is it a good idea to use dried cooking herbs and spices in place of scatter? the price of scatter at my LHS is way too much and they havent got many colours, so i think dried herbs from the local supermarket would be cheaper. they look better, and they smell like real fields. but is it too good to be true? and what glue would i use?
many thanks, sean
Good question. I would try hairspray and see what happens. The only problem I can think of is things eating it. Mice would be a nuisence, mold would be a problem. I will watch this thread and learn with you.
hairspray? does that really work?i have never heard of anyone using that.
hairspray does work well depending on what your using it for i guess…i have noticed that it works very well when i make “ball” cluster trees to cover a mountain side with the polyfiber…it seems to hold the ground foam very well…although your basement will smell like a hair salon when you make about 5 of them…i have also seen guys at the club use hairspray to cover an area that had just been covered with ground foam and it seems to hold ok…over time some of it loosens up…but for 87 cents a can at wally world i guess you can’t go wrong…i still prefer white glue myself…tim
I wouldn’t bother with the spices. It’s a natural material, which causes all sorts of problems. It’s brittle, attracts both critters and mold (both of which like to eat it), and doesn’t glue well. I don’t even use natural material to build trees for these reasons. Frankly, if it’s cost that’s making you consider using this technique, why not make your own natural ground cover by dying and grinding leaves? You’ll end up with the same end result, and your layout won’t smell like a pizza.
Some people on this forum make their own foam rubber ground cover using dye and couch stuffing. It might be an alternative for you.
NO!
The smell will change to rotting food, worse rotting food then YEUK.
If it wasn’t too good to be true lots of people would be doing it.
Hair spray decomposes… if it didn’t one squirting would set hair permanently… An artists quick-tack spray glue would be better.
well i tested it out, and the biggest problem is it doesnt hold glue very well, so i think i might just wait a few weeks till i go to america for the holidays and get some scatter cheaper.thanks for the tips!
How are ground leaves different from other forms of natural material that are susceptible to mold and critters?
I’d be interested in hearing from those people on the forum who have made their own foam rubber ground cover. I’d like to see a description of their methods.
Bob
Is it just me or is that statement completely nonesensicle [%-)], I always thought spices were leaves/plants…also no need for dying as they are already green shades.
I wouldnt see a problem using dry spices with white glue, should only be the same as any other dried natural material… all the dried flowers from Michaels…caspia, floral moss, etc etc, Lichen and a host of other natural items.
Doesnt mold need moisture to grow? if the layout remained that damp to grow mould I would assume there would be other more serious problems relating to the moisture.
I have looked for a viable chopped spice to use as scale leaves on trees, however to date they are all more expensive than the “made for the job” items from Noch or Scenic Express.
The quest continues…
Have fun & be safe
Karl.
I have the same question
rfinch…we make our own ground foam at our club…we get some cheap blenders from garage sales…some foam foam inside seat cushions…like the egg carton stuff…take chunks of that with some water and add an OIL base paint to the mix…what’s nice about the oil base is that it sticks to the foam and not in the water…just keep grinding until you get the size that you want…course or fine…strain it out and we let it dry in plastic paint roller trays…because it’s oil based it takes quite a long time to dry…but it looks great and costs almost nothing to make!!..you will find that you burn out many blender bearings…that’s why the cheap ones come in handy…we make the stuff by the tons this way…it’s great for ground cover or flocking trees…tim
Ground foam for pennies. Check out this link.
I guess I didn’t explain well enough. I was against the idea of using spices or ANY other natural material for a layout. If the questioner was set on using something “cheap”, I suggested using leaves and dye instead of spices, as a much cheaper alternative (but still something I’d be against).
And virtually all leaf spices ARE dyed. Ever wonder why parsley was so brilliantly green, or why basil was such a uniformly olive color? I grow and dry my own spices, and they look NOTHING like what you get in the store.
One of the problems with natural material is that it’s VERY brittle. Eventually, parts will start to flake off and wander around the layout. The glue will still be holding a small part of the material to the layout, but the rest will be gone.
Mold is everywhere, and it doesn’t take much moisture, or much for very long, to get it to start growing. And natural material is both a natural moisture sponge and a perfect brood farm for mold spores.
Doesn’t UV light kill or at least retard mold growing. From eveything I have seen most mold likes to grow in dark damp places or am I in error on the UV light thing!
Reason I am talking about the UV light is that quite a number of modelers have flourescent lighting and that emits UV light, which bleaches out the color in just about everthing.
BOB H - Clarion, PA
Maybe someone could cultivate a harmless mould that was green shades and of the fuzzy variety, it would make very realistic HO/N grass… [:o)]
Outstanding Link Jeff! Will save me some serious $$$ in the near future.
As I recall, a number of years ago there was a method for producing ground foam published in MR or one of the scenery books that involved shredding foam rubber using an electric powered circular wire brush. The shredding was done by holding pieces of the solid rubber foam against the wire brush wearing protective gloves while the brush was rotating. The shredded foam was collected in a cardboard box as it was shredded. It was then stained different colors with water-soluble fabric dye and allowed to dry. After the foam was completely dry, it was put through different size wire sieves (e.g., 1/2" and 1/4" hardware cloth and then finer screen wire) to separate it into different size pieces, i.e., course to fine. It was important to use real foam rubber, not the cheap urethane foam that is more easily found. The reason was that the foam rubber would take up the colored dyes more readily than the urethane foam. If I can find the reference, I’ll post it in this forum. You could make a lot of ground foam with this method in a very short period and use portions of that produced to be stained different colors. If you chose to use this method, I’d strongly suggest using a mask to protect your lungs from any fine foam rubber particles that would be produced by the shredding process.
The method described in the website referenced in one of the above posts would seem to be very messy using solvent-based paint to color the foam. Has anyone tried this method using water-soluble fabric dye in place of the paint? This would be a lot earier to clean up.
Bob
I’ve not yet been able to find the reference on making ground foam with a powered circular wire brush, but I did find references for homemade ground foam in two editions of Dave Frary’s book, " How to Build Realistic Model Railroad Scenery" published by Kalmbach Books. The method described by him involves making the ground foam by passing it through a meat grinder. One reference can be found in the first edition of this book published in 1982 on pages 21-22. The other reference can be found in the latest (Third) edition of this book published in 2005 on page 38. The only difference in the method in the two references is that in the earlier version he stained the ground foam rubber with water-soluble fabric stain after he ground the foam, whereas, in the more recent version of the method he colored the foam with diluted water-based paint before he ground it.
According to him, using a hand-cranked meat grinder is hard work and you may want to find a powered one if you’re going to make large amounts of the ground foam. I think I’d try the powered wire brush method first before investing in a powered meat grinder unless you can find one at a garage sale cheap.
Hope this helps,
Bob
What is scatter? Never heard the term before (I’m in the USA).
Scatter is Ground cover
BOB H - Clarion, PA