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Scenic Cement. By Woodland Scenics. Geez..... no wonder there aren't as many people taking up this hobby as there should be. This stuff comes in all of their starter scenery kits, and is ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE.
Okay. First off, what I got was their scenery starter kit thing that covers like a 2 square foot area. Okay. They give you a bottle of Scenic Cement. Then they give you a spray nozzle. Except the nozzle doesn't fit the bottle!!! whoaaahhh thats a smart one.
blah. I guess I deserve what I got for painting my base, letting it dry, and THEN applying ground cover. But regardless, Scenic Cement sucks. The stuff doesn't "spray". It shoots gobs that clumps up your Fine Turf to make it look like Coarse Turf.
Is there ANY other way of easily securing the initial layer of ground cover, other than sprinkling it on when the paint is wet? In a desperate attempt at salvaging my work, I ran upstairs and got my Ballast Kit (70% isopropyl, and my 50/50 glue water mix) and frantically soaked the turf and dropped glue on it. I am now out of both. Thankfully i don't have any more ballasting to do.
i think I now know why my first layout as a kid never got past the initial attempts at scenery...
DeadheadGreg wrote: ... Scenic Cement. By Woodland Scenics. Geez..... no wonder there aren't as many people taking up this hobby as there should be. This stuff comes in all of their starter scenery kits, and is ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE.
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
I have a little bottle of it somewhere. As soon as I realized it's just white glue and water, I went back to, well, white glue and water.
EDIT: Thanks for the title change.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
So tell us what you Really think of it.
Wet latex paint is the best scenic cement I've ever used. Spread it on, sprinkle the scenery, let dry. May need a touch of a 50/50 glue mixture (don't forget the drop or two of dish soap) afterwards. I also usually use an eye-dropper on the flat areas. Keeps from getting the glue on everything around.
I gather that somebody just went into the high ultra-violet on the frustration meter...
FWIW, how many of my fellow Spanish-American Citizens (must be Spanish-American, being addressed as Senor) remember the wood-and-card kits that came with a little tin tube containing about two drops of acetate cement?
Moral of the story? Use the adhesive that's best for the job, not whatever the kit supplier put in the box.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Substitute white glue for the WS product.
Or paint the 50/50 glue/water mix on, then sprinkle over that.
You can spray white glue/water mix if it is more like 70/30 water/glue, include some detegent, and you warm it in a microwave oven first, BTW.
...and please change your title line on this topic.
DeadheadGreg wrote: Is there ANY other way of easily securing the initial layer of ground cover, other than sprinkling it on when the paint is wet?
Paint the area with white glue and water mix, then apply the fine ground foam. If you already have the fine ground foam down, spray or eye-dropper the white glue and water on it. Then reapply the fine ground foam in the areas that get washed away while still wet. (Wetting the area first with an alcohol mist may help it from being dislodged.)
Once you have the first layer on and dry, you can then apply the coarser stuff and spray it. My choice is to use an eye dropper or other non-spray applicator for the glue mix. That way it doesn't go all over the place.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/
I have had good success with WS's Scenic Cement either applied with an eye dropped for ballast, or in an old (men's) hair spray container -- it seems like a finer and more intense mist than the sprutz that comes out of WS's own spray bottle, which is like what you'd use to water down house plants.
Dave Nelson
Their cement works fine, but the other alternatives mentioned are cheaper and work just as good. I like the Mod Podge Matte medium because it dries with a flatter finish than white glue.
Throw the WS spray nozzle away and go to the dollar store and get a pump bottle of hair spray. (not the aerosol) Spritz a few in the store to see which one has the finest spray pattern. They work great for spraying scenic cement. Shake your glue mix up REAL good and pour it through a fine strainer first to get any chunks out that WILL clog your sprayer.
I just paint watered down 50/50 glue mix first and sprinkle my ground foam on that.
(I don't get what is wrong with the title unless it was changed before I saw it??)
