Phil,

Good to see you working.

Art

Grande Pacific Model RR

You've been quiet lately Phil! 

Nice to see you back.

~rb

Looking forward to seeing more pictures as progress continues.

I have that Chubb book we discussed ages ago, in an envelope and addressed to send, just have to remember to take it and send it!

It's good to be back in the saddle.

Art - I took those pics this past Sunday.  Need to lay out the cut pieces and show their prientation.

Kevin - happy to receive whenever you can send.

I've been commuting back and forth between my residence in the DC area, and my real home in Louisiana (where I grew up in Baton Rouge) as part of the federal government's response to the MC 252/Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  I spend a ton of days doing shoreline assessments, which means I spent a lot of days walking a lot of oiled beach, trying to figure out how to best get it cleaned.  My times home were all about Honey Do's.

WIth this being a three day weekend for most of us, I'm still plugging away.  None the less, here's a report on the (mostly) completed activities:

First, I finished putting down the first layer of ground cover.  This is Polyblend Sanded Grout in Nutmeg:

Close-up, we see while so many of my fellow N Scalers use the technique:

Turns out you can vary the grain size/courseness by varrying the amount of water you spray on to get it to set.  Once that was done, it was time to haul out the tools of the ground foam trade:

And get to work on something green (using Woodland Scenics Fine Green Blended Turf)

And lest you think all I did was slave alone, Sunday I hauled some spare benchwork pieces to fellow modeler and Baltimore denizem Eric's place, and spent a delightful hour or so in the basement running n scale NKP and solving the world's problems:

This week I went off the deep end, and built my own static grass flock applicator:

The design generally follows Kevin's outstanding MRH article: I copied Marc's Idea of the flashlight body.  Testing commenced with some 2mm Summer green flock from MRH Sponsor Scenic Express:

Overall I like the look, but I need to mix some colors, since I'm trying to match this:

Phil,

While I think your green is the wrong color to match what you'd like to model (later summe/autumn blend might be more appropiate), don't forget you can drybrush or lightly paint the static grass as well. Experiment with a light tan, or even a lighter shade of green, and I think you'll be pleased at how the color varations jump out at you.

I agree the green is wrong, but I chose it to start in part because I wanted to make sure I could see how the fibres set up on the layout.  They are 2mm tall, afterall!  I plan to order some late summer blend and mix in a bit of this for variety.  I will say that these short fibres look like they will make great aquatic vegetation, which is the next part of my flock experiment.  I may drybrush this segment at some point - I may not.

Glad you got yours built!  I like Marc's modified flashlight idea too.  It makes a handy handle.

As for the color of the grass, I recall Joe also airbrushing his static grass.

Yep, the airbrush helps you adjust the color and add natural variation to your static grass.