Today I have well and truly been brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century!! I've been playing with static grass - the last time I did any scenery on a model railway I used surgical lint a'la Barry Norman.
So having purchased a couple of bags of Heki grass (a green and a beige, both 2-3mm long), borrowed a friends static grass applicator and inspired by Gordon Gravett's book on grass etc I had a go. Mr Gravett seems to advocate blending his static grasses, so that is precisely what I've done too (a mix of about 3 green to 1 beige). The area I decided to experiment on is the Up end embankment (this is the area that all of my experiments take place - point rodding, signalling, ballasting).
A layer of Green Scene's "Flock Cement" was spread along a portion of the embankment (a few pieces of flock were immersed in the glue to hopefully provide a clumpy effect for small areas of the grass), and the first layer of grass fibres deployed. After a couple of minutes I had what looked a good coverage, so the area was vacuumed over and the loose fibres collected in a hanky over the end of the pipe. These fibres were popped back in the applicator and a second coverage deployed to hopefully fill up any glue that hadn't been covered first time.
Once the whole section of embankment I had earmarked for this experiment had received these two applications, some PVA was put on randomly and Woodland Scenics foliage was pressed into the wet glue. After all this had dried reasonably, I then kind of "dry brushed" PVA to the tips of some of the previously laid grass fibres, and a further deployment of just beige fibres applied to these PVA patches. Only small areas (no more than 2" square) were done at a time as I felt that the small amount of glue would dry very quickly. After each patch had been treated, the residue was vacuumed off and used on the next section.
For a first attempt, I'm fairly satisfied with the results (photo's below). I probably need to attack little areas with a pair of scissors and/or tweezers to thin out some of the clumps though.
3 photos showing the grassy embankment which also show the Baulk Road and Point Rodding along the embankment
Having taken the above photos, I couldn't resist the opportunity to show my Metro tank and 4 wheel coaches in their natural environment
Ian
- 24
17 Comments
Recommended Comments
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now