Removing Sculptamold

I added Sculptamold onto my model train layout, hoping to create smooth land for residential areas and perhaps a graveyard. It did not turn out the way I desired. It was very lumpy with random holes all over. Usually when I go outside the ground is pretty smooth, and not littered with random holes for me to fall into! So, to fix it I tried sanding down the lumps and holes.

I started off sanding with 100 grit paper. After a minute of sanding the same spot, there was no progress to be seen. Sanding with very coarse sandpaper was the next option. I went out and bought 60 and 80 grit paper. This sandpaper started to remove a lot of Sculptamold, but it was leaving cuts from the grit in the plaster and the fibers of the paper compound began to stick up everywhere. Sanding was not working, so off to the internet I went!

I went to a Luke Towan video to see how he manages to get the Sculptamold so smooth. He wets his down with a fine mist spray bottle filled with water before it has a chance to dry and then uses his hand. While watching, however, he talked about removing dried Sculptamold in unwanted areas by wetting it down with water. I figured this was my best bet in fixing my terrible Sculptamold.

Starting off, I sprayed down the Sculptamold with my fine mist spray bottle and began trying to remove it with my fingers. The soaked compound began to easily come up from the baseboard. Using my fingers was not the most effective way to continue .

To really begin removing lots of Sculptamold, I brought out a putty knife. A plastic or metal knife will work fine for this. Using the mist bottle, I applied a heavy amount of water onto the Sculptamold. You will want to wait a few seconds to let the water soak in. Trying to scrape it right away is very difficult because most of the plaster is still dry.

A wide putty knife can remove large clumps of Sculptamold saving you time. I wasn't worried about the roads that got tore up from this. I needed to fix those up as well, so if I scraped pieces up I wasn't worried. This whole process took about half an hour to get the areas I wanted free of Sculptamold. The process was fairly easy, but it does create quite a mess! Have a trash bag and vacuum ready for the large and small pieces.

I hope this helps you guys if you need to remove Sculptamold from your model train layout, diorama, or module for any reason. I am going to be way more careful in the future when reapplying it to the layout. I do not want to repeat this mistake again!

Please enter your email down, if you liked this post, to keep up to date with future postings! I try to post twice a week with how-tos and more. Also follow me on Instagram or Pinterest. I will post many train related things on those accounts and when new posts come out. Thank you for reading guys!