Southern New England Railway

[ACL1504]

Marty,

The revitalized grass(static grass) looks great. I must be doing something wrong as I can't get my static grass to stand up. Maybe I need more water/moisture on the area. I'll keep trying though.

Looking very good my friend.

Tom

[Janbouli]

What are you using as an applicator Tom, I bought a 35KV one , cost me 150 euro's but it works so much better then my homemade one. With the homemade one I had to be very specific where I planted the ground pin, it had to be in the glue/paint wet spot. With the 35KV I only have to be within a foot of the wet spot and it will work, I see my static grass just shooting down.

[CVSNE]

Thanks Tom!


Can't imagine it's a lack of relative humidity - it might be possible you're over wetting the glue?
I prefer to use Ailene's Tacky Glue (from the craft store) - but have had good success with regular Elmer's/


I apply the grass with a Heiki Flokstar - and have been very happy with it. I had a cheap one several years ago and never got satisfactory results - the Heiki one has always worked well.

[ACL1504]

Jan and Marty,

I'm using the NOCH Gras Master. I'm using 50/50 matte medium and water. I think it could also be a weak 9v battery. I'll try a new battery next time.

I'll let ya'll know.

Tom

[cuse]

Marty,


I'm curious to hear how you use Tacky glue...do you just brush it on full-strength (seems like it'd be awfully thick and expensive)? Does it disappear like Matte Medium or White Glue?


Looks great!


John

[Janbouli]

I apply my static grass with acrylic paint, why first paint the surface , let thge paint dry and then use glue or matte medium, when you can apply the grass directly in the wet paint. The acrylic paint is a leftover 2 liter can of tan colored paint. The paint when dry secures the grass at least as well as glue and it is the right wetness right out of the can.

[deemery]

Jim Elster (Scenic Express) recommends Elmer's White School Glue (that's not quite the same as Elmer's White Glue.)


dave

[Erieman]

Marty ....

Where ya been ?

Cool building.

Thanx
Bob

I've been around Bob.
I just point post much on here since it often feels like I'm barking at the moon. 
Some small subset of an "in crowd" seem to get all the feedback and replies. The rest of us, um, don't.
Kinda weird energy if you know what I mean.
I do post on my blog regularly - and I do look at this forum and enjoy it - but oftentimes it doesn't seem worth the time to post anything.

Marty

Marty,

I hope this was just "down" moment. I enjoy seeing your layout progress on buildings and scenery. You might want to include a link to your blog occasionally so more of us can take a peak. There is just so much to see and do with forums and blogs, it is difficult to get anything else done. So, cheer up and keep posting your wonderful work. More pics please. especially overall shots so we can see the total progress. All the best.

Frank / Erieman

[CVSNE]

Marty,


I'm curious to hear how you use Tacky glue...do you just brush it on full-strength (seems like it'd be awfully thick and expensive)? Does it disappear like Matte Medium or White Glue?


Looks great!


John

John,
Since the goal is not get a "golf course" look I usually just dab the glue  (slightly thinned since it brushes better that way) onto the sifted dirt base. The only trick is to make sure the subsurface is really dried completely.
I've also used Elmer's in a pinch - but after my last experience with what I thought was a "fresh" bottle of Elmer's not sure I'm going to use it again - see my last couple of blog posts for more detail....If I'm using Elmer's I usually wait a few minutes before applying the grass to let the glue start to tack. Don't wait so long that the glue "skins" over or the grass won't stick.

To answer Tom's question - I don't think the matte medium has enough "body" to hold the longer fibers straight - they hit the wet glue with a charge and then they fall over. the glue has to have enough tack to hold things up until the glue sets.

[CVSNE]

Marty ....

Where ya been ?

Cool building.

Thanx
Bob

I've been around Bob.
I just point post much on here since it often feels like I'm barking at the moon. 
Some small subset of an "in crowd" seem to get all the feedback and replies. The rest of us, um, don't.
Kinda weird energy if you know what I mean.
I do post on my blog regularly - and I do look at this forum and enjoy it - but oftentimes it doesn't seem worth the time to post anything.

Marty

Marty,

I hope this was just "down" moment. I enjoy seeing your layout progress on buildings and scenery. You might want to include a link to your blog occasionally so more of us can take a peak. There is just so much to see and do with forums and blogs, it is difficult to get anything else done. So, cheer up and keep posting your wonderful work. More pics please. especially overall shots so we can see the total progress. All the best.

Frank / Erieman

Not totally a "down" moment. There's definitely an "in crowd" on this forum - and that's fine. I do enjoy sharing what I'm up to though, so will likely keep posting. I maintain the blog fairly regularly. I appreciate the comments I get (well, except for the obvious spammers!) and try to reply to same. But mostly I write the blog so I have a record of what I did!

I should add the link to the blog for those who haven't seen it -

http://www.centralvermontrailway.blogspot.com

Marty

[CVSNE]

Jan and Marty,

I'm using the NOCH Gras Master. I'm using 50/50 matte medium and water. I think it could also be a weak 9v battery. I'll try a new battery next time.

I'll let ya'll know.

Tom

I should add that I shared everything I know about static grass and fall foliage (and it's not much...) in the article I wrote that was published in the November 2015 issue of MR.

[CVSNE]

After some major issues with gluing the ballast in place I got the cannery installed on the layout and added trees to the hillside behind it. I need to install some additional lighting in front since the current lighting is not hitting the front of the scene. Always something....

[ACL1504]

Marty,

Great scene and tree color. I really like the distant scene behind the trees.

Tom

[CVSNE]

Thanks Tom,

The pasture in the opening through the trees to the right is actually part of this barn scene:


The trees beyond that actually mask the mainline curving around the end of the peninsula (the track is in a shallow cut).

The trees to the left background form the back drop behind the creamery:


The tan hill painted in the far background is actually the far wall of the basement behind my current staging yard. This extreme vertical view shows how the pieces fit together:

I try to position the hills and trees so they form fairly deep scenes for photography and (less effectively) viewing in person. The red unfinished mockups are the location of the cannery. You can see the staging yard on the right and the barn in the foreground. (Between the barn and mill building I've thought on naming the area "Bollinger's Corners" as there are three BEST kits - these two and a country store that's not visible in the overall shot - in this immediate area of the layout!)
Long-range plans call for relocating the staging yard and adding another town in the staging yard's present location. If and when I do that I need to be careful that the full-scale (HO) buildings are not visible from the viewpoint of the cannery photo or it will ruin the "distant view across the valley look."
Luckily I don't particularly like building structures so I'll never risk having an "over populated" look to the scenes I create.

Marty

[ACL1504]

Marty,

I see now. Great scene overall. Very well done.

Tom