# TABLETOP MOUNTAIN



## R.W. Marty (Jan 2, 2008)

Hi all,
Not exactly sure where this post should go, landscape, model building, track and roadbed, maybe buildings, probably whimsical would have been best.
But here it is.


A couple years ago when I extended the railroad around this end and made this corner (10' radius) I put up a back board with some vague notion of someday modeling a cut bank area just to add some visual interest to the widened corner. 
With that in mind I added the blocking to attach the future screen wire forms to and there it sat for way to long. Last Summer during a club meet a club member and friend asked my intentions for this area. I responded with my vague notion of some kind of cut bank scenery. His response was "you need a tunnel". Tunnel?? that means a lot of extra work and besides there isn't enough room. Well you know how things can eat at you and after a few months went by it began to sound like a sensible idea.













I cut out a templet of the tunnel portal with the clearances I thought would be necessary and test fit it against the longest and widest rolling stock to get a feel for the fit and proportions. Also started roughing in the supports for the future mountain.














Here the widest cars I have , the D&RG drop bottom gons are test fit through the templet which is clamped to the future portal support. The tunnel will be just over 3 feet long and the portal opening is 9 inches wide by 10 and 1/2 inches high. Hopefully that will allow clearence for any future rolling stock. I used alternating 8 inch wide strips of 1/2 inch hardware cloth and 1" poultry netting to form the inner tunnel walls.














Well the portals all of a sudden became an important issue and I had no real idea of how to proceed. After some searching on the net for pictures I settled on poured concrete with rough lumber forms as typical of the era.
After some thought I came up with this form which would produce a 2 and 1/2 inch thick casting reinforced with 1/2 inch hardware cloth. You can't see it to well in this picture because of the bright light but the form is lined with scale 12" planks with joints. 















The really big issue came about when I decided I wanted the date cast into the concrete, boy what a hassle that became. You can find plenty of letters/numerals for casting if you want them 2 inches or larger but just try to find them in 1/2 inch. 
After a long search and lots of emails and phone calls I finally found a local graphics shop that would laser cut them for me in 3/16ths acrylic. As you can see in the picture I mounted them in reverse in the form with silicon, coated all with a release agent then poured the casting using a mixture of plastic cement and #30 sand. The casting came out great but when I tried to remove the numbers I got a lot of chipping and spalling. This wasn't what I had in mind.

Back to the drawing board.














Thanks for your time.
Rick Marty


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## Dave F (Jan 2, 2008)

Ohhhh, this'll be interesting. Keep us posted on your progress..


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## wildbill001 (Feb 28, 2008)

Maybe paint the number black and leave them in place in the form/cast ??

Bill


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Remove the numbers and file their edges so that they slope outwards towards the backing. Under cuts and sharp edges caused the spalling and chips.... 

Shouldn't be too hard to lift them, fix them and redo. It's too nice a portal to waste! 

John


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## R.W. Marty (Jan 2, 2008)

Hi again,

Bill, that is the solution we came up with only we thought black paint was a little to dense so we used black" Sharpie" marking pen and that seemed to give us the color we were looking for.



Here the first good portal comes out of the form with the numbers inlaid in the concrete. You can see in the background how the mold comes apart to allow removal of the portal.














A closeup of the top arch shows how the portal looks with the Acrylic numbers left embedded in the concrete. If the weather loosens them later and they come out that will be fine also. In the meantime it gives the look I was after. Remember these numbers are only 1/2 inch high. All the air bubble/pin holes are pretty easily "sacked" out by rubbing a little dry cement over the casting and spritzing with a little water and wiping with a soft cloth.















These next two pictures show the two portals glued in place and the screen wire made up to the back of them. The 16d nails were bent and embedded in the back of the pour in case they were needed to fasten the screening to when I started the outer layers. The hole in the backboard (white) wall was covered with window screen from the inside and had a vent screen applied to the outside this is to ventilate the mountain interior after it is closed in. 

























These shots show the inner tunnel walls covered with garden burlap dipped in plastic cement and applied over the wire form once they were dry enough to remain rigid I painted on a second coat of cement with an old brush. Once this was all dry it was/is surprisingly strong. Just had to make sure the weight of the cement didn't make the wire form sag and distort the tunnel dimensions.













