'A tongue that tastes like tin, a static charge...'

I've been intrigued by static grass planting for a while now and have seen some very nice work. I've also seen some strange green fur growing on layouts. I decided to give it a try but I didn't want to spend a fortune on a posh machine so I got a cheapy one from Evilbay. I already had some appropriate flock which I've been using as part of my ever changing grass mix. I have a Tupperware tub into which I constantly add different shades and thickness of green flock from whatever bag I've bought at an exhibition, this gives a variety of shades even over a small area.

Old technique to the right and new to the left

 

Anyway I tried a couple of different ways of doing the gluing, (poetry) firstly I just smeared some neat PVA onto an area and stuck my pin into it and staticked away. The results were ok but mostly it looked like a blob of glue with a bit of flock sticking in it. version two changed the method slightly to using some Deluxe materials scenic glue which comes in a spray pump dispenser. I suspect it is watered down PVA actually but whatever it is it worked better than the neat PVA. In both cases I was adding the static fluff on top of my ordinary flock mix applied when I built the layout which had always been a bit thin on the ground having been in a hurry at the time.

Shaved cows

Version two worked much better and I will use this technique in the future, I only had a couple of packs of Noch fibres which were a little vivid and a pack of brown so I mixed some brown in to the mix in later batches and it helped tone it down a bit. It is a technique I shall persevere with, having just ordered some darker shades of fibre from the interweb. Watch this space for further experiments.

One thing I learned was the fibre also sticks to cows if you don't move them out of the way. For a while I had hairy green cattle. Makes a change.