Scenery With Ceiling Tiles

by Paul Shoemaker

The level of detail one can put into a race track is only limited by your imagination. Scenery has long been the realm of the model train enthusiast, but is seeing more and more popularity in the slot racing world. All scales are benefiting from this new trend. Buildings, pit crews, landscaping and even spectators are now populating our endeavors giving even more realism and enjoyment to the hobby.

This article and others to follow, will focus on some of the ways you can add some of this flavor to your scale world. There are many options and levels of detail you can dive into. For this first article we will review some landscaping techniques, creating cut stone, hills and ground cover using acoustic ceiling tile. The tile material is inexpensive, easy to shape, light in weight and will take a lot of abuse, so it’s quite durable. I was taught this method by my father (shameless Father’s Day tie in!). He used this concept to model cliff faces and tunnels on his N gauge train layouts. The really great thing about using this tile, is that it works in all scales!

Where to Start?

It is always best to start with a plan on where you want your scenery to be located and what shape and size of space it will occupy. Woodrum Ridge Raceway consists of two HO scale tracks. One high speed banked oval that runs the perimeter of the table, and one road course the snakes its way through the center sections. Tied in with all of that are pit areas, grandstands, medical buildings, rest rooms and everything else you would find at a raceway. Another part of the flavor of “The Ridge” is the winding road course that leaves the asphalted, organized facility area and goes into a countryside setting, like a Bridgehampton or Paramount Springs raceways did in the 1950’s and 60’s.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the design plans for “The Ridge”. Pictured below is a drawing of the track layout and good idea where the buildings and facilities will be located. Although there are some trees and water pictured, there are no clearly marked areas for rolling hills, cliffs or other terrain. This was done partially due to me not knowing what kind of landscape I wanted. I finally decided to make the surroundings resemble those of the area I live in, south central Kentucky. So there are lots of cut stone cliffs, rolling hills and lots of green fields to take inspiration from. I’m building two distinct eras of racing on one table. The oval will cover the 1980’s and 90’s NASCAR scene, while the road course will be modeled after the 1950 and 60’s sports car era.

In this article I will concentrate on the ceiling tile structures. Those will include the cut stone cliffs and the rolling hills and grassy areas. We’ll work on buildings and other parts in future articles. The most eye-catching landmark on the road course is the bridge that separates the racing facilities from the countryside. The road rises in a smooth grade and includes some challenging turns uphill and a set of esses to navigate coming down the other side. The track is elevated and secured to a separate 1/4” thick piece of luan plywood that is raised and braced in gradual increments every 3” over a span of almost 12 feet. The grade levels off at 3” high before returning to the base table surface. All of the area that makes up the at grade will be covered in ceiling tile making the rise resemble cut stone. In addition, I will be capturing a local landmark in the sculpting of the cliff faces. Not too far from my home is a an outcropping of rock left over from where they widened the highway a few years ago. Once the blasting was done, the form of an alligator was left facing the north bound lanes coming into Liberty, KY. This is always a spot my girls will point out as we drive by. The local high schoolers will hang sheets from the back of the gator, for the next big ball game and who they are going to beat. So this had to be added to the layout.

I can’ t say enough about planning. Alligator rock is a huge formation in real life. I would use up most of my table to capture in scale. But I was able to shrink the scale down a bit more and still capture the feel of the real thing. Once my girls approved, I knew I had it done correctly (after several tries!). The following pictures capture the steps in getting this and part of the cliffs built and sculpted.

Picture 1

Picture 2

First you lay out the basic shape. I drew the shape I wanted on the table and then broke pieces of ceiling tile in 1 1/2” strips. I placed the strips without any glue, inside the drawing, removing bits from the edges until I got the shapes to match the lines on the table. Do this step for all of your base pieces first. This process assembles like building blocks or Legos. It’s almost impossible to go back and slip a piece into the middle or bottom once you begin assembling the layers. I used wood blocks (leftover scraps from building the table) to fill in the center section of the alligator shape and to give the center of the formation some support (Picture 1). After you get the base or foundation pieces in the general shape you want, glue them down to the surface. A regular white glue will do the job just fine. Don’t worry if your pieces are not exact. Once the glue dries you will be able to go back and shape the formation. I do this step once I have the majority of the formation built and after the glue has dried overnight. I picture 2 you can see where I have begun stacking the layers to form the cut stone look.

Picture 3

Picture 4

As you build the layers, you can hold pieces in place with finishing nails or by placing a weight on the parts. I used 2” finishing nails to secure the pieces from sliding on the layers and then placed whatever was handy to weight it down until the glue dried. Picture 3 & 4 shows several layers in this process with spray cans and rolls of duct tape being used to weight the pieces.

Picture 5

Picture 6

There are several ways to sculpt the texture of the stone into the tiles. In picture 5 you can see how the surface of the edge is smooth where the utility knife scored the board. I snap the rest off which leaves the jagged surface. Picture 6 shows how I make all of the edge have the jagged or natural appearance. You can drag the flat of a hobby knife across the edge’s surface as in picture 6. You can also use a wire brush and scrub the texture into the surface. Use very little pressure when doing either of these procedures! The material is soft and you may wear away more than you wanted to. As you shape the tiles you will have some fuzzy bits left from the scraping or brushing. Save those bits. They will be used later to fill in areas or they can be used to make grass or foliage for trees.

Picture 7

Picture 7 shows how I’m using this material for ground cover and making hills. Notice all the saved bits and fuzz I’m saving in the middle? A pattern was made from brown packaging paper and cut out. I used thumb tacks to secure the pattern on to a piece of tile and used a utility knife to cut the tile around the pattern.
Try to cut the tile as close to 90 degrees as you can. We’ll shape the edges in the next steps. Test fit your tile to the area you cut it for. Once you have the shape the way you want it, glue it down to the board and hold it in place with some weight. Don’t worry if you cut a bit too much from the edges. That fuzz you kept earlier, this is where it comes into play.

Picture 8

Picture 9

Picture 10

Picture 11

Picture 8 shows the 90 degree cuts in the tile getting as close as possible to the track’s edge. Picture 9 shows how the edges were scraped down to the same level as the track surface. This is done by holding the hobby knife 45 degrees to the track surface and removing the tile material in small amounts scraping along the leading edge until you have the surface to level you want. The gap between the track and the tile is filled with white glue. While the glue is wet, stuff the leftover fuzz into the gap. This will be a messy process. Keep a wet rag handy to clean your fingertips if you get glue on them. You want the fuzz to fill the gaps and not stick on your fingers. Let this dry over night. After the glue dries completely you can lightly brush off any excess that the glue didn't’t hold. You can repeat this step until you have the gaps filled to your satisfaction. If there is some fuzz a bit loose on the surface, it will get secured in place when you paint. You can also take your white glue and thin it down 3 parts water to 1 part glue and coat the fill areas to secure the surface. I haven’t had to do this yet, but the option is there if I find any loose material. Pictures 10 & 11 show some sample areas, before and after they have been filled using this technique.

Picture 12

Picture 12 shows a large area being covered with the tile and contoured to make hills. All of this area will be painted to make a grassy surface.

That’ s all for now. The next article will cover how we blend the “rock” surfaces with the “grassy” ones, using the same tile material for both. We’ll also start some of the detailing processes including painting, dry-brushing, washes and some airbrushing tricks to bring out the realistic appearance of the parts we started with here.

Until next time
-Paul