I’m fairly new at making model scenery, and by fairly new I mean I just bought a bunch of turf and clump foliage products from woodland scenics and have only a vague idea of what to do with them. I’ve experimented with a couple things that turned out fairly nice, but I’m finding my lack of various strong adhesives to be fairly limiting. All I currently use is PVA glue (elmer’s white glue), which I apply to clump foliage before adding it to tree branches or on the ground as bushes, and a 1:1 water-pva glue mix which i spray on surfaces with a spray bottle before spreading fine and coarse turf, and which I spray liberally on the whole thing afterward. I find myself thinking that things would be easier and faster if I had some of the various (rather expensive) adhesives that woodland scenics sells, such as hob-e-tac, for use efficiently attaching foliage to trees, scenic cement, to use instead of the water-pva glue mix for the same purposes, and scenic glue, to use instead of standard pva glue.
My question is: are these adhesives actually necessary (I’m somewhat doubtful about scenic glue and scenic cement, are they really just pva glue and watered down pva glue, respectively?), and are there cheaper alternatives?
I have not used any of the Woodland Scenics adhesives and don’t think I am missing much. White PVA glue (Elmers) is often available at a discount at hardware stores like Lowes & Home Depot. People talk about using artist’s matte medium for scenery work but they also say it costs a little more than white glue. I haven’t tried it myself.
While I have never used Hob-E-Tac, I have used Alene’s Tacky Glue, available at craft stores. It’s a white PVA glue with performance about like Elmer’s, but it is much tackier coming out of the bottle. It has enough tack to hold stuff in place without clamps.
Scenic Cement/Glue from WS is essentially matte medium and you can buy matte medium like Hodge Podge a lot cheaper at craft stores and walmart. Elmers is still cheaper when you buy it by the gallon. As already mentioned Aileens Tacky glue at Craft stores and Walmart, . I also use a lot of low-temp hot glue (planting trees shrubs etc… (get a dual temp gun).
It’s been my experience that the more expensive adhesives from Woodland Scenics and others are just that, more expensive. I haven’t found them to be any better. I use two that I mix myself that are relatively cheap. A 50/50 mix of white glue and water, a 50/50 mix of matte medium/Modge Podge and water. Both work well for scenery. I also use the white glue/water mix for track ballast. If I have to pull up some track later I just wet the ballast then I can pull it up easily. Doesn’t work that way with the Matte Medium.
I just finished making 300 trees for my 24’x24’ HO layout. I use $98 Scenic Express Super Tree “super crate” (which providess enough material to make 300+ trees.) for $25 one can get box of Super Trees (about 60 trees) I soak three stems at a time in WS 4:1 diluted Matte Medium. It makes the trees less brittle and is an adhesive. I attach tree Super Tree stems to a “sage” trunk, for very realistic foreground trees. I then spray with hair spray, and sprinkle on the green blend of fine Floc-Turf. For very realistic foreground trees I first sprinkle on fine “black Foc-Turf”, (to represent the dark underside of the leaf canopy.) One can use "Clump foliage of various shades of green, to fill in the background trunkless canopy of trees, or for shrubs. I drill holes for the trees in the Hydrocal Plaster (that is applied over the plastic cloth and sprayed various shades if brown.) Drill the holes, and vacuum clean, before spraying on the brown. Bob Hahn Click on photos to enlarge them. Then. click on “Previous” or “Next” to see other views on my layout
I’ve used Hob-E-Tac for making trees, and IMHO, it’s a pretty good product. The difference between it and other glues is that it remains tacky for quite a while, giving you plenty of time to stick clump foliage to tree armatures.
Amen to that. I use Aileen’s a lot. For trees, I spray plastic plant or dried sedum “trunks” with Elmer’s spray adhesive and dust on ground foam. My oldest trees are at least four years old and have held up well. I hate ballasting though, so I just don’t bother.
I think I saw the horse twitch, so let me whack him again…
I use a wide range of adhesives. For most scenery, it’s diluted (1:4) matte medium. I also use straight white glue and matte medium. Likewise, Aileen’s tacky glue. CA’s by, well, whatever’s on sale. 3M spray adhesive. Hot glue ($5 at Sears, plus glue sticks for $2/100 at Wal-Mart).
Notice that there are no “special” hobby brands on that list. Stuff you can get at any old craft or art supply store.
