Grass mats VS Ground cover


C

chadmichaels

Member
Which do you guys like best? Grass mats or the Woodland Senics ground cover? I see alot of layouts using the ground cover. How do you guys get it to stay? I've been playing around with the ground cover and i'm liking it, just can't figure out how to get it to stick. Ideas and pointers?

Chad
 
I use ground cover. Use Elmers Glue full strength. Spread it w/my finger. Add the grass & let the glue dry for a day. Brush off the excess & add more glue & fill in w/new grass where needed. Sometimes I add a little dirt ground cover where the grass doesn't always stick. Just patches. I save whatever brushes off after the glue dries & reuse it.
 
chadmichaels said:
... I've been playing around with the ground cover and i'm liking it, just can't figure out how to get it to stick. Ideas and pointers?

Chad
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Chad;

Larry had a good suggestion with the white glue, however, cheap latex paint in a tan or brown color can be used as well.

I would suggest that you get a copy of Dave Frary's book, "How to Build Realistic Model Railroad Scenery", from Kalmbach Publishing. The current 3rd edition is 24.95 retail. You can find earlier editions cheaper on-line if you shop around. I would consider this book as one of the must haves in a Model Railroad "how to" library.
 
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I used WS ground cover and use the WS scenic cement in a spray bottle and mist it onto the grass. I also use real dirt, using an eye dropper with the WS scenic cement.
 
To add confusion to the replies - I've done a mix of both. In reality, grass is never one uniform height. But I've done some experiments with taking a small section of grass mat and adding bits of ground cover and weeds using both elmers glue and scenic cement. It's startlingly real. but - trying a grass mat for a large area - the eye rejects it as false. It looks better than plywood, but thats about it. I'd say use ground cover for most areas, and little bits of grass mat here and there.
 
I used the grass mat in a small park/picnic area to mimic a well mowed lawn. Other than that, the rest of my layout is ground cover. Soak the area with water/alcohol, then put down full strength Elmers glue and let it spread out. Then sprinkle on the ground cover. I also use sifted dirt, some of my layout contains good old Carolina Red Mud.
 
I've been kicking around the idea of using grass mat pieces for a baseball field as they look so uniformly mowed.

It'd also make for nice greens on a scale golf course (which I'm thinkin about building since I've never seen one).
 
The only use I've found for grass mat is carpeting. I got some with a few Model Power house kits (little squares of green fuzzy stuff). Green carpet? Why not? :) (Painted, it'll also look okay as model car carpets.)
 
smittydieseldoc said:
I used the grass mat in a small park/picnic area to mimic a well mowed lawn. Other than that, the rest of my layout is ground cover.
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Ditto here. I used grass matt for my Station grounds lawns, and will do the same for any other area that would appear highly manicured. Otherwise everywhere else is ground cover.
 
For lawn areas, in HO scale, I suggest 2mm static grass.
The grass mat, I think, Might be more expensive then using ground foam.
I have taken tan 'mistint' paint from the hardare store (few bucks), diluted it with water, applied to my blue foam board. While still wet I applied ground foam. Looks really good.

I recently built a static grass applicator. Depending on the level of realism you hope to obtain, I suggest using static grass. I have only done scenery to a small section of my layout. I used ground foam at first, but now I am moving over to static grass.


Let us know how you do, and post photos! Good Luck!!!!!
 
I can make weeds and grass look OK in unattended areas like fields or alongside tracks, but I'm starting into a neighborhood. I'd like the lawns to all look neatly mowed but not all the same if possible.

So does the 2mm static grass fit the bill, or should I use grass mats for the mowed lawns?? I have a pretty nice looking Kentucky blue grass mat I can probably manage.

Anyone have any suggestions for someone trying to do grass for the first time?

Thanks, Tom
 
I vote for ground cover.

As others have said, it is very easy to attach with both glue and paint. I've done both and both look natural.
 
TomR said:
I can make weeds and grass look OK in unattended areas like fields or alongside tracks, but I'm starting into a neighborhood. I'd like the lawns to all look neatly mowed but not all the same if possible.

So does the 2mm static grass fit the bill, or should I use grass mats for the mowed lawns?? I have a pretty nice looking Kentucky blue grass mat I can probably manage.

Anyone have any suggestions for someone trying to do grass for the first time?

Thanks, Tom
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Well, I would point out that 2mm static grass really doesn't do a very realistic job of representing a recently mowed residential lawn since to scale it would be grass about 8" high! Realistic residential lawns are pretty difficult to represent since any material employed in doing so must be extremely short, in fact not much more than 0.5mm high. Probably some rather finely graded product like Woodland Scenics Fine Blend Turf applied over appropriately colored, still wet, green paint base would serve better.

I note too that Scenic Express offers a Silflor product it labels as SF71022 "Summer Tone Short Lawn" that seems quite short and to my eyes looks pretty good, but I haven't actually used that product myself. It tends to be a bit on the expensive side although it does comes readymade in relatively small squares about the size of the average residential front lawn in HO and in several different hues.

NYW&B
 
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In scale terms 2mm equates to nearly 7". (3.5mm=12" in HO scale) A fine lawn of around 2" length would be less than 1mm. This is one of the rare moments when a grass mat or fine turf will look better than static grass. Static grass that short just doesn't look very convincing.
 
Those are some pretty neat ideas! We are going to use grass matts in some places (in the middle of town so the city looks upkept) my question is what kind of adhesive is best for those mats? We recently used a type of paint on adhesive, and after a week it had ate the foam and ruined the grass. Any suggestions?
 
I bought some tubes of DAP clear fast drying adhesive caulk for bathrooms. It is about like RTV 100% silicon except no stink.

It glues styrofoam and sand paper down really well without any issues at all.
 
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