Wednesday update.

Wednesday update.

Took day off yesterday and got a good 5-6 hours in on layout.

The rock mold learning curve continued. Adding some more photos to get any hints people have and also to share what I am learning hoping it saves someone else some time and money.

Also putting rough scenery for the redesigned Huntsman. Pulled out photos from Trip to Colorado to try and customize the scenes to the local.

Redesigned Huntsman:
Put in cardboard webbing, installed Plaster cloth and my wife coated with Sculp-a-mold.

Here is the Huntsman cut-out roughed in. Plenty of room for the Section-house and small mine. Next will add rocks and determine mine entrance.

Have this wild idea to make an animated ore car being pushed back and forth with light in mine. Not sure if practical, but an idea anyway. Some friends over at HON3chat are doing a lot of animation on Blackstone loco's.

More on molds:

The before, plain roughed in wall with cardboard, plaster cloth and sculpt-a-mold to add strength.


Hopefully this gives you an idea of the (hopefully) correct consistency of the plaster.


Pour in and spread with spatula, like making a cake.


Filled mold, smoothed out. no little lines and still too glossy so not set enough to put on layout.


Little hard to see, but as I lift the mold you can see not as glossy and little tiny stress fractures show starting to set. Still soft enough to mount without running out of the mold.

Lift with 2 hands and press in place on layout. Make sure you press all around mold to get a good bond to the rough surface. If not it will break off and your will have tones on little rocks (ask me how I know, have a full coffee can of broken fragments in 2 days work). Hold in place about 30-60 seconds depending on the mold size and how well you have managed to get it to adhere.


Mold is in-place. I set a timer for 3 minutes and it generally worked out well. Test a small corner to see it it comes away from the mold clean. All mine worked but one, the plaster separated with part staying on the mold.

The reason you want to pull off after 3-5 minutes is the Dental Plaster is still soft enough to easily carve. This makes blending to the next casting much easier.


The finished product.

Learned a lot so far. Blending takes some time, but with patience you can really make the two molds look like one rock face.

Tried filling gaps with some sculpt-a-mold. Looks really good, but may end up being an issue when staining the rock, we will see.

Thanks Cameron