Grass for a small HO layout

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know how I can make realistic looking grass for a small (4 x 8) HO layout[?]

[Anonymous]

Check the Woodland Scenics website (http://www.woodlandscenics.com/) -- there's a ton of info there. It's geared towards their products, of course, but there are other vendors who sell similar stuff.

[egmurphy]

There are probably as many different ways as there are modelers. Here's one suggestion, you'll probably get others.

1. prepare the surface by painting it with a coat of latex paint, preferably something close to the color of the soil in your area. This will help mask any bare spots.

2. I recommend using Woodland Scenics ground foam for ground cover (grass). In particular you want their "Fine Turf", probably in several different colors to provide some variety.

3. cover track in the area with masking tape to protect it.

4. Some people sprinkle the ground foam directly on the wet paint. I prefer to let the paint dry, then when I 'm ready to apply the ground foam I paint the area I want to cover with a mixture of white glue thinned with water (I use something like 60-70% glue, 30-40% water).

5. Don't try to sprinkle the ground foam on directly from the package, it'll come out too inconsistent. Get a small tea strainer, put a few spoonfuls in the strainer, then sift it on the glued area, tapping on the side of the strainer with the spoon. If you want some variation in color, you can now put a bit of some different color foam on top of the first color. But if it starts getting too thick you might prefer to wait until a later step to do this.

6. Let dry.

7. Time to ensure that what we've put down stays there. Depending on how think you put it on, some of the foam may not have absorbed glue. Spritz the area with a mixture of wet water (water with a few drops of dish detergent) until it's pretty wet. Don't spray directly at the area, if anything is lose you can blow it out of position. Spray out and let the mist rain down on the layout. Now, while everything is still good and wet, spray on a mix of 50/50 white glue and water.

8. If you want to add more ground foam of the same color (to hide bare spots) or different color (for variation) now is a good time to sprinkle it on the wet glue mixture.

9. You can keep repeating the wetting, glue mix, ground foam, until you get it looking the way you want. But the last layer has to get the wet water then glue coating so it will stay put.


Okay, that's one way. Let's see what else comes up. You can also try using the search function and searching on 'ground foam' or 'ground cover'.

Here's a link to the Woodland Scenics website.
http://www.woodlandscenics.com/


Regards

Ed

[orsonroy]

There are three really good ways to represent realistic grass (with individual blades) in modelling:

1) static grass: made by Woodland Scenics, Heki and Noch (and possibly others), this is individual strands of polyester fiber. You can either sprinkle it onto an adhesive, or use some sort of applicator (sold by the German scenery companies) to make it stand up better. Either method requires multiple applications to look right, and it's difficult to get a lush field of tall grass.

2) Silfor: this is a German scenic matt that you pull apart to make tufts of grass. It worls great, and has the best color of any simulated grass, but it's EXPENSIVE. It's best not to use this stuff for large areas.

3) Fake fur: this is the best method of making large fields of tall grass. You can either find the stuff precolored or dye it with a polyester fabric dye (don't use paint, since it tends to wick to the tops of the fur, which completely blows realism). You can find fake fur at just about any fabric store. The biggest problems with fake fur is that it's too long (trim it with a cheap hair clipper or beard trimmer), and that it's hard to disguise the edges of the fabric.

As suggested by this forum's Joe Fugate, I like using fake fur for large bodies of grass, and then hide the edges with Silfor and ground foam. Do a message archive search for tall grass, and you'll come up with a few illustrated threads on this method.