Lionel 919 "Grass" - I Need Ideas!

can't you locate some HO "lifelike" grass?

I haven't seen that stuff since I was a kid.   Seems a bit too "Green" to me though

Hi Chris,

Give the LifeLike grass a year and it will fade. Some time back I bought a couple of bags of 919 grass and the color had faded to almost brown. My guess is many of the original layouts have faded since they were built forty plus years ago. The same goes for lichen, the old stuff just dries out and goes brittle.

From 1957 to 1993 we had a permanent Lionel layout in my Dad's basement. Every couple of years we replaced the LifeLike green mats and the lichen which dried out. It was classic post war, every inch filled with track, operating accesories, and Plasticville plus a couple of projects taken from the old Lionel Bantam publications of the late 50's, all powered by a big ZW mounted to a corner of the layout.

All the best,

Miketg

Have you checked here?

http://www.sceneryexpress.com/...tments.asp?dept=1032

I did.  They have a few grass mats in different shades, but I can't tell. It's hard to tell anything w/o seeing it.  

I don't want it to look like this -

I built this for my Uncle last year & this is the color mat he wanted.  It's from Germany & he got it from Scenery Express 

this is my other idea - http://woodlandscenics.woodlan...GrassVinylMat/page/2

Christopher,

I responded to your other thread.

The closest of the mats you linked is the spring grass, but could be a little more yellow.

The Life-Like is nowhere near it, and never will be. It's the worst of many poor attempts at green by manufacturers over the decades

Jim

I'll second that motion. It's no where near the color of any type of grass.

do you guys think the summer color is too off?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Wo...;hash=item5d38927d99

or this one - 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/400436...id=p3984.m1438.l2649

I may order a sheet of 'Spring" & one of these to compare

I think the second is closer but still a little dark. Any mat won't have the variation you got from the original 919 grass. Different grains of sawdust absorbed the dye differently producing variation from yellow green to greens.

I tried to match the 919 as I remembered it from the showroom layout in this scene. It's closest to what I remember in the area between the tracks just below the engine.

I used a combination of Woodland Scenics fine turf burnt grass and yellow grass.

Jim

Thanks for all the input! I got 2 trial sheets of the woodland scenics Grass mat paper off eBay last night One is 'Green' & one is 'Spring Green' 

I'll see which one looks close.  I'm also going to pick up a bag of 919 off eBay & compare.  The grass mat would be the best way to go , as I really don't want to get into dying sawdust, but if the mat color looks way off, then I'll have to start doing that or finding bags of 919 out there 

Christopher

i posted on your first thread.to color sawdust i used rit dye.bucket of water add dye and sawdust let sit till you get the color you want,take out with a strainer let dry on newspaper.rit dye is a fabric dye ,comes in various colors.i used bachman spring green grass texture on my layout seems to be a close match.

rich b

What do you guys think of this -

url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/cesposito2035/8642068584/] [/url] Lionel Layout - 4/11/13 by Christopher & Amy Cate / Eastern Rails Photography, on Flickr

This is the forest green grass matt from WS.   I think this may work. Seems to be a close match, color wise