Model Railway Forum

The pictures show a rough card mock up of a retaining wall I want to construct using Wills plasticard brick sheets as the face. As I've not used this product before and this is a first foray into scratch building I'm not quiet sure of how to construct the wall. I was thinking of using something like 2mm mounting card for the structure of the wall and then adhering the plasticard to this. Will Roket plastic glue stick the sheet to card?

Has anyone got any thoughts/advice on the method of construction?

I use PVA to stick plastic to card.

The only way I could use cardboard on my layout would be if I wanted a post-apocalyptic landscape with giant mushrooms! Humidity level in my cellar today was an unusually low 66%!

I fixed my retaining wall to a length of thin plywood on the work bench and then stood it up in place, I painted the plastic first and then glued it to the ply with UHU glue which bonds to almost anything and only a pound a tube in the local pound shop.I cut the plastic sheeting and buttresses to size and fixed them to the ply flat on the work bench which was a lot easier and more accurate than trying to fix them vertically on the layout.
when the wall was in place I fixed the railings along the top.
Hope this is useful to you Carl L

Puddles

As Puddles suggested, thin ply (2mm) is a much better bet for supporting the plastic sheets. If necessary you can wet the ply and bend it to shape first - the ply will keep the bend as it dries. Same applies to the plasticard as that can be shaped with some gentle heat before ‘setting’ with cold water. Fix it in place with a decent contact adhesive.
Use the card as templates for cutting the ply.

Very helpful replies and images. Thank you.

Just to add that you can get two sorts of ply. Stiff ply and “bendy” ply, the latter is slightly more expensive but very easy to bend useful for all sorts of bendy modelling.

Rgds