Contours

The Woodland Scenics web page opened with a beautiful picture of a creek, to show off their "Realistic Water" product. So I got some of that too, which meant that I needed to come up with some way to include a stream on my Happy Birthday layout.

I used the Hot Wire Foam Cutter to cut out a piece of quarter-inch foam to be placed between the cake and the track at the west end of the layout, and another to form one bank of the stream at the east end. I used Foam Putty to create the highlands sloping down towards the cake for the west bank.

I purchased a set of Faller 2092 Z scale bridges to fit my track and cut one in half with the Hot Wire Foam Cutter (it worked fine, although the plastic of the bridge tended to refuse as it cooled - but it broke cleanly into two halves with a little effort.) Each half will carry the train across the stream where the track crosses it.

I also purchased a Woodland Scenics C1231 Rock Mold. This was intended for use with their Lightweight Hydrocal to produce very hard, rock-like "rocks." But I filled the shallow mold with Foam Putty and let it dry to see what would happen. Some of the rocks came out of the mold intact, some broke - especially where the Foam Putty was pretty thin. I probably should have used the Lightweight Hydrocal, but these should be serviceable for creating rocky outcrops in the forest.

Next, I worked on the stream.