Foam Mountains

Engineer Bob

I thought I would add some height to my layout this year. I have garage door insulation foam that I used as a base for my Christmas village in the past. I sold all of that off, so I thought I'd repurpose the foam into a mountain. If you stack the foam four levels high it's almost the same height as a plarail riser. Here's a picture of the work so far. I'll add more pictures as I progress. Eventually I'll do other mountains with multiple levels of trains and a tunnel but I'm going to start out simple with this one.

Super

I am going to be very interested in this Bob as I have been wanting to do this for quite a while. What did you use the carve the details on the sides?

Engineer Bob

I use a hot wire from a company called Foam Factory.

Super

Ahhh....I have seen those by that manufacturer. Did it come with other attachments?

Engineer Bob

Here is the top of the mountain. I'm not sure if ill carve the top or leave it flat and add a few houses or other scenery items.

Super wrote
Ahhh....I have seen those by that manufacturer. Did it come with other attachments?

No, I just bought the individual item with a power supply. Later I bought a straight knife which connects into the same power supply. It was a cheaper way to go.

Super

Looks great, have you done this before? The carvings look very smooth. My first step was to pick up one of these which can be removed from the table and used free hand but I do want to add to the tools something like what you have

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Engineer Bob

Yes, I've done a few pieces before. The foam knife makes it easy. EPS foam is more sturdy and smoother but the styrofoam is okay too, and I've had it laying around. I figures I needed to do something with it or get rid of it. The basement is full of too many things. I like foam cutter you are looking at. I've considered getting a table model at some point.

Super

What I like about the table top unit is to cut pieces of foam to fit in particular spaces like foam blocks for storing these trains and for pieces for packaging delicate items or padding things in toolboxes or drawers.

Engineer Bob

Yes, that is a great idea. I like because you can make very straight cuts with it. Since the base of my mountain is two pieces I have to do some trimming to get them to sit closer together so the seam is not as noticeable. A table wire making an exact straight line would be perfect for that.

Super

I clamp a make shift fence to cut the straightest line I can at the measurement I want, just like using a table saw for cuting wood. I would imagine that the more expensive ones have a fence included but this was one of the cheapest I good find on Amazon because I wasn't planning on using it a lot. I also was looking into make stand alone outcroppings and cliffs to be placed around the layout.

Engineer Bob

Yes, its amazing whay a few terrain pieces can do to spruce up a layout. I notice on the official Plarail videos they use similar techniques and it looks fabulous.