"Glue to sand ratio" Topic

My plastic palm trees picture came in the mail today, and I am ready to start basing them (I will also be painting my new army of Hollywood African tribesmen, so it seems like a lost weekend is coming up).

Back to the palms, per some TMPer's suggestions, I plan on basing them on pennies, simply doing a thick white glue and sand mix to stick them to the base and provide flocking.

How much glue to sand to give me a tough, thick mixture, but not so much that the sand would tend to come off excessively when it dried?

Try a thin layer. One thing with sand is that multiple layers does work rather well to make it look better.

When I've gone for a sandy base I start with a mix between water, PVA, and sand at about 1/3 each. Then add some watered down glue on top after that dries and either dip in sand or sprinkle it on.

It also depends upon what you're intending to do, if you're going to paint over it, skip the adding sand on top part and it works well enough.

Big thing with pennies is that you have texture you want to conceal at the same time.

One other option to consider is to get some of the plaster gap fill material from your local hardware store and use that for the initial basing and then press some sand in while it's still wet. It lets you work the terrain around it a bit more than with just glue and sand.

I use the plaster gap filler but use about 1/3 PVA to 2/3 water to mix it instead of just water (which makes it a lot tougher), and add some paint to the mix so that if it does get damaged it isn't as obvious, then dip it in sand while it is wet.

I just put a thick layer of undiluted PVA on the base and then dip it in the sand. It seems to stick OK although you may need to shake sme of the excess off once it is dry.

For palm trees I stick them on to their pennies with a stronger glue than PVA (UHU or similar) and wait until they are thoroughly set before sand flocking.

I'm with Martin – a first layer of pure PVA, stick the tree in it and then sprinkle sand around it, press down a bit and leave to dry. 2nd coat should use thinner PVA and should give you a pretty solid texture.

Mixing PVA & sand works but is a lot messier and less convenient.

I use paint as my first coat:
- Thick Paint
- Sand
- Dry
- 50/50 glue-water mix
- more sand

You want to paint the mixture on like unpigmented texture paint?

I've had success with this mix of homemade texture paint:

1 part sand
1 part white glue
1 part water
2 parts craft paint

It dries to a consistency of colored sandpaper and can be overpainted, drybrushed, etc. I've used it for stucco texture on walls, ground texture on bases and terrain boards, etc.

The sand I used was fine crushed coral sand from a pet store, meant for lizard terrariums. I've tried a bigger-grained sandbox sand as well; probably as long as the grit is non-absorbant you'll get similar results.

The paint I used was Delta Ceramcoat.

You have to keep it stirred or the grit settles to the bottom, but it can be applied with roller or brush and does some limited gap filling.

More water and the grit flakes off after it dries (you have to apply sealer or thinned glue over it to get it to stay). Less paint and it becomes a wash rather than paint so the underlying surface shows through as well as the natural grit color.

So if you DON'T want color but do want it to go on like paint, and don't want to have to apply sealer afterwards, you could try replacing the paint with more thinned glue, e.g., 1:2:2 sand:glue:water.

Good luck.

you might want to 'glop it on', especially with smaller scales as it tends to soften the edges of the sand. Good for dry brushing too.

Why not use Zap-A-Gap? Dries much faster and is much tougher. Why wait around for paint, then PVA, then another layer to dry? Dries especially fast if you use an accelerator. You have to be more careful in your application, but once I started using it, I never went back to PVA.

I just mix fine railroad ballast with my paint and apply it to the base. I can add more or less as I need it, or more layers, etc.

I have started using coffee grounds. I can make them as small or large as I want with a grinder. Plus it is free. I do the 2/3 water to 1/3 glue as well.
VR
James Mattes