Another thing I am trying to be extremely careful about is getting all the small holes filled/plugged so that Wasp's and other critters can't get to the interior of the mountain later. As you can see my new mountain is going to have to be considerably higher than originally planned, based on the hight of the backboard, in order to give the tunnel portals a credible look.











That's all for today.
Thanks for your time.
Rick Marty


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## Gary Armitstead (Jan 2, 2008)

Lookin' good Rick.


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## TonyLou (Sep 3, 2009)

Rick, your mountain and tunnel are looking good. But, I like your track more as I like narrow gauge very much. Thanks for sharing.


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## R.W. Marty (Jan 2, 2008)

Hi all,
Back again with a few more progress pictures.

Once the portals were glued in place and the tunnel mudded in I checked once again for width and height clearances with the largest cars and loads. Looks like everything is go.













A shot from each end viewing the tunnel interior. I mixed up a fairly stiff mixture of mud and hand smeared it over the wire and burlap on the inside. I didn't worry much about the tunnel ceiling as it would normally be out of the line of site. Once dry it was spray painted flat brown and fogged here and there with flat black and primer gray. Ballast was added and it is pretty much a done deal on the inside.























The mountain was definitely going to have to be higher to justify the tunnel and I thought higher also meant wider so the next step was to take the dog leg out of the table front. By placing a new rail straight across a gained 10-12 inches in mountain width. It doesn't sound like much but helped considerably with the final proportions.












Next was the roughing in of the base wire forms and wood supports to help hold the form until the "hardshell" could dry. Here I have quite a bit of mountain height above the portal but will wait to see what it looks like once covered. 










Enough for today, will try to get some more up tomorrow.
Rick Marty


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## Gary Armitstead (Jan 2, 2008)

Rick, 

That's going to be quite a nice "rail fan" site for photos!


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## trainman707 (Jan 3, 2008)

Excellent!! Love the tunnel interior.


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## Don Gage (Jan 4, 2008)

Great looking project R.W.! 
The interior of the tunnel looks amazing. 
Please keep the photos coming, 
DG


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## Richard Smith (Jan 2, 2008)

Rick, 

As you know I have a short tunnel segment planned as a scenic block on the POC. I am most grateful that you are posting this string as I've been trying to figure out exactly how to best do it on a narrow segment of the layout. I will of course unabashedly "steal" your ideas and techniques.  

The portals look great Rick. Very nice job. You should consider selling them.


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## Dave F (Jan 2, 2008)

Man Rick, thats looking great. Love the portals, they look awesome.


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## Steve Stockham (Jan 2, 2008)

That turned out _really_ well! I'm going to enjoy watching this railroad unfold!


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## R.W. Marty (Jan 2, 2008)

Back again, thanks to all for the interest in this little project. It has been a learning experience and a lot of fun.

Don,
Glad to see you still here. Are you coming north next summer?

Richard, my friend.
Whatever I stumble around and do that you might possibly use on the POC is yours for the taking, no stealing involved.
However, that doesn't mean I will ever let you forget it if you use some idea of mine







.

Selling the tunnel portals wouldn't work out too well as the freight charges would be a killer. Those things must weigh 30 lbs. 

However I have developed a limited edition kit and if you act now you can be one of the first in your neighborhood to have one. The kit contains 
A 4 digit specialty cut Acrylic number set, 26 lbs of a special plastic cement, as well as sand imported from the beaches of Monterey, CA.
Complete plans for the forms, as well as a bill of materials are also included. BUT WAIT, there's more. If you act now we will also include the 
specialty anchoring devices as well as the "gift quality" Sharpie black marking pen to magically color the numerical castings. All this can be yours
for one easy payment of $99.95 plus shipping and handling. Don't delay, act today! 





Well back to business.

In this first picture the burlap hard shell has been installed over the wire form and the second "stucco" coat has been painted on. By the way the portals, track, etc. were covered during this process, as it is a bit messy. 














