I am building a scale version of mount panarama. any pictures, ideas, or tips about building the mountain its self? Banking tips? the track its self is taken care of. :confused:

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Drool! To bad he didn't make it four lanes. Otherwise one great track. :thumbsup: rr

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Building mountains may seem intimidating, but once you jump in and get started it starts to take on it's course and you'll find it is fairly easy to make realistic mountain scenery with minimal effort. My track was half decorated for years as I avoided the mountains I wanted to build around the elevated section of the track. Then I finally dove in.

There are some great model railroad books out there for scenicing layouts. One popular method for making hills and mountains is called "hardshell", which is what I did. It involves laying plaster cloth over newspaper and rear profile supports. It is pretty strong and resistant to impacts. Little nicks can be touched up but are hardly noticable.

If you are working along a tall back edge, cut a profile piece of wood for your back support, representing the shape of the mountain in the back. You crunch up newspapers and manipulate them into shape using simple masking tape. Then get Woodland Scenics' plaster cloth and start laying it on. Make rigid edges for steep faces and smoother shapes for hills. The plaster will take on the shape of the crunched newspaper and tape for the most part. If you make something that doesn't look natural you can just lop it off and add a new section. Once you get "production" rolling you can move along at a pretty good pace. If you use the plaster cloth, make sure you use warm water it works faster. As you lay on the cloth strips make sure you overlap a lot and then smooth the plaster so the fabric texture is less noticable when it dries. After it dries you can add more plaster or just paint over the cloth. If you want, you can remove the newspaper underneath later, leaving the hard shell.

Paints: you need a good wash of colors to represent natural earth/rock colors. I was able to do some areas with spray paint. Just avoid "hard" colors for a more natural look. Then if you wish, you can add the ground foam grass procedure over the top and it falls naturally on horizontal areas and won't stick to more vertical parts. If you have rock colors on your steep faces it all blends together very well.

There are plenty of photos on my club site and also some on the Planet of Speed Photo Gallery:

http://www.supervipersystems.com/VargoSpeedway

http://planetofspeed.net/PhotoPost

Good luck- keep us posted.
-Scott

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WOW! thanx guys Mount panarama is about to begin.