"Watering down PVA (White Glue/Elmer's Glue)..." Topic

When you guys water down your PVA to coat hills and what not, how much do you water it down? What would you compare the consistency to? Cream? Milk?

I need to coat some islands and hills in static grass, green flocking, and sand and am wondering how thick or thin to go with the PVA.

Thanks in advance.

I use it full strength for static grass and flocking. Make sure you use generous amounts of grass or flock or it won't cover well and you will be left with shiny patches of dried glue. I think if you watered it down too much it would wick up through the grass and make a bit of a mess.

For sand, I put down full strength PVA, then a liberal coat of sand. After the glue is dry (if I'm not too impatient) I shake off the loose sand and apply a 1:2 or 1:3 PVA/water mix to seal the sand.

Cheers, Squash

I mix it to the consistency of cream for the first coat, then sprinkle with flock, scatter etc. When dry shake off, then coat with it thinned to the same look and consistency of skim milk. Never had a problem.

To thin cream or milk for preference – but I always use warm water, not cold, I find the glue mixes into this more easily.

Sue K.

An alternative to PVA is artist's matte medium. It works just like the PVA, except that it dries flat under the flock, and remains rubbery when dry. Dropped figures will bounce off, rather than puncture the foam when dropped.

About 3 parts water to 1 part PVC, with a touch of dish soap added to break up the surface tension a bit. I keep such a mixture in an old window-cleaner pump spray bottle to spritz on after the first application, it seeps in and sticks what didn't stick the first time. You can also spray vertically down the face of rock outcroppings and the like, to just get greenery adhering to the more or less level surfaces.

All my scenery is first coated with a thick layer of PVA mixed with sawdust. It's about the consistency of oatmeal (or porridge, for those of you across the pond), and after drying it gets painted and a thinned PVA is used to apply static grass and what-not. The initial coat is hard as rock, and I've been transporting these pieces from NC to PA for years for conventions and NO damage has been done to them. Almost completely gamer proof.

I use unthinned Elmers to adhere all flocking. After years of trial and error I have found that unthinned Elmers PVA (compared to all other white glues I have tried), provides the most durable flocking adhesion. I have no problems with thin patches of flocking, paint showing through and it is hard to rub off flocking over time.

After years of practice and the completion of thousands of terrain pieces, unthinned is the only way I will work.

Doug

I have always thinned it down myself, but having seen the excellent results of Doug's work, I will bow to his greater wisdom on this!

I've seen some of Doug's work first hand and it looks pretty darn good.

Thank you all for the great tips. I'll definitely try some of these out tonight when I commence work on the project again.

For the base sand/flock I tend to use wood glue thinned about 1 part glue to 3 water. One main reason for using wood glue is it does not shrink, white glue does. Had a batch of nicely done wooded terrain have the sand curl at the edges after using white glue, the ones I used wood glue on didn't curl.

Static grass or flock used in clumps I use thinned white glue.

Cream is good.

All the hills that I've made have been painted with latex paint. Yep, just regular ol' flat latex. I found a cheap hobby craft paint that blends well with my Geohex mat, took that to the local DIY store and had a quart of matching latex made. I carve my hills out of foam sand them to make gentle slopes, paint with a heavy coat and flock while the paint is wet. I pour on the flocking and press it into the paint. Then I shake and tap the excess off back into a container and do the next hill. When everthing is quite dry and cured, a light vacuuming will remove flock that not well attached and virtually eliminate any "shedding" problems.

BTW, I use the craft paint to paint bases before flocking. On bases, though, I use muscilage to stick the flock to the bases. Since I game on Geohex mats, painting the bases green and flocking with the same Woodland Scenics turf that Geohex uses makes the bases virtually disappear. Nicely terrained bases look good when you're looking a single figure or even a unit out of context on the kitchen table. However, that same terrained base looks quite out of place in the middle of an expanse of Woodland Scenics medium green turf.

Ray--I use that exact same technique for miniatures but for the terrain pieces I'm working on, I wanted to try something different.

Thanks again, everyone, for the great tips. The pieces are coming out nicely for my first shot at making islands.

I use 1 part water to 1 part white glue and apply with a brush before putting on the flock.

I paint unthinned PVA onto the base and apply the flock and then once this has set use an eyedropper to apply 50:50 diluted PVA. Capillary action will spread this out and make sure the flock stays put. Check first that the PVA dries clear. I once used some best quality waterproof PVA that dried white. This left an interesting frosted effect that took some work to remove but that I now wish I had left. Plain water is fine for diluting PVA but apparently boiled water is better as it will not start to smell. If that is a concern distilled water is fairly cheap.

I never thin my PVA. It works well with all flocking including sand rocks and wood. If you buy Elmer's at a large hardware store you can get one gallon containers. These gallon bottles are only about $12.00. Pour it on thick and nothing will come off.

I never use PVA to stick static grass – it isn't strong enough imo.

We use Deluxe Materials "Scatter Grip" instead.

I mix emlmers and green acyrlic paint 1:1 and smear it onto bases that already have figures mounted. Use an old brush and get it over the feet/base of the figure. Sprinkle on flocking and shake off into reused baking tray.