DIY - Rock Molds?

[ocalicreek]

Harold (hminky) had a good tutorial using ceiling tiles on his website, and that is probably the one you are thinking of. Unfortunately it seems to be offline (!).

Harold is probably changing scales again (or creating yet another new scale designation) and rebuilding the entire site to reflect the changes.

As for rocks, I have used home-made rubber molds and still have a few of the 'masters' that I collected to make them in case I wanted to make more. Been carting those rocks across the country for years now.

The issue I have found with using these molds is two fold - one, you end up with a wall of hand-sized lumps that need to be blended together somehow, or two, you get a hand-sized outcropping here or there with greenery in between. The real problem comes from the size of the mold and a lack of knowledge about scenery in the area a person is trying to model.

One of the better solutions I have seen is the variety of mold sizes and shapes made by Bragdon Industries. Their molds are designed for use with expanding foam resin, but I think you could use plaster as well. It is still up to the modeler to place the rock castings on the layout and integrate them together in such a way that resembles reality and not the 'clone' function on a graphics program.

Another idea besides what has been mentioned so far is using lightweight spackle. I have not tried it in a mold yet - my fear is that it would stick to the mold and not release without destroying the detail of the mold itself, and applying a mold release agent wouldn't work since you have to spread the spackle in the mold with a knife. However, techniques like the foil technique or simply turning a good rubber mold inside out and using it to press the texture into the setting spackle may have more promise. The latter is what I intend to try on my layout when I reach the scenery stage...hopefully later this year.

Galen