Experiments with Heki grass mats

[deemery]

The Heki grass mats are inexpensive, pretty nice (static grass at an industrial scale), but monochromatic.  The instructions say that the adhesive is water soluble, if you dampen the mat you can remove grass.  So I experimented with some pieces of grass mat, including one piece glued to a paper ball (to get a bit of slope.)

Here's my observations.  First, the water worked as promised.  I lightly misted with a sprayer.  I also tried alcohol, and the Heki adhesive is impervious to alcohol.  After a couple minutes, I tried a couple different tools to scrape away the grasses.  

The primary test piece is in the center.  (Left side is the alcohol misted piece that didn't change.)  I used a plastic round end putty knife to gently remove some grass strands to create a small hole.  That looks pretty good.  I used the steel wire brush (it's what I grabbed for this test) to try to thin out the grasses.  That also worked well, but I found the way to do this is to lightly twirl the brush to keep from creating tracks.  Finally, I used a square edge putty knife (beneath the wire brush, sorry the photo doesn't show this well) to create a larger open spot.  This is the approach to remove grasses to lay down a road/track.  I also tried a stiff paint brush, again in a twirling motion, to thin out the grasses.  I played with the mat on the paper ball to see if I could get a good look of grasses thinning on the slope.  

The next day I went back to look at the result.  I picked up and blew on the test pieces, and a few grass strands came out.  But most of the grass in the location I dampened yesterday is still firmly glued in place.  

So with this experience, I'll go back to the farm location, mark out the path for the hay wagon, and then thin out the grasses, particularly on the steep slope next to the barn.  Tomorrow, I can then apply other textures.  The underlying mat is a nice beige color that is pretty close to the 'dirt' color in the farm, so I don't have to go back and tint the 'dirt' to match.  


dave

[jbvb]

Nice. Were you using 90% denatured alcohol?  If so, you might find 70% more effective (but if water is satisfactory, why pay for alcohol?).

The color you chose looks like "Mid May" around my house. Not tall enough to get out the scythe or horse-drawn sickle bar (in your era) to cut hay or reduce the number of ticks.