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Also notice that the train rails have been masked with blue painter's masking tape. This keeps the glue and the grass off
the rails. Once again we are using the method of spraying dilute white glue or matte medium to the layout, and then sprinkling the
grass material over the wet glue. The glue and the grass come from
Woodland Scenics. Another good source for miniature scenery comes from
Scenic Express, a retailer with many products and many brands.
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Woodland Scenics has a big range of colors and textures. The colors go from honey and burnt brown, to light and medium green,to dark green. There are also gray, tans, and browns for the earth tones. The textures go from fine turf, to coarse turf, to clump foliage and trees. They also have a wide range of static grasses in many colors.
This photo shows some coarse medium green turf and then an application of medium green and burnt static grass. The static grass
is a short fine colored synthetic fiber that tends to stand on its end. You can make the grass in two ways: you can sprinkle it
onto wet glue and then blow on it very hard, or you can use a charged tool like the
Noch Static Grass Gun. The grass gun has a battery which
charges the fibers. A grounded anode from the gun is placed on the scenery. The static charge makes the grass adhere to the
scenery. In all, the fuzzy turf looks very much like long grass at this scale. I like the fuzzy look.
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I like how the flat area to the lower right is less rocky and more grassy. And I like how the off-white stones and rocks peak
through the vegetation. There are also some off-white escarpment walls where the land suddenly breaks off. This looks very much like
the terrain in central Texas on the Balcones escarpment - lots of limestone rocks poking up through the grass.
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The trees are part of Woodland Scenics system. You have plastic trunk and branch armatures that can be twisted into natural shapes. The plastic is excellent and can bend harshly without snapping. You then coat the branches with a very tacky white glue and let dry for 20 minutes. I mean it is so tacky that anything will stick to the tree. Then dip the trees into whatever clump foliage you like. Rearrange any clumps that look unnatural. Press hard on the stuff you want to keep. Then glue into a small hole in the scenery.
At this point lots of the layout is done, and there is not much to go. Next I will put the buildings back and hopefully add a
new structure or two. Also we need to add water and make streams and ponds in some areas. Then we can add a bunch of details like
street lights, benches and some people .However, you can see that most of the layout is near completion. Thanks for reading my
articles. More train layout photos and articles will be posted in the near future.
Other articles in the scale train series include: