making foam or ground cover and tree leaves

[Robert Langford]

I am 70 years old, and am building my second pike. I have been making foam ground over using a wire wheel to make the foam. my question is, how do I get the foam from attracting to evering. my wife suggesting using "anti static spray" I have not tried it yet. Should I dye the foam before I brush it or after? The wire works good, but the small foam pieces stick to everything. Any suggestions will be greatly appreiated. Thanks.
BOB
SANDY SOUTHERN RAILWAY.

[Anonymous]

Bob,

Don't make it, buy it!!! There are lots of theories and methods for making your own, but personally I would rather pay Woodland Scenics or AMSI to make it for me. There are lots of colors and textures and unless you have a huge area to cover, it is not too expensive.....

Check out Scenic Express for tree leaf material. YOu might also look at the supertrees while you are there .....

[chateauricher]

Bob,

The anti-static spray will probably work. However, try testing it on a small amount of ground foam. The force of the spray will blow the foam all over the place, so try putting the foam in a large plastic bag before spraying it.

It is indeed static electricity that is causing the foam to be attracted to other surfaces. The static electricity is generated by the grinding process. I don't think there is any way to prevent it other than gently misting the foam with water as you grind it. But then you get wet foam -- not necessarily a good thing.

Your best bet is still to give the anti-static spray a try and see how it works. Come back and let us know if it worked.

[Anonymous]

Bob,
I myself bought some flower foam from alocal craft store,the kind you put in a basket and then put the plastic flowers in ,they had 3 shades of green.
Put it in a food processor to cut it up as fine as you want,didnt take long to make a 5 gallon bucket full at about 6.00.........
gotta save when we can...... thanks

[warner brook]

bob
buy a cheap blender (at a garage sale etc.) put a cup of water in, then while the blender is running add the foam in a little at a time,(cut the foam in 1/2" cubes first).when the foam is ground small enough add some acrylic craft paint to get the color that you want(wall-mart has it in their craft dept)you might want to have some black on hand to darken it and vary the different batches of foam,as not all trees are of the same shade of green.when the foam is of the color you want take it out of the blender and place it on a screen to dry (a small fan set on low and placed at a distance as not to blow the foam away would be useful in drying it faster.when dry you can re-grind it to make it smaller(no water this time)you shouldn`t have a problem with static cling as the foam has been dyed with the acrylic paint.also you can add a little bit of w s lichen to the dried ground foam to vary the texture or a little bit of dried oak leaves if you want to make some ground cover.the idea is that you can make this your own unique scenery.(ps a blender with a glass unit would clean up easier)
have fun the dutchman

[pcarrell]

warner brook has it down...but I use Rit dye instead of paint. When the paint dries it's hard, the dye remains plyable.

[selector]

All very good advice. I support pcarrell's last look at this; the more pliable foam that is died, not painted, will be easier to get onto the tree armatures or whatever you use for trunks and branches.

All that said, the WS stuff goes a long way, so unless you're building a whopper with a large, dense forest, you can probably expect to spend less than $20 for two or three colours. Some buy the bushes or clump foliage, and blend that for a few second-long bursts; it makes great leaves.

[Mark R.]

I've been making my own ground foam for years .... I still have a couple large boxes of the stuff ready to go. To minimize the foam from going everywhere during the "wire brushing", I clamp the drill in my Work-mate and place a LARGE box under the spinning wire wheel. With the bottom of the wheel turning away from me, I feed the foam into the wire wheel. The wheel effectively throws the foam into the box and not any-where else.
To color the foam, I pick some greens that I like in latex paint. I mix the paint 1:1 with water and throw in the foam. Lightly squeeze out the foam and spread it out. Doing this outside on a nice warm, sunny day works well - it will be dry by the end of the day !!! As it's drying, I keep "fluffing" it up to keep it from sticking together. When its all dry, I run some as is (no water) through the blender for finer cover. The larger dried clumps work well for bushes and under-growth.
I originally tried the Rit (and other) fabric dyes, but the dye isn't permanent on the foam. Over time, as the foam begins to break down (know how new foam is almost white, and old foam turns brown?) the aging of the foam overpowers the dye causing the color to also turn brown. I guess this would be cool if you are modelling summer now and plan on modelling fall in a few years !!! The latex paint seals the pores of the foam preventing air from attacking it.

Mark.