Part of my giant dio requires quite a few buildings, a year into it finally to this stage! I have all the necessary building made from cardboard, all doors and windows removed, but will plaster of paris stick to the cardboard? Will it warp it, or will the weight of the plaster destroy the buildings? The cardboard buildings are painstakingly perfect, I'd surely hate to ruin them if the plaster doesn't work, are there other suggestions that will still utilize my bulidings?

HELP!

#:-)

I would bet that plaster would ruin it. Maybe try spackling take some of the cardboard you used to make the buildings and see what happens using different materials. Eventually you should find something that works. You could check out some of the offerings by plastistruct and use it as sideing/strengthening material they have pretty good variety and it would glue onto your cardboard shell with superglue

If possible I would reinforce the inside of the buildings with strips of wood to help prevent warping. A thinned coat of dilute white glue could help seal the cardboard. Have you thought of mixing some plaster or fine sand with paint? It would give some texture without a big weight penalty. As Blaster says it would be a good idea to experiment on some left over pieces of cardboard, it would be a shame to spoil the work you have already done.

Martin

what ever you do, experiment first. (not on your dio though!)
At this stage you dont want to ruin your dio after too much hard work, its bad enough in the initial stages.
I think that plaster would ruin it, because the cardboard will soak up the water from the dio and either sag or just drop through completely.

Plaster of paris would be too wet for cardboard. You would have better success with drywall compound. Apply it in thin coats and allow for complete drying between applications.

Matt:

I would definitely steer clear of the plaster of paris as it will ruin the cardboard work you have done. Drywall mud also has moisture in it which might cause you problems also.

At better paint stores you can find spray cans of touch up dry wall spray. This can be applied and does not involve the level of moisture content found in plaster or drywall mud.

As others have noted, whatever you decide ---experiment on something else first before applying to your finished product. Good luck on this!



Steve

you could try coating it a few times with dilute pva glue.
I wouldnt dilute it too much though for reasons stated earlier but after each coat leave it say 24 hours to dry, this should harden the cardboard and hopefully give it some sort of water proof protection, ive never tried it so experiment first and let me know if it works, ive a feeling it might.

Thanks for all the ideas, I'll make another building and try different things on each wall. The only thing that prevents me from cross-bracing the inside is that all the interiors are visible, and some of the buildings around the outside edges of the dio are complete cutaways. I'll keep brainstorming and playing around, but keep thinking as well! I'll be sure to report my findings.

High chances the Plaster of Paris will be broken when it dries. I usually mix polyfilla + PVA glue together before pasting it over a styroform..........not a cardboard.

People keep mentioning PVA glue, is this some obvious acronymn that I'm gonna feel stupid for? I don't know what PVA glu is, well, maybe I do?

Ah! PVA glue. I don't know what the heck does that mean but for sure it is more commonly known as Elmer's glue.

It must be a wood glue (not rugby)

Poly+vinyl+acetate... otherwise known as white glue.

Thank you :-), Now I can understand what you're all talking about.

#:-)