At this point I felt that the mountain was too flat on top and needed more height, so I just added another wire form hump on top and slapped some more covering on it. 
As I was standing back admiring my work and congratulating myself for a good idea turned into a job well done, the wife came out and pointed out that with those three humps it made the whole thing look like the profile of a dying Triceratops. After some consideration I decided she was right, Damn! I hate that.
So I told her I would fix it later, that this was just temporary to get a feel for the form. 












If you remember those bent nails ( specialty anchoring devices to you Richard) sticking out the back of the portals, they were wired to the poultry netting to make a solid backing for the hardshell and once that was complete it made an unbelievably strong structure. The shell was held away from the portals to leave room for the rock castings to come right tight to it.













Now comes the high tech part, the rock castings. I mixed up small batches of Plastic cement and sand ( 4 cement 1 sand) in a plastic bucket to the consistency of thick pancake batter, tore off a bunch of pieces of heavy duty aluminum foil and went at it. The foil was pre-crumpled then spread out some, the mud was troweled into it to a thickness of 1/2 to 1 and 1/2 inches depending on what I thought would look good. It was then slapped on the pre-dampened hardshell and left to dry. 
Make sure that non of the foils edges are tucked under or lapped over as this will cause some trouble when you try to remove it. Don't ask how I learned that one. At the edges of the foil I leave about an inch with no mud then when I place the next splat I do the same. I then peel these edges back and add a little mud and crumple these edges down together, this provides some continuity between the splats.













I keep a close watch on the foil forms and pull them when the mud has cured hard enough that they remove cleanly but are still soft enough to carve. After the foil is off I use an old screwdriver and a 3 inch paint brush to carve lines and planes to help join the separate castings and create structure lines in the rock faces. Also I like to scrape the little air bubble holes that invariably show up, a chipped out scratch looks a whole lot better than a little round hole in the finished product. The areas you see without rock castings will be covered with dirt, in this case, crusher fines. 










Note, the repaired or should I say now complete form of the mountain. It is really easy to add another chunk of wire form and hardshell onto the existing, just be sure to dampen any dry surfaces. Wife was right, damn I hate that, it does look better without the triple Tetons. Some of the rock character is visible and paint washes should really help bring it forward. Boy, can't wait to see how this turns out.









Thanks for taking a look.
Rick Marty


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## Gary Armitstead (Jan 2, 2008)

Wow! That looks nice! Outstanding work Rick.


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## chuckger (Jan 2, 2008)

Rick,
Mountain looks very realistic. Good job.

Chuckger


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## Dave F (Jan 2, 2008)

Excellent job on those castings, they look great!. Nice job.


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## R.W. Marty (Jan 2, 2008)

Hi all,
Almost at the end of this little project and we are pretty happy with the results.
The day i took these next pictures was pretty bright and with the sun at such a low angle it makes it difficult to get good snapshots.




The soil, we use crusher fines, has been added to the flat and almost flat spots. This is held by painting on a coat of TiteBond II and sprinkling the fines onto it then coming back with a dilute mixture of TiteBond II and water and dribbling it on. This seems to hold up well, I have had some outdoors for over 3 years with very little problem. Also in this picture you can see the canyon and the "new old bridge" in the background. I posted a few picts when I did that project a couple months ago.
































The bright light makes for a startling contrast between the cement/concrete rocks and the crusher fines ground cover. Hopefully we will be able to blend it all together with the paint washes which come next. 

Nothing left but the painting and the rail fanning. 
This , as Gary mentioned earlier, should be a great rail fanning spot, at least we hope so.

Thanks for your time.
Rick Marty


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## Dave F (Jan 2, 2008)

Just outstanding, wonderful job.


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## chuckger (Jan 2, 2008)

Look's super Rick, can't wait to see it painted.

Chuckger


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## Richard Smith (Jan 2, 2008)

Hey Rick! 

I was going to order 10 of your kits when I realized that if I ordered right now (after all you can't do this all day) that you would double my order. So I'm just ordering 5 kits. As for shipping remember that the post office has special boxes. "If it fits, it ships, for one flat rate". Please send COD.[ ] 

I do think that you're going to be able to chide me for copying your technique though. I really like what you've done in that narrow space.


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## maculsay (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By R.W. Marty on 11 Nov 2009 11:13 PM 
. 
......poured the casting using a mixture of plastic cement and #30 sand. 

