Grazing in the grass is a gas, baby,can you dig it: from The Friends of Distinction was going to be my other title as I’ve been laying down quite a bit of Woodland Scenics fine turf as my base before I get into more detail using static grass to build up my diorama.

On my first module it was by pure luck it went so well, but some time had past since I’d completed it and I had to relearn the technique used then ‘cause I’d forgotten it!

Therefore for my own edification I thought best to write it down here for future reference.

two methods were tested out, firstly I tried the acrylic paint base coat and sprinkle cover turf whilst it is wet.

Then the two water to one PVA ratio with a drop of detergent, and then again the sprinkle cover method. Surprisingly both worked well providing good results. I started to use a no. 16 / 582 D.A.S. brush to apply the paint or the alternative PVA mix which I finally stuck to (pun intended) to the pre painted sealed surface. This gave better control for applying ‘glue’ around any obstacle, but then I discovered our local ‘$3.00 or more’ shop had the soft plastic eye droppers stocked which worked even better. This method was also my training for ballasting later.

For me I found it best only to do small sections at a time thus allowing for maximum adhesion of the burnt grass fine turf when applied straight away. One other thing is the importance of at least a 24 hour drying out period after all the grass gluing session is done. It makes it better for recovering any excess turf using a light 50 mm wide brush with soft bristles an a dust pan to do this.

Any ‘holidays’ in surface coverage exposed during this last stage were then addressed with a spot of PVA ‘glue’ where necessary. Finally any remaining excess was vacuumed up.

The use of a ‘sock’ prefilter for the vacuum cleaner was considered for a later project when I can lay my hands on a suitable filter media.

The pictures tell the story and you may notice that the station platforms had to be made in order to finish up grass diorama. More on the platforms later.

Phil