In my last post, I only had one layer of glueshell scenery down and I was switching from diluted ModPodge to full-strength Elmer’s GlueAll. My hope was that the full-strength Glue-All, coupled with the second layer of paper, would create a nice rigid scenery shell. Unfortunately, that plan didn’t come together exactly like I’d hoped! The full-strength GlueAll is still pretty rubbery, flexible stuff after it dries. The second layer of paper did help to make things a bit more rigid, but not nearly as hard as a plaster shell. This can be a good thing, though. My layout is intended to be semi-portable. Scenery that has some give to it will be less likely to be punctured or cracked as things get moved around.
I had some places where the paper shrunk as it dried, which created some interesting landforms. By far, the glueshell did the best job in the places where it was well-supported by the benchwork. It’s not a good idea to try to cover vast expanses of unsupported areas with cheesecloth, paper and glue. If you’ve got this situation, either use a stiffer plastic or even metal screen in place of the cheesecloth or use a stiffer medium than the glue (plaster is a good example). Hindsight being 20/20, I really wished I’d used undiluted PVA (wood glue) as my medium throughout. It’s $30 a gallon at the local big box store, but it dries much stiffer than either ModPodge or GlueAll.
Good news is, I’ve got the opportunity to give this a try: I’ll be using Titebond 3 to attach the glueshell to the fascia; an area where a good, stiff connection is critical. I’ll let you know the outcome. I still love the glueshell scenery and I’ll continue to use it, but I did learn a lesson about unsupported scenery this time around…
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