Page 23 - 39. MRH13-05-May2013

Up the Creek Column - 2
2: Here's a top view of
a coved backdrop with
.040" styrene sheet
shoved into the corner
and held in place with
staples and spackle.
The flat areas adjacent
to the coving allow
the coving to flex with-
out cracking the seam
between the spackle
and styrene.
2
.040"
styrene
with free
flowing
curve
staples
spackle
fillets
3: A piece of .040" sheet styrene about 15" x 48". The
edges should be trimmed neatly so a good mechani-
cal joint will be possible between the styrene coving
and the spackle fillets.
3
4: Test fitting the sty-
rene in the corner.
The sheet needs to be
slightly shorter than the
corner it will be filling,
otherwise getting it in
place will be difficult.
I usually leave the gap
at the top where it will
be less noticeable. If the
joint between the bot-
tom of the styrene and
the benchwork will be
hidden by scenery, a
bottom gap is good, too.
4
I used .060" sheet styrene for my first attempt at coving a back-
drop corner on my current layout. Styrene this thick doesn't like
extremely tight curvature but worked OK for the 10" radius in the
Canyon Creek corner. The corner in Oakhill required a much tighter
radius, approximately 3", so I switched to .040" styrene which is
much easier to bend. I was concerned the thinner sheets wouldn't
have enough edge thickness for the spackle to hold it in place, but
this hasn't proved to be a problem.
While the .060" styrene seemed to work well at first, over the
seven years it's been in place small cracks have developed in the
seam between the styrene and spackle (24) while no cracks have
are visible in the corners where I used .040" styrene. I'm guessing
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MRH-May 2013