I have found that any thinned glue whether, white, matte medium or the WS stuff, just will not spray properly. Yes if really watered down, to the point of soaking mess of the scenery product a good sprayer will work. As many have already said, I also find it better to paint on a diluted white glue and spread the first/ base layers of ground foam etc. Additonal scenery layers are secured by wet watered (alcohol, water detergent) then dribble on the diluted glue.
If you follow Dave Frary's suggestion of thinning matte medium a quart will make over 4-6 quarts of scenery cement once diluted. A much better bargain than the pint of WS scenery cement. It ends up a toss up to me whether I use the white glue or matte medium. If areas will tend to show a slight shine from the white glue, I will use the diluted matte medium instead.
You need to remember that matte medium once set is not water soluable as is white glue. This is why many won't use it for ballasting. Any track removal once ballasted is near impossible. Some also feel that matte medium used on ballast is noisier, I can't tell any difference, however, the construction of the club layout is wood spline/ roadbed not foam based.
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
bogp40 wrote:You need to remember that matte medium once set is not water soluable as is white glue. This is why many won't use it for ballasting. Any track removal once ballasted is near impossible.
You need to remember that matte medium once set is not water soluable as is white glue. This is why many won't use it for ballasting. Any track removal once ballasted is near impossible.
I used matte medium for securing ballast only once and never again since. From a 10x12 layout I was able to salvage seven pieces of flex track and two turnouts. The rest was destroyed in the attempt to salvage it.
bogp40 wrote: I have found that any thinned glue whether, white, matte medium or the WS stuff, just will not spray properly.
I have found that any thinned glue whether, white, matte medium or the WS stuff, just will not spray properly.
Midnight Railroader wrote: You can spray white glue/water mix if it is more like 70/30 water/glue, include some detegent, and you warm it in a microwave oven first, BTW.
You know, thats a really good idea. I didn't think of that. Its not that the Scenic Cement itself sucks, its the joke of a spray nozzle they give you. and it doesn't even go with the bottle of the stuff!!! how retarded is that?
Heating it makes sense, though, because that would help the water initially disolve the glue more effectively, and thus have it precipitate out once sprayed onto the layout.
loathar wrote: Throw the WS spray nozzle away and go to the dollar store and get a pump bottle of hair spray. (not the aerosol) Spritz a few in the store to see which one has the finest spray pattern. They work great for spraying scenic cement. Shake your glue mix up REAL good and pour it through a fine strainer first to get any chunks out that WILL clog your sprayer.
Haha, beat you to it. That was the first thing I did when I finished my work that I did haha.
I thought about using just regular hair spray, but I didn't; I figure that would leave a shiny sheen over everything.
The only thing is that I really didn't like how the stuff looked once I had soaked it with alcohol and then dribbled the glue on.... it made everything look really weird; maybe it will have dried looking better.
The latex paint seemed to have dried too quickly to use as an adhesive... I mean, I did paint a 1x2 foot area all at once tho so maybe thats why. Its funny, tho, because once I sprayed my first spritz of the scenic cement, I immediately said "Damnit. Why didn't I do it Pelle's way?" lol
Greg-Just to clarify. I didn't mean to use the hair spray as scenic cement. I meant to use the hair spray bottle as a sprayer.(just to be clear)
I wasted $6 on one of the WS sprayers. Life span was about 30 seconds...Strange though...My sprayer DID fit onto a WS cement bottle.
Ive had good results with scenic cement, but the glue does clump and you need to keep the nozzle clean...
I use the WS Scenic Cement, but not in the WS spray bottle (which doesn't work at all). I head to the nearest supermarket and get one of their dollar spritzer bottles, fill it with water and about four drops of liquid detergent, spray-soak the area I'm scenicking with that, then use the Scenic Cement in drops to flow into the foam, or rocks, or ballast, or whatever the project is. Give the area a light misting with the water/detergent and leave it for a couple of hours. Any further corrections I have to make, I just repeat the process.
