend them together a little bit and not have these abrupt corners. It doesn't stick to foam all that well, and is kind of like trying to spread cake frosting on a floured board. But with a very light touch it is workable, and it sticks and sands well when it dries.

The ditch-carving described in the last post will take quite some time, as it involves a lot of thinking as well as a lot of doing. Where would the water drain here? Does this look realistic? Am I overdoing it? I am also trying to add a little texture and "undulation" to places on the foam board where things are just a little too flat and table-like.

Getting into the finer points of foam carving

The holidays are over, the rough building of the foam terrain is complete, and I am even well into -- shock -- the laying of the cork roadbed. In fact the whole branch line is roadbedded, thanks in part to the help of young K. and C., who have learned how to soak, cut, curve, glue and pin the cork. A valuable life skill, to be sure.

I am now stopped due to lack of materials, as we're down to one more piece of cork and the purchasing department needs to make a trip to the hobby store.

In the meantime, however, there's plenty to be done.

The laying of the roadbed has enabled the carving of ditches, which has led me into all kinds of other interesting fine landscape shaping. Yes, a lot of that has been done already, but this is much finer detail stuff.

The best way to carve ditches, so far, is to roll a small rectangle of rough grit sandpaper into a cylinder about the size of a cigarette butt. You then simply rub it along the side of the roadbed (after the glue's dry of course), making pass after pass until you're down to the depth of ditch you want. Then get a square of finer sandpaper and smooth the whole thing down.

The effect of this is wonderful. The roadbed suddenly seems like more of a part of the landscape. The landscape thus begins to "embrace" the railroad in that wonderful realistic way. Instead of a track glued down to a board, you will now have a transportation route traversing a landscape with its obstacles.