Once the building of the frame was complete, I finally was able to start with the “terraforming” – what a word. But something I have waited for with some apprehension; as I have not done anything of this kind before. Step one will be to cut frames onto which I will staple a wire mash (and stapling that in place that will be step 2). Luckily I have a good idea how the landscape should look like.
Papier-mâché hills
After starting the terraforming by laying a chicken fence mesh on top of several vertical pillars and by putting papier-mâché; on top, I could for the first time see how it will end up looking:
The second development is with respect to the papier-mâché. When I added the layers of newspaper (well soaked with wallpaper paste) quite a bit humidity was released into the air. And that affected the rails. Luckily, Märklin-Metall rails are not tooo susceptible – but nonetheless: the tracks in the tunnel were affected. I had to do something. I bought a second hand rail-cleaning car. And that did the trick. Phew, that could have been nasty.
Adding plaster
After covering the wire mesh with papier-mâché, I finally covered the mountain in plaster. I was amazed at (i) how easy it was to make it look quite good and (ii) how much plaster one needs! Now I can use a small chisel to smoothen the surface; and then I can start with the greenery…
Below you can see a “test drive” of the mountains will all the buildings in place. Finally, I can see how it will all look like. Of course, as I built my mountain before knowing how much real estate each house would require, I now have to retro-fit the landscape by adding quite some plaster. But that’ll be all right. So here are the pictures.
The second series looks at the railway-related buildings (the loco shed, the signal box, Jamballa station):
Adding greenery
Finally the layout started to turn green: I started to put down some grass foil and a road. That corner starts to look quite good, as you can see from the snapshots (of rather dubious quality – I am in dire need of a good flash light for my camera) below:
Let it be light
The next step was to put up a couple of light masts over the sunting and maintenance yards. Looks good – especially when the room lights are off:
