canyon scene

Rocking rocks

Well the queen of Utrainia is away for the weekend, which means it's back to bachelor living for me and the cat, and the bulk of the weekend has been spent in the garage, bag of plaster in one hand, empty pizza boxes in the other!

During the week I went on a collection trip up the road to get some suitable soil. I tried to turn this soil into a clay-coloured paste to cover the raw polystyrene, but instead I just made mud. Mistake #1!

Correcting this mistake, I made a new paste consisting of: "Deck and Pave Grip" (very very fine sand), acrylic modeling paste, water. Mixing these together made a nice gritty paste that I used to cover the polystyrene and blend the rocks into the scene. This worked well.

I then glued the first tunnel into position and filled behind it with boulders. The boulders were easily made: take one zip lock bag, some old plaster castings and a hammer. Put plaster in bag, seal, bash. When done you should have a good variety of plaster rocks.

Making Rocks

A canyon requires rocks, and so rocks I've been making.

Molds

For the steep cuttings near the track I made a latex mold of a rock in the garden. This was a fairly smooth-faced rock and so hopefully will represent where the railroad has blasted and excavated away the rock.

After applying 3 layers of latex to the rock I peeled off the mold and prepared it for casting. To cast it I supported the mold on some card and spooned in some plaster. From the same batch of plaster I applied some to the vertical polystyrene surface where it was to go.

I kept a careful eye on the plaster, and as soon as it was no longer liquid (but still quite soft), I transported it to the site. Using the cardboard to support the mold I bent it to shape and pressed it onto the wall. I left the mold in place till it was dry, then peeled it off.

This worked very well for get...

Canyon progress

Progress on the Thompson River Canyon has been steady this week. Last Sunday I only had a couple of blocks of polystyrene, but over the last few evenings I've fleshed this out into many layers of sculpted polystyrene, and added some tracks.

Working closely from reference photos of the area, I used a saw and craft knife to roughly shape the foam, then a SurForm tool to grind off the rough edges. Then I worked the foam with a knife, breaking off chunks to form rock faces. I used the saw blade to scrape over the surface and add more texture. By the end of the second night I had this:

The last couple of days I have been fillin in the joins between layers with some lightweight spackling compound (Red Devil brand). I have no idea what spackle is, or what it is mad...

Polystyrene Day

Work on the viaduct continues at a snail's pace, however this weekend the Utrainia Engineering dept were proud to erect two out of the four (yes, it's growing) bridge towers. One is going to be the full 100 feet height, the other has a sloping base to accomodate the steep valley floor.

To the right you can see the beige bridge girders, produced on-site from patterns taken from the masters. The two remaining towers still need to be produced, and for these Management has grudgingly conceded that two more tower kits shall need to be ordered in from overseas. The paperwork is currently pending with the government paper-pushers.

Meanwhile, the civil engineering forces have been a little more productive. The base for the viaduct scene has been triangulated and is now very sturdy, so construction can move into the polystyrene phase.