Lamson bash

[ACL1504]

Dave,

The shingles look great and the scenery is coming along nicely. I like the idea of the hills behind the area of Lamsons.

Tom

[Bernd]

Following along here as you get into the scenery to see what tips I can pick up. Looks like our scenery up here in the Northeast is about the same, you being in New Hampshire and me New York. I've got a bucket of real rocks I'd like to incorporate into my scenery.

Bernd

[deemery]

Following along here as you get into the scenery to see what tips I can pick up. Looks like our scenery up here in the Northeast is about the same, you being in New Hampshire and me New York. I've got a bucket of real rocks I'd like to incorporate into my scenery.

Bernd

Well, it depends which part of New York.  Once you're west of the Adirondacks, the geology changes a lot from the folded rocks in the mountains to the flatter sedimentary rocks that stretch pretty much from the Appalachians to the Rockies...  There's almost no sedimentary rock in NH.  It's either granites or similar (hence 'the Granite State') or metamorphic rocks.  A lot of that is modified and folded sedimentary rock, so you can see some strata left over, but not those nice long bands of rocks.

But I'm doing more sedimentary rocks on my layout, it's more fun to me to model and it represents the western Pennsylvania side of my notional railroad's geography.  There are some other parts where I've done more typical New England rocks (particularly the mill valley with the stone arch bridge.)

dave

[Bernd]

Very interesting Dave. We're in the clay here south of Rochester, NY.

Bernd

[deemery]

Very interesting Dave. We're in the clay here south of Rochester, NY.

Bernd

That clay is the remnants of the mountains to the east, weathered and washed out onto the plains.... 

dave

[Michael Hohn]

Much of the soil cover in Western NY was deposited by glaciers or glacial lakes. It tends to be rich in lime and excellent for agriculture.  The sediments are a mix of material brought down from the Canadian shield by the glaciers and that brought over from mountains to the east, as Dave describes.  I assume the lime comes from sedimentary formations like the extensive Onondaga (Devonian) and Lockport (Silurian) that underly and crop out across the region south of Lake Ontario, and quarried by Bernd.

Mike

[deemery]

Much of the soil cover in Western NY was deposited by glaciers or glacial lakes. It tends to be rich in lime and excellent for agriculture.  The sediments are a mix of material brought down from the Canadian shield by the glaciers and that brought over from mountains to the east, as Dave describes.  I assume the lime comes from sedimentary formations like the extensive Onondaga (Devonian) and Lockport (Silurian) that underly and crop out across the region south of Lake Ontario, and quarried by Bernd.

Mike

Yeah, I forgot about the glacial weathering...  (The difference between duffers and people who know what they're actually doing...)

dave

[deemery]

Here's the plaster cloth covered with a layer of tinted wallboard mud.  I'm experimenting with dry wallboard mud colored with a combination of concrete tints and regular pigments. 

The color is really too red-brown, but I'll be painting over this.  The important thing is that, if it chips, there won't be white showing through.  Next step, after this dries, is to fill in around the plastic "rock castings" with Sculptamold, and then to go over and paint the entire area my actual scenery color.   The primary goal for this layer is to seal and hide the seams i the plaster wrap.  The 'wallboard mud' is applied mostly with a chip paintbrush, but on occasion I also use a putty knife to work it into some areas where the paintbrush doesn't get the right effect. 

I did a bit of an experiment, putting some water on the dried wallboard compound.  It does soften, but not as much as the pre-mixed stuff softens.  But I'll report on how this works as I apply more water-based scenery.  Part of the thing I'm pondering now is "how to make good looking foreground forest canopies."

dave

[deemery]

I mixed up some Celluclay with thinned paint & water, so this is closer to the beige that is my scenery base color.  I filled in around the rock sheet edges

Now I need to do something else for an hour or so, until the Celluclay reaches that magic starting-to-set state where it's easy to smooth out with your finger....

dave

[Michael Hohn]

Nice, Dave.  The rock has that metamorphic look.

Mike

[deemery]

Tomorrow I'll prime the rock black.  That way the subsequent coats always work on top a layer of shadows.

dave