Coloring saw dust for scenery

One question ..once you get the saw dust to the color you want what holds it down to the surface?diluted alcohol and Glue 50/50 mix?Nick

yes just Elmer's glue and diluted 50/50

ok  IMO. really like how static grass makes a scene pop

Many years ago I tried using Rit to color sawdust for grass.  It worked well until all the color faded away leaving just the plain sawdust.  I suggest you use commercially available artificial grass.......it probably won't fade.    Odd-d

I have died a lot of sawdust with Rit Dye.    It works and I have not noticed that mine faded.   I did sift the sawdust to get mostly fine stuff.     And I did glue it down with white glue and water in a 50-50 mix.

Lately I have been using ground foam on a friends layout and I think I likeit better than the sawdust.   I can get more diverse sizes and shapes.

I also tried using static grass type stuff without the electrostate applicator.   I did not like it.   It looked like a coating of short thin hairs.   More like ground felt than foilage.

Try different things and see what appeals to you.

Coloring saw dust? You gotta be kidding. You spend hundreds if not thousands for your locomotives and your saving saw dust and buying dye for scenery? 

Just buy some ground foam, it looks and works much better. 

david1 posted:

Coloring saw dust? You gotta be kidding. You spend hundreds if not thousands for your locomotives and your saving saw dust and buying dye for scenery? 

Just buy some ground foam, it looks and works much better. 

For a great many of us, making unique scenery from basic materials and our own skill is a lot more rewarding than spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on the same locomotives that anybody with a credit card can acquire.

It is certainly NOT true that commercial ground foam looks better than skillfully crafted custom materials.

As I said early in this thread, ink/alcohol mixtures are very effective at dying all kinds of materials (even sand). Ink is available in many colors.

Basically you spend time or money in the hobby.    Generally speaking, you could spend lots of money to buy everything already built and done, or you could spend a less money and spend time doing things that many in the hobby enjoy.    If you are looking for entertainment time, building and doing your self gives you a lot more entertainment per dollar spent.

When I was much younger, it was raising a family and getting started in life and my train budget was pretty limited.    Dying sawdust to get ground cover freed up money to buy another car kit to build.    My budget is a little more lucrative now, but I still have to be selective to be able buy a locomotive or some other new item.   

The extreme to the big spenders is just hire a turnkey job.   HIre someone to buy everything and build the layout for you.   When they are all done, you could go out, drink in hand and just look it over and "enjoy".    But would that be a hobby for you?   What would the hobby be?

You can make ground foam using a old blender foam rubber and water based paint of your color choice.  Cut the foam into one inch cubes.  Fill the blender about half full of water and turn it on the highest speed.  Remove the center piece from the lid.  Take some foam and drop it into the running blended.  Keep adding foam until its about full.  You can add the paint into the running blender or just dump the blender into a plastic pail or mixing bowl and add the paint for your desired color.  Pour the foam into a strainer and spread it on an old window screen and allow to dry.  Stir the foam around to keep it from sticking together.  After a couple days it will dry and you can add it to your layout.  

Another product that is out there is the blown in insulation.  Don't get the pink stuff, get the ground paper type.  Mix it with a little paint and white glue to make a paste and use it on your layout.  Works just like the little bag of stuff they sell at train shows.  One bundle goes along way.

There are actually a great many granular materials that can by dyed for achieving different effects. One of my favorite is peat moss. It clumps nicely and works well as wild low brush.

The trick to interesting scenes is to use many materials. Money and enjoyment aside, this argues for homemade materials, since the number of commercially-available products is limited, limiting the variety that you always see in nature.

The above tiny scene contains commercial ground foam, peat moss (down by the bumper), sawdust,  kitty litter, lichen, real stone, coffee grounds, pink foam insulation, and spun fiberglass filter material.  If I made a similar list across my whole layout, it would be very long, and most of it would be homemade.

Dave, I do not color my sawdust at all.  I save sawdust from wood cutting on my table saw, screen it to get out all the course material and then mix it with varying amounts of commercial grass mixes.  This is because, here in the West, most grass is not an Eastern lush green, but has a lot of yellow in it.  So, by varying the amount of green grass mix, I can create varying scenes from very dry areas to more lush ones.  

PeterA posted:

Dave, I do not color my sawdust at all.  I save sawdust from wood cutting on my table saw, screen it to get out all the course material and then mix it with varying amounts of commercial grass mixes.  This is because, here in the West, most grass is not an Eastern lush green, but has a lot of yellow in it.  So, by varying the amount of green grass mix, I can create varying scenes from very dry areas to more lush ones.  

I must say, PeterA, that is a very effective vista. And I subscribe to your technique of using a blend of handmade and commercially available products.

Dave50, I would recommend that, in addition to what you may end up making by hand for the creative adventure of it, that you seriously consider also using ground-covers made available by Dennis Brennen. I use most all of his products to supplement what I harvest from my yard and garden and, also, buy from Scenic Express, and have found those endless combinations to be very effective in expressing my creativity when crafting scenery.

Also, the creative voices available through this forum are inspiring and profound. Seeing and learning from all their voices is a creative adventure in itself. At least, I have found it to be so.

Whether we hobbyists are coloring sawdust, crafting straws into downspouts, using wooden cocktail stirrers for cottage walls or fences, or using what everybody else has made and combining them all into an effective landscape, village-scape, or city-scape, etc., the creative exercise of it all is very, very good for us. The satisfaction is limitless, IMHO, so welcome aboard the hobby, and have yourself a heckofa good time!

FrankM.

Layout Refinements