Static Grass Tools For General Application And Grooming
Explore a range of static grass tools designed for effortless application and grooming in model landscaping projects. Learn about using tea strainers and vegetable strainers as effective grass dispensers, suitable for both fine work and covering large areas. Discover innovative techniques such as converting jars into shaker dispensers and utilizing DIY flock boxes for cost-effective flocking. Enhance your understanding of static grass application for trees, bushes, and vines, and uncover specialized tools for creating unique grass textures and tufts. Dive into our comprehensive guide to elevate your model scenery craftsmanship.
What follows are a series of grass dispensers used to and grass to anything. By that I mean you can use it to lay grass on a substrate or add grass to trees or anything else.
Tea Strainer
A tea strainer is the grass dispenser of choice for finer work. Use it simply as a dispenser or as a grooming tool.
There are instances where your grass for one reason or another may not be standing the way you want. That often happens along fences and other borders. Turning the tool on its side to use the concentrated static field in the rim of the strainer moves the grass nicely.
And when adding grass to ditches, streams and other narrow areas, adding it with you fingers gives you the ultimate control. Then groom the grass with the strainer on its side. Watch that done in this video. Click Here.
Vegetable Strainer
The basic tool for covering large areas is a vegetable strainer. The mesh can be fairly coarse and you can load it with a good amount of grass. When making meadows, there is plenty of room to add a significant load of grasses of different sizes and colors.
It is very useful when you want to add grass in an area with low overhead clearance. So you can now add grass to places that were impossible to reach with a shaker style grass applicator.
Vegetable Strainer Shaker
You may wish to use a shaker for fast, large area coverage. So just put your grass in a jar and invert it in the vegetable strainer. You can hold the jar in place with your fingers without getting a shock.
When you finish with that grass, turn the strainer over and tap the grass into the jar. Cover and label the jar for convenient use of that grass some other time.
Jar Storage And Shaker Dispenser
On the left is a glass jar that I use to store my static grass. When I want to lay that grass on a large area with a Shaker type dispenser, I take a top of a similar jar that has a wire screen and put the wire screen right on top of that jar. I can then immediately lay the grass.
If the jar top that has the wire screen is different than the jar in which I am storing the grass, simply pour the grass into inappropriate size jar and proceed forward.
Storing the grass in glass jars is extremely convenient. Aces properly labeled, I have, and I don’t struggle putting static grass into and out of plastic envelopes.
Mason Jar Storage And Shaker Dispenser
This is another version of what I showed you above.
Mason jars make great shakers. Make one screen top. Keep your various grasses in other small covered jars. Then just move the screen top from jar to jar to change the grass.
Grounding Wires
You need a grounding wire to create the negative part of the static field. Here are three types of wires that I use.
One is a wire connected to an alligator clip. I can connect that alligator clip to a nail, a Flock box, or anything else.
And then there is one simply connected to a nail.
The third is a pin inserted into the end of a dowel. I use this to ground a very specific area. It is particularly convenient when I don’t want wires running around the area on which I am working. Those wires may interfere with my models, trees and whatnot. Why is this important? Because a wrong tug on a wire can break any of these items. Be sure to make something like this.
Finger Dispenser
Adding grass with your fingers is extremely effective when you are adding tufts to a scene, grass in gullies, or want to add grass without the use of a static grass applicator.
I find this useful when making flowers, reed beds, gardens, and even tree branches. Watch this technique here.
Static Grass For Trees, Bushes, Vines
Static grass really enhances the look of your trees bushes and vines. You can add it directly to plastic armatures, bottle brush trees, string or anything else. You can see this and much more on adding using static grass in our web page that lists many tutorials on how to use it. Click here.
Flock Boxes
If you need a flock box, just use an inverted pan or sheet of metal which you connect in place of the grass dispenser. It’s simple, effective and no cost.
With that flock box you might want to use this special holding tool. It is nothing more that an alligator clip on the end of a wire mounted on a wood dowel.
Add a spoon or small piece of flat metal to create a concentrated static field for grooming your grass or trees.
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