Hobbies And Interests
Things You'll Need
Instructions
Take a pair of scissors and cut a large piece of cardboard from one side of the corrugated cardboard box to use as the base for the tunnel. Make it 2 or 3 inches wider and longer than the dimensions of the tunnel and round the corners off.
Draw a 4 1/2-inch diameter circle on another piece of corrugated cardboard using a drawing compass.
Use a ruler to draw a straight line across the circle slightly less than three-quarters of the way down. Extend the line for 1 1/2 inches outside the circle's circumference on both sides. Draw a 3 3/4 inch line up at a 90-degree angle at each end of the horizontal line. Join the tops of the two lines together to form a rectangle.
Cut around the rectangle. Cut the remaining part of the circle from it. You are left with a tunnel mouth. Make another one exactly the same.
Use wire cutters to cut out a piece of chicken wire 9 1/2 inches wide and the desired length of the tunnel.
Bend the chicken wire into a tunnel-shape down its length. The bottom sides should be four inches apart when it's finished. Wrap the wire over a length of guttering, or other rounded shape, to get started, reshaping as necessary. As long as both ends of the wire tunnel run around the outside of the tunnel mouth shapes and the train will fit easily down the finished tunnel, the exact shape isn't too important. It's a base to support the papier-mâché.
Stand the wire frame on the cardboard base. Squeeze superglue around the wire in places where it meets the cardboard to hold it in place.
Rip newspaper into small strips.
Pour art glue into a disposable bowl, or mix up a dish of thick flour and water paste. To make flour and water paste, mix 1/2 cup of white flour with 2/3 cup of water. Add the water to the flour a little at a time, stirring continually to avoid lumps. The mixture should be creamy and not too runny.
Dip newspaper strips into the glue or paste and lay them over the chicken wire structure. Build up a thick layer all over. Construct the shape of your choice, adding thicker layers for more hilly parts of the landscape over the tunnel. Keep the newspaper strips as flush to the ends of the tunnel structure as possible because too much jutting out past the ends will be harder to trim off later. Join the tunnel to the base with papier-mâché, tapering it increasingly flatter on either side.
Leave to dry overnight.
Trim the ends of the papier-mâché tunnel level with a craft knife and glue a tunnel mouth over each entrance with strong glue. Trim excess cardboard from the entrances if they extend past the papier-mâché structure.
Paint the tunnel and base with a variety of green and brown paints for a countryside effect. Paint the entrances a concrete gray color.
Leave the tunnel to dry overnight.