Looking good, very nice work!! 

I have been considering doing something like what you have accomplished on a planned raised track I'm doing. Thanks to you a number of my questions have been answered....thank you. 

My worry is about weight of the cement/sand. I've found that by replacing the sand with 4 parts of Perlite or Vermiculite to 1 part cement makes a substantially lighter morter when dried. It turns out that it is carveable when dry and gives a rocklike appearance. 
Anyway, keep the pictures coming & keep up the superb work.


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## R.W. Marty (Jan 2, 2008)

Hi all,
Back again, but this is the final chapter so to speak.
Thanks for your interest through this project, I probably posted way to many pictures in this last group but Shad has just zipped up the speed (thanks Shad) so what the heck.



I don't know how well you can tell from the pictures but the rock castings and the gravel area was sprayed with artist Acrylic colors, the kind that come in tubes. Some color was squeezed out and diluted with water then poured into a spray bottle and applied at random to the castings. The colors I used were Windsor Blue, Raw Umber, Raw Sienna, and Yellow Ocher, for highlighting I used black leather dye diluted in water. I mixed different batches of the same color at differing densities to add to the variety in the finished product. Rock cliffs and outcroppings can be almost any color of the rainbow, this combination is the colors in the area I am trying to depict. The colors may fade over a period of time in the harsh sun and rain but it doesn't take much to spray on a little more for touching up.

This technique is not exactly original with me, I stole a lot of the better ideas from an article in the August 2001 issue of Garden Railways by Bob Treat about his beautiful Snow Creek Railroad. Some of the other ideas came from our members here and one or two of the ideas were actually mine, usually not the better ones







. 
To the pictures















































Gary,
I think you were/are right about the rail fanning opportunities here.














































































Thanks for your time
On to the next project.
Rick Marty


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## dawgnabbit (Jan 2, 2008)

Beautiful rockwork, Rick! 

(I kind of miss that dying tyrannosaur, though  

Dawg


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

WOW, that is nice, inside and out.


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## Nicholas Savatgy (Dec 17, 2008)

I agree, look great........


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## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

I am confused about the Foil part. Did you mix a soupy batch of plastic cement then pourit on the foil the put the foil up against the mointian walls?


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## Gary Armitstead (Jan 2, 2008)

Rick, 

Outstanding! I said it would be a great rail fan spot. Dave and I have to get up there to see your work in person. He said he did not see your layout when he visited earlier this year.


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## R.W. Marty (Jan 2, 2008)

Hi all,
I'm happy that you have enjoyed this little venture.

Steve,
Good to hear from you,
Where have you been keeping yourself????


John,
For the rock castings I crumpled up the heavy duty aluminum foil from pieces about 6 X 6 and 6 X 12, any bigger and they are to difficult to handle. I used a mix of Plastic cement and #30 grit sand (4 cement 1 sand) but any combination including no sand at all will work. I used a one pound coffee can for the measure and mixed one batch at a time in a plastic bucket, any more than that begins to stiffen to much before you can get it placed, at least for me, but I'm slow. The mix is like a very stiff pancake batter. I laid the foil out on the ground or table and used a small trowel to load the foil to the amount I thought I wanted then picked it up and applied it to the hardshell. Be sure to pre-moisten the hardshell. 


Gary, 
any time, just let me know. Dave and Nancy were on a pretty tight schedule when they stopped by on their way to Alaska. we were to busy talking and showing them the local sights to get to garden railroading. Dave tells me that he might get you to come over to Riverside when we are down there in February for the reunion, would be nice to meet in person.






Well as long as I bumped this to the top again i might as well throw in a couple more pictures







.



It was a weee bit frosty on the hill this morning.
What these pictures needed was an Accucraft live steam Shay puffing and blowing into the cold morning air







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That's all, I promise
Thanks for your time.
Rick Marty


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## Gary Armitstead (Jan 2, 2008)

Rick, 

I plan on being there for the reunion. Everyone can trade "combat stories"-it'll be great! See you then. 

I love the "frost on the pumpkin" look!


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## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

Hey Rick 
Thanks very much for explaining that 

JJ


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