Hi,
great thread. Learning lots.
Frank
YOU SHOULDN’T! - and there are very little reasons why you have to. I’ve been using alternate products ever since I got into the hobby. I absolutely refuse to pay those prices for so-called “hobby products” if an equivalent low cost alternative is available. I buy a majority of my supplies, including paints and scratch building materials, from arts and craft stores, Home Depot, Walmart, and dollar stores for a fraction of the price of hobby shop supplies. The use of alternate products used to be mentioned and discussed in MR in the past. Heck, if I only used dedicated modeling supplies I’d go broke.
Hi Dave,
I won’t go so far as to give WS all the credit, but they deserve a share. Their products are darn good and I use some of them. In my opinion, ground foam is the one thing that took us leaps and bounds past the colored sawdust and lichen era (I was a beginner in that era). I like WS tree trunks and their foam products and ballast, but I make my own glue and use my own stains for color.
One thing I really admire about them is their training kit, where they give a beginner the stuff and instructions to make a sceniced diorama. What a great way to get folks started off on the right foot!
Sounds like you’ve done this with the foam. Got a couple of questions if you indeed have: do you dry out the foam before grinding it up? Seems like it would be easier to grind up when dried. Further, how and when do you apply the paint to the ground foam?
I still use plain ol’ Elmers white glue for gluing base scenery (grass, ballast, etc.), but I use Elmers Craft Bond (available at craft stores/Wally World) for gluing scenery items such as figures, relay boxes, etc. because it dries clear and FLEXIBLE.
Let’s see…other items I’ve been known to use are…
DAP Concrete Patch instead of ScaleCrete (which is of course discontinued anyway)
Lowes also has cork sheets that I’ve used instead of the precut MRR stuff, especially in yards.
I’m sure there are others that I just can’t think of right now. [:P]
Here’s a link to a site that tells you how tro make your own ground foam.
I’ve ground around 3 five gallon pails of foam. I tried an old food processor but found an even older blender works better.Cut the foam into 1-2’"chunks ,put in blender, add 1/2 cup water, 1/2 small bottle of wally’s acrylic craft paint and blend. Strain through(not the wife’s!!) colander to reuse the paint mixture and let dry on newspaper.I found that the best I could get was medium to coarse for bushes and underbrush. You can experiment on colors and shades:
I still buy fine from the LHS.
Also, I’m sure somebody has already recommended styrene "For Sale " signs as an alternative to what you get at the LHS.
Hope this helps!
Terry
Someone also said you can buy 4x8 sheets I think at a plastic supply place for around $13 but I haven’t checked that out yet