I mentioned in part 1 of this series that this was be a 2 parter. Well, I found another project to do on the club layout and I have finally have gotten to finishing it, more or less. It's the river portion of this series. Since we do desert scenery, it will be a dry river. However, by adding a different color base paint and your favorite water material, you could just as easily make this a flowing river.

One word of caution. If you are going to do a 'wet' river, use a scrap piece of foam. Some water materials could eat away at the foam and ruin your work.

One thing I would like your help in, is naming the river. I have basically done all of the naming for the club layout. This time I would like you my, readers to help. I am looking for a good name to call the river and wash that are on the module with Veterans Hill. Please E-mail me your suggestions. Please put 'Name the river' for the subject. When I collect enough names I will present the list to the club and pick a name. I hope you will help. Thanks.

Materials.
2 X 8 sheet of insulation foam. This can be purchased at places like Home Depot or Lowe's. Color does not matter, Home Depot carries the blue color foam. The foam runs about $5 -6 a sheet.
Interior latex paint. Recommend a brown blend.
Then just your supply of scenery items, dirt, grass, etc.
The tools you will need are a box cutter or exacto knife, some type of carving tool, I used my digging bit on my exacto, paint, 80 grit sanding paper and the MOST important tool, your shop vac.
This IS a VERY messy project and a shop vac is key. Do this project in a garage or work shop.

The process.
As always, click on the picture to enlarge.
Well the Veterans Hill project looked pretty good but something was still missing on its module. A river, that's what it needed. So began my next if unexpected project on the club layout.
A dry river bed running through the module.

The first thing I needed to do was draw out where I wanted the river to be.

Here I have done my first pass at carving out the river.

Here is the final rough out on the river.

I again used drywall mud to texture and fill holes throughout the river and wash. This is an excellent medium to use. As mentioned before, dries quickly but not too quickly and can be sanded.

Since Veterans Hill had a water fall in it, I made a wash to connect to the river.

Here is a closer view of the wash.

I added a few 'feeder washes' to supply the main wash.

Now that the river base is done and before I can do scenery, I need to build the bridges. Since the inside bridge is curved, I built a bridge similar to one I had seen here in the valley. The next 5 pictures are of that bridge.

I used .010 strip styrene and .020 x .030 styrene to make the side support for the inside bridge. The outside bridge, I did a basic bridge that, well, I need to replace. Did not quite work.

Here are the bridge bases. Cut to fit.

I cut the support wall and tested to make sure it fit.

The finished support wall.

Time was short as I had to have a bridge done for GATS. I used a truss to form the bridge sides.

The outside bridge done except for the black paint.

The inside bridge underside. The top of the leg structure will fit on the bracing.

The bridge leg setup was a challenge. Getting the right angle for the legs to fit with the form of the river took a lot of trail and error. I basically had to cut into the foam/drywall mud to get the legs to seat and ensure the line of sight was correct so the legs looked correct under the bridge.
Another thing I learned doing this was that you could use ballast glue to secure your sand. It may take longer to set but you can adjust the scenery as you need, pile it up, pour it then glue it place. I was very pleased with the results.

Here you can see the legs setup in line to support the bridge. At the left you can see the slat retainer wall.

My first pass at laying the sand

A shot of the whole river.

A close up shot. You can see the slat retaining wall better here.

Time to check the fit of the bridges with the cork road bed.

The inside bridge finished except for a bit more scenery.

The 'finished' project.

From a different angle.

A close up shot.

Well, this will conclude this series on scenery with blue insulating foam. Although messy to work with, I found it very easy to sculpt and work with. For someone, like me, with limited scenery experience, this is a great way to learn.

As I do more scenery work, I will update you as to how it goes.

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