Hi. Went to trainshow (Greenburg) last week. Watched demo on ground cover. Easy, right? Tried to duplicate it on my 5x9, and holy crap what a mess! Got to rip it all up!! What I did on top of my plywood base in a small area, was to sprinkle some nice ground cover (maybe a tad too thick). After that, I have a spray bottle which gives nice fine spray, unlike the Woodland Scenics sprayers which give a much harder, course spray, and that really makes a mess. In this bottle I used water with a few drops of laundry detergent, as some of the books recommend. I guess this helps the water soak into the ground cover. Then I used the Woodland Scenics glue, made for this purpose, and diluted it pretty well. And then I carefully squirted it (with an Elmer’s glue type bottle) onto the wetted ground cover, expecting it to bleed right in (just like at the train show).
Instead, the glue separated the cover from the plywood and the glue beaded up, with some of the ground cover floating on top! Its almost as if the mixture were too thick, but it had the consistency of water! So I believe it was diluted enough. I repeated the same thing, but used matte medium (diluted) the second time. Same exact problem. What am I missing??
I usually paint the base first, whether it’s plywood or a plaster hill. While the paint is wet, I’ll sprinkle on the first layer of ground cover, usually a real fine cover such as Woodland Scenics earth or soil. Allow this to dry. This gives the remaining layers something to grip to, similar to a primer coat of paint. After this I sprinkle on the remaining layers, starting with the finer covers such as turf and following with the coarser textures. Then I will soak it with a mixture of water, alcohol, and a few drops of dish detergent. I give it a good soaking. I follow that up with the glue and water mix and it should soak right in and give your ground cover a tight grip on your surface.
Try adding liquid dish detergent or alcohol to your GLUE mixture. That helps brea the surface tension of the glue mixture.
Hope that works for you. I use the same technique that jecorbett uses: sprinkle ground cover on wet paint. That seems to help additional layers adhere better.
Here’s what I do:
Paint the surface with latex paint, and sprinkle with fine foam.
When I’m ready for the courser stuff, I wet the surface with wet water first. This gets the courser foam a little damp and more grippy. Then more wet water, and diluted white glue. I add alcohol to both the wet water and the glue. And at the end this is how it looks:
The way I did mine was to apply the watered-down glue first to the layout. Spread it smooth, and thin, with my fingers. Then sprinkled on the ground foam. Spray with the wet water (water with soap). Then touch up with more ground cover and a little well placed glue if needed.
I just started on my grass and haven’t gotten very far but there are pictures on my web site (link in sig)
I do pretty much the same, except instead of spraying the diluted glue and sprinkling on ground foam, I sprinkle sand. This has the same benefit as the ground foam, except that it has more “tooth”. For large, fairly smooth areas, I brush on straight white glue, then sprinkle ground foam or sand then spray with “wet water” (water with the drops of soap added). I then follow this up with the final layer(s) of foam. For best results, don’t use foam of the same color. Mix it with other colors AND textures. If you look at your lawn, you don’t see just one shade of green (or brown if you live in the southwest), unless you live in a retirement community that has green painted gravel for landscaping.
Sully,
If you don’t paint the plywood first it is possible that the water you applied first soaked right through into the wood so the foam was dry when you added the glue. I agree a little soap in the glue will help, and if it happens again try spraying wet water (the water/soap mixture) over the clumps of glue. J.R.
Great suggestions all. Thank you. I am having much better success now by treating the surface first (latex paint), then sprinkle, then wet, then sprinkle some more. Appreciate the ideas!!
Did you do anything to the plywood base before scenicing like seal it? I had problems with ground covers and paint sticking to sealed plywood. Is there a chance some silicon spray was used near by? Silicon of any kind is banned from our entire shop. It causes fish eye to happen when trying to paint a car.
Give the area to be covered a spray of wet water (50/50 water and alcohol mix)before and after applying the ground cover. But remember that ground cover usually looks terrible untill the next day or two when everything had a chance to dry.
Ground good?? Run a search and you’ll find a few discussions on it. It’s much less messy than the sprinkle method and it gives you a much better base than painted plywood.
Hey everyone! I haven’t gotten to the scenery parts but I do have a question. I’m laying 1/4" plywood and on top of that 2" foam (the pink 4X8 sheets). Do I need to paint/seal both? What type of product would I use?
