"Hey Static Grass Applicator experts" Topic

So I got great results from the Mod-Podge thread. Thanks to everyone.

I just got a WWS brand static grass applicator. I've always had pretty good results just applying the static grass without charging the fibers. But I thought I'd give this a whirl.

There is a small cable with an alligator clip to "polarize" the device. If I'm coating a piece of terrain, do I place a small nail into the foam (at the back, out of sight) and attach the alligator clip to it? Is it actually necessary?

Thanks for any help

I've found that using just a generic grated cheese shaker on large terrain projects can work pretty much just as well.

The static grass hairs are so small that I'm not sure there's that much difference visually if the hairs are standing up or just laying down on the terrain surface.

The cheese grater shaker allows you to get a good spread when you're applying it to a large area.

For miniatures it's generally not necessary unless it's a big mini. with a bigger base in which case I'll use the shaker again. But on like 20mm or 25mm bases I'll just pinch and grab a small clump of static grass with tweezers and press the clump into a small blob of PVA glue. I've found that the tweezers method works great because the static grass ends up kind of sticking out of it in different directions almost the same way that those commercially bought grass tufts do.

You can place the nail wherever you want. the closer to the glued ar5ea the better. When you are done take out the nails and cover up the hole.
And yes it looks a whole lot better than just scatter…

Ideally the nail should come in contact with the glue.

Mix up your grass and do multiple passes for best results.

Mix up your grass and do multiple passes for best results.

This is good advice.

The static grass hairs are so small that I'm not sure there's that much difference visually if the hairs are standing up or just laying down on the terrain surface.

Me too, but I only used 2mm long grass. I found that blowing on the miniature base caused the fibers to repel each other and straighten up.

The WWS applicator comes with different samples of their 4mm and 6mm fibers. I think the 6mm ones will be difficult in getting right without the charging. I don't know, I've never used such long static grass.

Mix up your grass and do multiple passes for best results.

Yes and here is a good video by WSS showing how to make realistic ground cover on top of your 2mm grass:

YouTube link

I work in 6 – 12 mm and using a static charge is essential.

So last night I spent some time doing the first 2mm ground cover with my WSS tool. I found the "polarizing" or "grounding" was also very useful. (This is where you place a metal object like a nail into the terrain foam and clip the static grass applicator to it via the alligator clip). Doing so, caused the grass fibers to more readily attach themselves to the glue, or Mod-Podge in my case. Without polarizing the terrain, the fibers tended to land more randomly.

I don't know how you could do longer grass, especially 6mm lengths, without using a static applicator.

Like Baranovich mentions, I doubt I'll do this for basing my figures. I only use 2mm lengths for this and the result is fine.

Thanks for everyone's input.