Is there an alternative, preferably homemade, for Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement? I'm using their turf on my new layout, but the cement doesn't go very far. I have heard of using diluted white glue with dyed sawdust, but don't know how well that would work with the turf.
Haven't ever used that Woodland Scenic Cement but would venture a guess that it's pretty close to the same thing as the diluted white glue. I have used the diluted white glue on all my previous layouts to affix various scenic materials from Woodland Scenics and others with no issues and it works well.
I've used matte medium (such as Mod-Podge and Liquitex brands) for scenery and ballast for near 40 years. It looks like white glue, dries clear and is thinned with water. You might want to give it a shot.
You can't use matte medium in a spray bottle. The technique is to spray a light mix of water and a few drops of liquid dish soap onto the scenery or ballast. When it soaks in, apply the thinned mix of matte medium (eh, maybe 25% matte medium/75% water … I can't recall anymore) with an eye-dropper. It'll soak in without disturbing your scenery or ballast profile. If you're ballasting, immediately wipe off your rail tops, rail sides, frogs, turnout points, stock rails, etc. really well and some drops of rubbing alcohol in these same turnout areas wouldn't hurt either. If you adopt matte-medium, I advise test driving its use before applying it to your layout. One you get the hang of it, it's a cinch to use.
Hardcoalers way is really good. It is about the same as I do with the white glue except I use a 1/3 glue 2/3 water ratio with the same basic application method. Doing a test section no matter what you try is always sound advice!
I'm coating a 4x8 sheet of foam with the turf. Using an eyedropper isn't an option. I'll just have to experiment to find what works.
In poking around the internet, it seems a consensus is four parts water to one part glue, with either a few drops of dish soap or alcohol mixed in as a wetting agent. I'll start there and see what happens.
If I were doing that, I'd just use a brush to paint on the matte-medium liquid from the jar and sift on your ground cover over it.
You CAN apply matte medium with a spray bottle if you dilute it properly. I mix matte medium with 91% isopropyl alcohol -- 1 part alcohol to 2 parts matte medium. The alcohol breaks the surface tension, so there is no need to pre-treat the scenery with "wet" water (water with a few drops of dish soap). You can eliminate that step. Applying this mixture with a spray bottle works just fine when I need to secure scenery materials over a large area. For very small areas and detail work, I use an eye dropper. - Jeff