Thinned Elmer's white or yellow glue (1/4 glue, 3/4 water) works just as well. And is cheaper in the long run. But I've had good success at both. I've tried the alcohol mixture, but for some strange reason (could be the dry climate around here) it doesn't work for me. Good old liquid detergent works a lot better.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
Interesting, I used both the WS cement and the bottle building my portable, I really liked the cement, it is a evenly mixed glue that sets fairly fast. What I hated was the sprayer, it only sprays in jet stream when it absolutly should be a misting sprayer, so it took a fine hand to get the glue out of the bottle and onto the layout without it blasting out of the bottle like a Formula 409 commercial.
BTW yeah after I ran out, I also switched back to using 50/50 glue-water with a drop of detergent in it. Havent tried the alcohol diluting yet, have to give that a shot next time.
Have fun with your trains
This is getting off topic, but I have a couple of questions...
1. For those of you who use yellow vice white glue - do you notice any color difference in the finished scenery? That is, does your ballast or whatever have a slight yellowish tint to it?
2. For those of you who use drops of detergent in your water/glue mixture, does the detergent leave any kind of sticky residue on everything, or is it too small of an amount to make any difference?
Dan Stokes
My other car is a tunnel motor
stokesda wrote: This is getting off topic, but I have a couple of questions...1. For those of you who use yellow vice white glue - do you notice any color difference in the finished scenery? That is, does your ballast or whatever have a slight yellowish tint to it?2. For those of you who use drops of detergent in your water/glue mixture, does the detergent leave any kind of sticky residue on everything, or is it too small of an amount to make any difference?
Yellow glue dries yellow, period. That said, it works good for an underlay like dead for brown grass or dirt because the yellowish tint blends in with the base color, but DO NOT use it for ballasting or spray over scenery, seen ballast on a layout where yellow glue mix was used to anchor the ballast...eeeewwww!
Detergent has no effect I've noticed, once its allowed to dry its bone dry. Just only use 1 drop for about each 8-12 oz, you dont need much.
VSmith is right about the yellow carpenter's glue--it does dry to a flat yellowish finish. One of the reasons I like the WS Scenic Glue is that it dries to a fairly clear, matte-like finish, so if you 'over' apply it, it doesn't leave a color residue.
fredswain wrote:I do use hair spray! Aqua Net isn't only good for making flame throwers! Spray it on from fairly far away after you've already sprinkled down your ground cover. If you do it too close, you'll just blow everything around. I do white glue first. This is a final coat, layer and the hair spray is used to seal it all in.
Another thing Aqua-Net is indespensible for is using as a fixative when you're making 'furnace-filter' evergreen trees. Spray the tree before you sprinkle on the ground foam 'needles', then spray again after the excess has been shaken off. Sets them up PERMANENTLY! No wonder that stuff was used for keeping those '60's 'beehive' hairdo's in place--its a Secret Weapon!
vsmith wrote: stokesda wrote: This is getting off topic, but I have a couple of questions...1. For those of you who use yellow vice white glue - do you notice any color difference in the finished scenery? That is, does your ballast or whatever have a slight yellowish tint to it?2. For those of you who use drops of detergent in your water/glue mixture, does the detergent leave any kind of sticky residue on everything, or is it too small of an amount to make any difference?Yellow glue dries yellow, period. That said, it works good for an underlay like dead for brown grass or dirt because the yellowish tint blends in with the base color, but DO NOT use it for ballasting or spray over scenery, seen ballast on a layout where yellow glue mix was used to anchor the ballast...eeeewwww!Detergent has no effect I've noticed, once its allowed to dry its bone dry. Just only use 1 drop for about each 8-12 oz, you dont need much.
Thanks for the feedback and warning - I'll stick with white glue or matte medium for ballast (have to try them both to see which one I like better), and now I won't be afraid to try the dish detergent in the mix.
Yellow glue dries yellowish, fellas?
Everything in this image has been adhered using a yellow glue spray or dribbled in the case of the ballast.
Same for this image closer to my yard. Everything glued into place with a yellow glue mixture. Note the gravel fill in the locally made timber backstop? It was soaked liberally with a thicker mixture to ensue it was a solid block and held in place. Do any of you see a yellowish tinge to anything? I sure hope you say no.
-Crandell