Layouts and layout building

I know I've seen some time ago in a Model Railroader issue an article about grinding up leaves for ground cover for fall leaves that have fallen or whatever. I don't remember what issue it was though.

My question.......has anyone ever done this before?  I tried it and I am not sure of the results. I used a regular household blender. I first tried putting some in the blender along with some water. This worked ok and ground them up really nice. I stopped putting leaves in and grinding them when it became about the thickness of a paste. I then put them on a cookie sheet and put in the oven on 175 for about 45 minutes. Thought maybe this would dry them out. It did a little but not much. I then just took them out and set them out in my garage still on the cookie sheet. It took about 4 days for them to finally dry out.

I then tried putting leaves into the blender without water and it ground them up ok. It left a lot of bigger pieces and didn't grind up the stems real good, which is probably ok because they would look like dead logs/sticks laying there.

Anyone have any other ideas or know what issue that was in? It's been a few years ago on the isssue I know.

I think it was in a scenery step-by-step column, and it was within the last 5 years - my collection (consecutively) only goes back to Jan '04 (plus a handful of earlier ones).  Hope this helps you narrow it down.

You could try doing a search in the 'Search Community' box on the right to see if there have been any previous posts.

 I've done it....Last fall I sucked up a heap of leaves in the yard with my leaf blower in reverse. That chopped 'em up pretty well. I then bagged them up into brown grocery bags and left them sit open in the garage till....well....last week. Then put them into my food processor (shhhhhhh. don't tell my wife!) and ground them up super fine with a few drops of water added. After that racket and mess was over with, I spread them out on cookie trays (don't tell her that either please!) and baked them at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Crumbly, powdery and perfect HO scale leaves was the result.

Matt

its in RMC Aug.09 issue

i used a coffee grinder and didn't add any water and ground them up untill i liked the size

i also do that with saw dust for my trees , i tryed dieing the saw dust but i didnt like the color so i ended up just spray painting them in fall colors and they came out really good

I just did this recently, but I didn't add water - just picked some leaves, and ground the hell out of them with a coffee style grinder. I'm using this in areas that will be tree covered.

Here's a couple of pictures. The first is shown against just the painted hill side (the center strip is the ground leaves)

and a full shot, with a bit of Scenic Express Alpine Meadow seasoning.

 I don't know why I added water while grinding them but I did anyway. I probably could have eliminated that step. I used 400 degrees just to ensure they ended up bone dry without a chance of any moisture remaining. I also checked them about every 5 minutes to ensure I didn't burn the house down. I don't know how I would have explained THAT to the fire marshal and insurance company!!!   Fire marshal: "What was in the oven that caused a fire, burned your house up and the neighbor's garage and killed 4 cats and 8 hermit crabs?"   Me: "Oh, just some ground up leaves from the backyard..."   Fire marshal to Police chief: "I believe we need to get a mental health professional in on this case..."

Matt

I use ground Oak leaves for my ground cover in my forests. I grind them dry in a blender but the secret is to separate them into sizes afterwards. Use a flour sifter, window screen, empty talc container, etc. and save the different sizes in separate bottles for later use.

Doc

Thanks all of you for your great response Now I have a few different ideas. Sounds like I'm pretty much doing it the right way either dry or wet. If doing them wet though just need to crank the oven up a tad more

 Same goes for drying dirt, doesn't everybody dry dirt in their oven? I like to use the leaves and real dirst as ground cover but have found higher temp around 400 degrees work much better. Just have to watch for flash fires in the oven, not a good thing

In one of the Dream Plan Build videos, Lou Sassi does it.  He uses a blender and adds water to the leaves, grinds them up, then drains the mixture through cheese cloth.  He takes what remains in the cheese cloth and spreads it on baking sheets for drying in an oven.  I think  the temperature is 175.

HaroldA:

In one of the Dream Plan Build videos, Lou Sassi does it.  He uses a blender and adds water to the leaves, grinds them up, then drains the mixture through cheese cloth.  He takes what remains in the cheese cloth and spreads it on baking sheets for drying in an oven.  I think  the temperature is 175.

Yeah I remember they mentioned that back in the Trees Are Models Too articles back around `94 and Lou Sassi did one of the articles. I always meant to try that. I forget what they mentioned you were supposed to use to glue it down. Most likely just good ol' Elmer's glue.

Well, I have a bag of oak leaves in the garage and I am going to grind them using Lou Sassi's method.  I think he just uses dilute matte medium  - maybe I will get that video out and see how he did it.

The only problem with the 175 degree oven is that, while it will dry your material effectively, it isn't really hot enough to cure whatever you're baking.  If the MATERIAL (not the air in the oven) gets to 160 degrees and holds that temperature for about 20 minutes, you will kill off any pathogens (bacteria and viruses) and most insect larva.  Plant seeds / spores and insect eggs, however, are hardier than that.

A 400 degree oven for 30 minutes will kill anything.  Since the ignition temperature of leaves is something like 500 degrees, you should be reasonably safe from fire hazards.  Still, don't walk away and leave this operation unsupervised.

Another suggestion from Lou Sassi-

"...tea leaves.  I pick up the cheapest variety I can find at the supermarket.  These are spread over the ground at random to create the look of dead leaves.  (Come to think about it... isn't that what they are?)"

Unfortunately that means not getting to play in the kitchen !