Cloth and Foam Scenery with Bob Lawson

In this video, modeler of the Southern Railway, Bob Lawson models scenery with foam and cloth. One of the things that Bob has found very helpful in his railroad is being able to go into areas he doesn’t want to leave unfinished and undecided and being able to test it out on model railroad benchwork foam. He begins this temporary scenery with various sizes of foam, in this demonstration simple 2” white foam. He uses the standard cutting methods of modelers using various serrated knives, hot wire foam cutters, and the like. Bob cuts the model railroad benchwork foam to the shape he needs to fill a certain area. When applying any type of ground materials, he has found that the best glue is the 3M super spray adhesive. He sprays this over the entire surface of the foam to prep it.

For the groundcover on the model railroad benchwork foam, Bob uses Flock and Turf scenic texture and Woodland Scenics fine turf. They are various sizes of ground foam that can be easily sprinkled over the prepped foam base, spraying more adhesive as needed. The flock and turf is a blended material that provides more dimension. The fine turf will help cover all of the white on the model railroad benchwork foam, so no pre-painting is needed. Next he adds in some trees, which is as simple as poking a hole and placing in the tree with a bit of glue. He goes on to show how modelers can easily transform unfinished bits of scenery on the layout. For more tips and ideas for superior scenery like a unique technique for constructing model railroad mountains, visit the Model Railroad Academy archives.