Scenery With Ceiling Tiles Part 2

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. 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!

One quick note on safety: I had several emails asking about the dust created when using this material. The tiles I purchased are recycled paper products and have no asbestos or fiberglass fibers. However, you should always wear a dust mask or respirator when working with this material. And if you have other items in the area you are working this material near (furniture, TV, knickknacks, maybe a slot car collection!), I highly recommend covering those areas with a drop cloth. The dust travels and settles on everything.

Part II: Texture and Finish
When last we left here, we had built up a single area and went through the steps of stacking pieces of acoustic ceiling tiles to form cliff faces. Next we will start using that same tile material to create other landscaping. A couple of items that I did not mention in the first article will come in handy as we continue. First off, always glue the white side of the ceiling tiles facing down. The gray side absorbs more of the glue and will peel apart easier. Second, place your entire base landscaping down first, then build your cliff sides. That will make the transitions between ground and cliff much smoother and you will have less back-filling to do.

The image below is a schematic drawing of Woodrum Ridge Raceway. Always try to start with a drawing or plan, showing what you are trying to accomplish. This will make any changes that may come up a bit easier to adjust to if you can relate it to the whole picture. With WRR, I planned on making a large paved area that will contain pit garages, grandstands, concessions and anything else I can think of, that would belong at a raceway. The remainder of the table area will be made to reflect the old road courses from the late 50’s and early 60’s and how the rolled through the countryside. Think of Bridgehampton, Riverside or Mid Ohio as they were some 40 or so years ago..

Schematic Plan for Woodrum Ridge Raceway.

Now that you have your ideas planned out and you have gotten past the table building, track design and placement, and the nuisance of wiring and power, you are ready to start the scenery. I can’t say it often enough, plan your scenery as well as you do the mechanical components of your raceway. It will make the experience more realistic and enjoyable. One last thing about planning; try and make sure you keep “blind” spots to a minimum. Seeing a car flash past a small group of trees or rocks going down a straight is okay, but hitting a corner that can’t be seen, may be more of an irritant than a challenge after a short period of time. If your scenery becomes a frustration point, the track will be less enjoyable and worse, it will be harder to get your buddies to come over and race! Plan, Plan, Plan and then test and plan again! Okay, I’ll leave that poor worn horse alone for a while.

Grass, Hills and How to Fill All Those Gaps You Left.
Ceiling tiles are great for making the grassy scenery. Once you have in painted, it is effectively sealed. So a de-slotted car doesn’t get much of anything on it. Using sawdust or packaged hobby grass almost always sticks to your car, no matter how well you applied the glue. WWR uses Tomy plastic track and I have surrounded the track with Midwest HO cork roadbed used for trains. These make great skid aprons and can be nailed or glued to secure them. They paint easily and fit to any turn radius inside or out. To add a grassy area, lay your piece of ceiling tile across the areas you want to cover. It will reduce your finish work if it can be done in one piece, but its okay if you need to make several smaller pieces, just make sure the sections can match up closely with little or no gap as you can. If you do leave a gap, we’ll circle back around and fill those later on. The roadbed I used has a 45 degree angle that is supposed to look like gravel slanting down from the track. I’m going to bring my tile right up to the top edge of the roadbed, covering that slanted portion. This will make the track appear cut from the land, not lying on top of it.

Ceiling tile (L) uncut and Cork Roadbed (R) showing the angle.

Ceiling tile (L) after scrapping the edge to match the Cork Roadbed (R) angle.

One other benefit of using the ceiling tile, it absorbs noise. Since half my scenery is designed to look like pavement and is simply the Versa-board with gray paint, the cars have a bit of a rumble when they go through, but quiet down once they hit the “countryside”. This makes for a nice effect. So back to the ceiling tile, the edge of the tile that rests against the road bed will have to be cut at the same angle as the roadbed (See previous pictures). Do this by dragging a hobby knife across the lower edge of the tile, scraping until you have the same 45 degree angle. Save those scrapings!!!! They will be used in a bit. Check the fit as you remove small portions of the tile. The closer you make the fit here, the less back filling you will have to do later. You will notice that the tile is about 1/8 inch higher than the track and roadbed. We will scrape those to fit as well, after they are glued and dry. Curved sections are where the challenge will begin. I do not have any suggestions that make this slam-dunk easy. Since we do have the option of back filling, I will eye-ball the fit as close as I can.

Save those scraped bits of tile and dust. They make great filler or texture. I’ve seen the same material stained with watered down paint and used as a foliage for trees and brush.

This is the scraping tool I use to remove the bulk of the tile surface.

The pictures below shows how off this can be, but the scrapings we saved earlier will be used to fill these gaps and level uneven areas. Now you have the section or sections trimmed to fit. Turn them over, white side up and place some white glue around the outside edges and through the middle, making sure to cover a majority of the board. Flip it over and place it in the section you trimmed it for. At this point I place a weight on the glued sections to hold them in place and keep pressure on the glued parts. It dries in about an hour or so. Do not try to make any changes or sculpting of the tiles until they are dry. I will let them set over-night if they are a foundation or base piece. After the piece has set up and dried, you can begin shaping the tile. I use a paint scrapper to remove the majority of the large gray cover surface. Once that covering is removed, the pulp paper material is easily shaped with a hobby knife. Remove thin layers at a time. It is very easy to remove too much. You can also scrape the surface with a hobby knife or add texture with a wire brush.

This picture shows how I missed the curve radius on my initial cut. But that’s okay, it will get back-filled later.

Here’s that corner during the fill-in process.

Here is another example of gaps that can be left, but easily filled.

Fill the gap with white glue.

Using the saved scrapings of tile, lay over the glue...

..and stuff down into the gap. Brush off any excess to keep it from getting glued to the track.

You should have something like this, waiting to dry.

Once dry, use a soft brush to remove the excess tile material. You can use a toothbrush for narrow areas or fine detail. Reapply as needed.

Organized Chaos! This process creates lots of dust. make sure you wear a dust mask and cover anything that you don’t want covered in a layer dust.

It’s hard to believe this is the same track after a bit of clean up.

Coloring or painting the ceiling tile is very easy. I actually stain and seal the tile using a mixture of water base paint, white glue and water. I mix the paint and glue about 50-50 and then thin it with water on a 2 to 1 ratio water to paint/glue. This makes for a very watery mixture that is applied with a sponge brush, dabbing over the tiles. Don’t try to brush this on, it will cause the tile material to roll up under the brush. The tile is very absorbent and will sop up the mixture quickly. Try not to apply too much as it will take longer to dry. The paint pigment will stain the tile and the glue in the mix will help seal it. After you allow this to dry, you can begin applying you detail paitning, air-brush, dry-brush or washing techniques to bring out your details. And that will lead us into Part 3 of this series....bring out the details and adding water, trees and other scenery.

Here are the ingredients for the staining/sealing mixture: water-base paint, white glue and water.

Dab the stain on the tiles. The tiles will absorb the mixture and will be sealed for additional detail painting later.

More to come in Scenery with Ceiling Tile: Part III.