Plaster of Paris

I begun my second day of work attempting to glue the polystyrene pieces down. Apparently PVA doesn't work, and the craft glue I used destroys the polystyrene, but I got enough to vaguely hold things in place which is all that was required. I also used some nails for the bottom level to stop it drifting.

Mixing plaster is new for me, and it wasn't too hard to get the consistency. The issues were with the quick setting, messy and hard to shape material. Eventually I managed to work out how to get it down and things sped up a little. Shortly before I got to the point I wanted to be I ran out of plaster, so things got delayed further by shopping trip.

After waiting for the plastic to (kinda) set I experimented with a few ways to smooth out the bumps and holes, which were far worse than I was hoping. Sand paper was quickly destroyed by the plaster and a file didn't achieve a lot. I used a rasp to do a significant part of the job, but it was slow progress as I constantly had to clean out the rasp.

As I was cleaning up my father came up and attacked the plaster with a chisel. The bad part was things were no longer clean, but the good part was I found a chisel does a very good job of shaping the plaster, so I spent some more time using this method.


For reference here is the track next to a 50c piece.

First Post

I have begun creating my first train set and decided this is a good medium to document my progress, as it worked well for me on my trip. It may not have worked for others, but it matters less for this anyway.

I have been planning to start a set for a while and was given a starter set of track as a present. I've been throwing grand ideas around of large circuits, computer controlled systems, turntables, automated operation and so on. I decided that my chances of getting that all to work first time was slim, mostly as I had no idea how to do the physical construction and what the limitations where, so I scaled down.

My first set is a simple double loop. The rail is not isolated so only one train will run on it. There is a small siding. This allows me to concentrate on the details I didn't know how to do: mounting, hills, tunnels, bridges etc.

I had a basic plan from a book which I was scaling to suit. After spending hours with a calculator, square, metal ruler and pencil making marks all over the base board I put the track on and found out it how much more track I needed. I went out to get the track (turns out there are no hobby shops anywhere near Eltham, why is this?) and came back with a train, two carriages, a bridge and more than enough track. Assembling my newly completed layout proved that is just didn't fit it my carefully scaled and drawn notations, so I just fudged it in and ignored all my markings. The original design was 640x660, this reshuffle pushed it out to around 670x670 (I think, I haven't actually measured it).

Next I removed the track and drew contour lines all over the place to add the required features. I went with 10mm as it sounded like a reasonable amount. The original plan was in inches, but there was a lot of fudging from that anyway, so it worked out. I managed to find some 10mm polystyrene sheeting in my father's shed to cut out as a level to build up the contours. This would have been great, except for the fact there wasn't enough to do a single layer. I went out shopping, but the closest I could find was 13mm, which meant redoing all the contours. When purchasing said material I was asked if it was for a model train or Warhammer - I think the Clark Rubber staff know their customer base.


Finally with the board marked up beyond reasonable comprehension I cut out the polystyrene and built up the levels. I ran out for the last contour, so I used the 10mm stuff there which should do the job. All up I'm very happy with one day's work.