Its been a long time since I have added ground cover to my layouit. I have painted the plywood base. What should I do next? Add 50/50 diluted white glue then WS blended turf? To add another color turf - acohol then diluted white glue.
When I tried to use my WS sprayer - all it did was make the blended turf clumpy - no fine mist at all.
I used a tea strainer to spread the ground cover; some one suggested trying a teaspoon to spread it.
Another suggestion was to use an eyedropper to spread the diluted white glue.
I would appreciate any tips on laying the ground cover - not to much/thick.
Greg Clarke - P&G Northern RR
First off, I would thin the diluted glue even more, to about 70:30, water:glue. Did you presoak the ground cover before trying to glue it down? You can use either wet water; water with a few drops of dish soap, or alcohol. Unless you're adding ground cover over a large area where this is no track, I wouldn't spray it. If you get it on your turnouts, it can glue the rails in place.
When I paint my base, I sprinkle on sand while the paint is wet. When it dries, it gives some tooth for the ground cover, so it doesn't wash downhill.
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
There are different ways and styles to add your ground cover. The first thing you should do is determine if you want to do it all at once, or in stages. I do mine in stages and layers. The first thing I do is paint the scenery surface with a dirt color latex paint. As I am painting it and while it is still wet, I put on fine blended turf from a tea strainer.
My next step is to ballast my track.
After that I apply the green ground foam, fine first, then working up to the coarser stuff. With the green layers after the blended turf, I wet the green foam with 70% alcohol from a spray bottle, then dribble on 50 -50 white glue and water from an eye dropper or glue bottle with a small opening type cap.
I don't spray any glue mix through a spray bottle because if you don't get it ALL out, it will gum up and not be reliable any more.
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 first essential is a sprayer that provides a fine mist; one that produces water droplets will cause dry ground cover to "clump" because of the surface tension of the water. This can be reduced by adding detergent to the water; experiment will be necessary.
The dilution of white glue with water is also a matter of experiment, as too much "detergent water" has been known to leave a white residue on the surface of the "earth". The suggestion of 30% white glue and 70% water is a good start.
If you are covering hillsides, the area should be paintd with undiluted white glue, and the dirt sprinkled on it. A salt shaker, or can of dirt with screen wire over the open end will also do. If you have a source of air that can be directed through a small hose, cardboard bent into a "V" under the hose can be used, with dirt dropped into the "V" as the air blows it onto the hillside. (I have used this on 60 degree hillsides with success).
If you are not modeling a prarie or a manicured lawn, do something to break up the flatness of the surface first. I use pink foam for my layout base. You can use any other materials you like, even crumpled newspaper, to make "land forms" that will elevate the terrain a bit. Foam makes it easy to dig in and make basins and stream beds, too, but with plywood I would stick to putting in small hills. After I've made the bases for hills, I usually use plaster cloth from a craft store to give me smoother slopes:
This boring flat surface:
Became this irregular space which will have uplands and lowlands:
I like a rough surface, so I skim-coated most of it with Gypsolite, a gritty-textured plaster. The plaster cloth is pretty good on its own, though, and can also be painted.
After that, I like to paint a "camouflage" pattern, since I'm modeling an irregular natural area. Next, I do pretty much like everyone else has described with glue, turf and ground foam. I like to use several different shades of each, since once again it's a natural area with plenty of color variation.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I use a plywood surface on my layout. Just before applying the ground cover, I paint the plywood surface, then sprinkle the Woodland Scenics ground cover over the wet paint which temporarily holds the ground cover in place. Then, I spray rubbing alcohol over the ground cover as a pre-wetting agent. Lastly, I spoon onto the ground cover a glue/water mix in a 1:4 ratio with a few drops of liquid dish detergent added into the glue/water mix.
Rich
Alton Junction
I bought a 1 gallon container of white glue some years back. I've also got several of the smaller Elmers bottles, used and re-filled many times over. I take an empty Elmers bottle and fill it 1/4 with white glue, then fill the rest with water. After a bit of shaking, I've got a convenient amount of glue in a convenient applicator bottle with a nozzle.
I also use alcohol as a wetting agent. I use it straight from the bottle, applied with a pipette. The alcohol speeds the drying process, and any extra or spillage requires no special cleanup.
I painted the entire layout with earth tone latex paint, thinned 50-50 with water. I got the paint off the "rejects" shelf at Walmart. While the paint was wet I sprinkled green dyed sawdust into it. I made up three shades of sawdust, light green, medium grass green and dark green. I sprinkled some light green and dark green on top of the medium grass green to give a natural look.
The paint supplies enough stick to keep the "grass" in place. Where the "grass" goes missing, it shows a bare dirt color. I did the over all "grass" look with the idea that it could be removed or replaced later should a structure or a road need to go down over it.
My wood shop gives me an unlimited supply of sawdust to dye, so I use it. I believe you can do the same trick with ground foam from Woodland Scenics.
The color is better than it looks in this photo. My camera's auto color balance circuitry is getting confused by the fluorescent lights and all the beige woodwork. I haven't ballasted the track yet.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
There are lots of ways to handle this process, and no one is better than any other. It's mostly a matter of what works for you.
First of all, I'd use either Sculptamold or balled newspaper and plaster cloth to add some undulation to your terrain, except for those spots where you really do want flat, like under your track or structures. Paint it with cheap latex brown paint (I use Glidden Nutmeg Brown).
Once that's dry, I spray it with diluted matte medium (1 part medium to 4 parts water, with two drops of dishwashing liquid per cup of solution. Once the area is thoroughly wet, I shake on ground foam using an old ground cinnamon container. Once there is enough turf to completely soak up the matte medium and then some, I let it dry.
Once dry, I mist with 35% rubbing alcohol (that is, the 70% stuff you buy at the drug store, diluted 50%). The key to successfully misting is to spray ABOVE your layout and let the mist fall. Give the trigger a good, hard squeeze, because if you squeeze softly, the solution doesn't fully atomize and you blow your turf around or make it clump.
After misting, I again apply the matte medium until I can see the solution thru the turf. Then I sprinkle on more turf, this time trying to just get enough to soak up the matte medium, with no dry turf on top. Repeat as necessary until the desired thickness of ground cover is achieved. If you have any holes, you can patch with a pipette full of matte medium and a sprinkle of foam.
Good luck and have fun!
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
I tried spraying with alcohol and even adding alcohol to pre mixed Matte Medium and still got clumping
I finally used a brush tp paint the surface with undiluted Matte Medium then sprinkled the turf to completely cover the surface and lightly tapped it down
After it dried I added what ever other cover I wanted then used Diluted Matte with 20% alcohol and saturated the surface
51% share holder in the ME&O ( Wife owns the other 49% )
ME&O
Has anyone tried adding Kodak Photo-Flow to the mix to prevent beading of the mixture = clumping?
Photo-Flo has been mentioned many times before. Not many of us have a darkroom anymore.
This is a really old thread but for anyone puzzling over putting down ground foam, I suggest subscribing to MRVP and watching David Popp build the project layouts.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley