The MF&FMLR model railway project: The Mucking Battery or Fort Bean (Part 5)

After I had finished my model battery/fort, I realised that I had no way to secure it to my railway layout so that when I wasn’t using my layout, I could store it.

After giving it so thought, I remembered that Arthur Harman (also known as Arthur1815) has asked if my battery/fort was going to have an earthen glacis. I gave it some thought … and came up with the following solution.

As the basis of my glacis, I decided to use a section of cork pot stand that l bought some time ago from IKEA. I used the bottom part of the wooden box that I had used as the basis of my battery/port as a template to draw the inner edge of my glacis ...

....and then used the line I had drawn around the box to trim the cork to the rough shape that I wanted.

Using the line as my guide, I carefully cut out the shape of the battery/fort ...

... and when I had done that I checked that the model that I had made fitted inside the glacis.

Because cork is quite fragile and subject to break easily, I stuck my glacis onto a sheet of very thin plywood using PVA glue.

Once the PVA glue had dried, I then gave the inside edge of the glacis two coats of PVA to help stabilise the otherwise crumbly cork.

Using a sharp knife and sandpaper, I then shaped the front and sides of the glacis into a slope ...

... and then gave the front and sides of the glacis two coats of PVA to seal the surface.

I followed this with two coats of the same paint that I had used to paint the layout baseboard (Johnstone's Toasted Beige matt emulsion paint).

Once the paint was dry, I used PVA glue to flock the glacis with Noch Spring Meadow (50210) static grass.

I then trimmed off the excess thin plywood and tested to see if my battery/fort fitted ...

... and then glued the glacis into place on my layout.

In the near future I will apply flock to the places where the plywood is still visible in order to blend the glacis in with the surrounding terrain on the layout.