Ok, I just built one from the fly swatter I got at the $ store. Works great and I didn’t even have to solder it as I used a Posi-connect for one side and the other side had a lug so I was able to screw it to the screen. But I have a few ???. First mine makes a large popping sound on the inside, is this normal (like an automatic discharge), second what glue do you like (I tried white glue, Scenic cement and full stength matt medium, the full strength matt medium worked best), last in Ho scale what size do most of you use and any difference in makers of the grass?
As far as the poppiing sound is concerned, it seems to me that perhaps you don’t have the unit properly grounded. When I use one made from the electronic flyswatter, I put on a coat of white glue and drive a nail into the benchwork within the wet glue area to insure a good ground connection.
How thickly you put on the glue and the type of static grass you use is going to depend on how you want the area to look – for mowed grass use short strands of static grass; for an unmowed, wild grass area use longer strands. You’ll just have to experiment to get the desired effect.
I run a t-pin ito the foam and coat it and the area. I was a little surprised at how well it worked considering it cost less than $3 to make.
If your applicator is “popping” while in use, I would suspect that it is shorting out somewhere inside the handle. I don’t know whether you played around with the electronic fly swatter before you disassembled it but when you smack the activated fly swatter against your hand, the grid will short against the rails and the resulting discharge will create a strong arc accompanied by a loud pop. It is this arc and discharge that kills a fly when its body bridges across the grid and rails.
The applicator should be silent when in use if built correctly. I would suggest you disassemble your applicator and double check that there is no way the two electrical poles can touch inside the handle. I had to fabricate a non-conductive styrene frame around my metal tea strainer to make sure it was held rigidly inside the handle as well as being completely isolated from the rest of the electrical circuit. I also ran the ground wire down to the base of the handle where it exits through a hole I drilled in the plastic. This gives a little extra separation inside the handle as well as keeps the ground wire from flopping around atop the scenery workspace. I also used shrink wrap tubing to insulate any remaining lengths of the original uninsulated wires. When correctly insulated and assembled, the only time your static grass applicator should pop will be when you get the tea strainer basket too close to the grounding pin.
Must be a short some place, but didn’t do anything inside, I didn’t even soulder as the wires were long enough as I tore apart the yellow swating area to maintain length. It dose work and work well as I tested it on both long and short fibers. My strainer came with a plastic handle which I drilled two holes in to line up with the pegs that held the yellow part, no glue needed.
Maybe you should solder the connections. Also, make sure that the high voltage lines are well separated. You are getting arcing from one side of the circuit to the other. If you run the unit in a dark room, you may be able to see where the arc is.
I use one of those low-budget Grass-Tech models. It works great. I use my usual 1:4 white glue and water mixture, brushed on. I put down a whole grid of small pins, so the connection point is never more than a couple of inches from the part of the surface I’m grassing.
My layout is HO. I like the 4 mm grass the best. I have both that and 6 mm Silflor grass, along with some 2 mm grass from Woodland Scenics. To me, the 2 mm stuff looks more “fuzzy” than “grassy.” I’ve got 2 colors of each, and I mix and blend them a lot to get a realistic appearance.
The wires are coming out of the top but the poping is coming from the bottom. This one has two buttons to turn on and runs on two AA batterys but is powerfull enough to pull up grass over a inch above it, havn’t measured the max height for working yet. Got some dried test areas now and the long grass is nice and straight as is the short with no gloss that I have heard about. Next I may test strength of hold with the different mediums. Dose anyone know of a sirte that has done all this resurch, I hate to keep having to reinvent the wheel and I shouldn’t have to in the internet age. I did find a site that tested all the different grasses to find out if there was any difference, they found out that they are all much the same except for color and length.
Here’s a technique you might want to try — [(-D]
[quote user=“cacole”]
Here’s a technique you might want to try —
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nTtOOKan-U
Now that’s funny!
Not funny.
Yeah its British humor - takes a very long time to get to the point…I still found it funny even though I am a cat person (maybe because of that)
More info on static grass check out MRH if you haven’y already. They have run a couple of in depth articles. I have appled lots of static grass. I find it to be pretty easy to get great looking results. I use 50/50 mix of white glue, dont have any problems with shine etc…
The link in my sig has some pics of the grass on my layout in the gallery and pretty much all over the site.
Guy
Ohh, your a better modeler than me and I ain’t half bad.