It was Chris Nevards fantastic scenic work here on the forum which convinced me to try Silflor, I had come across the product before but had not seen it used as well as on the layouts created by Chris. A quick email to Richard at International Models resulted in an order being placed for various small mats of the material. This is a cheap way to try Silflor out before parting with your hard earned cash, because a full mat which is approx 19.5 " x 13.5" is rather expensive.
So what do you get for your money ? Well Silflor is like a carpet of individual grass fibres, it comes in various shades which represent the four seasons of the year and of different length fibres. It is advised you select shades of matching seasons for example in my case summer and autumn as I wanted to represent the long sun bleached grass which appears towards the end of summer.
The following pics.show Winter Pasture, the base of the mat is a lush green but the tips are are pale green and straw colour.
It is very tempting to just lay the whole mat in place but this is not the way to go about things. It is far better to use clumps of various shades and length of fibres, mixing them up as you go along to create a patchwork of colour and texture.
The following photo. sequence shows how the grass is best used. First break off some clumps and fix them into a bed of neat PVA, note the slight colour changes and different length grass. Slowly add more material until you have the effect you seek. The small path was made with Carrs ash ballast and in the very last couple of pics. static fibres have been added to give even more variation in colour and texture. These have been added by spraying the Silflor with hairspray and applying the fibres with a cheap puffer bottle.
So there we have a brief guide to the product and it's use, if there is enough interest in part 2 I will show how the overgrown track was created.
Cheers,
Geoff
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