what is the best product to represent a desert
Good question, I was wondering: how about tan or light brown paint with sifted sand on it while still wet?
Remember,sand is magnetic so think about it on an electrical layout.
I used tan latex paint and then sprinkled some real white sand gathered from the dunes near Yuma, Arizona, over it while the paint was still wet. You can also use sanded tile grout or sand blasting grit. You need sand that is a fine powder for model use, so tile grout or sand blasting grit fit the bill. If you have a Home Depot or similar store in your area, you can probably get enough spilled tile grout off of the shelf to do your layout. Don’t worry about sand being magnetic. I have two large magnets out of a 1,500 Watt microwave oven’s magnetron that don’t pick up anything when passed over sand. They gather up a lot of debris when passed over some powdered copper smelter slag that we used to represent coal cinders in a roundhouse area, but still the locomotives don’t pick any up because we have it glued down.