It was with trepidation that we approached the problem of grass because there were three big banks on the layout – Hatton Bank, Brinklow Bank and the shed area – and we knew they would be a challenge.
We had seen a small diorama where teddy bear fur had been used to make the grass and we had been so impressed with this effect that we bought a length of said fur from John at Greenscene. This was to be the most challenging thing that we’d ever done on the layout and it’s fair to say that it very nearly beat us!
We must have spent over seven to eight months trying desperately to make the grass look the way that we wanted it to look and although we thought it was ‘OK’ we knew we could do better because Mike Taylor, our Team Leader, wasn’t really jumping up and down with satisfaction at the results we’d achieved so far! We’d all got huge blisters on our hands from where we’d cut the fur down and we’d even ruined a pair of gentlemen’s hair shears. Then one Sunday morning, out of pure frustration, Big Steve Naylor, not famous for his subtlety, unwittingly discovered the answer to our problems! It’s funny, isn’t it, how sometimes genius and downright stupidity stand side by side! Well, so it was for Steve, who happened to have a blow lamp in the boot of his car and decided, as a last resort, to set fire to the teddy bear fur! Hey, at least he had the commonsense to go outside!
I don’t think even he expected such a spectacular result but, et voila, it worked! Because the teddy bear fur is fire retardant, it did not go up in flames but it did shrink and shrivel and with the added realism of lying in the direction that the wind had blown Steve’s flame, it created a fantastic realistic grass effect. This was a huge hurdle overcome because we were now able to achieve exactly the effect we wanted.
By making 25ft of grass in one go we were able to cover the blue foam of the hills with green grass and create our grass banks. Now that we had solved this intimidating problem we all breathed a sigh of relief and our spirits rose as the huge expanse of grass ceased to be our nemesis and we were able to concentrate on some of the little touches that would bring the layout to life.
Today we are still working on the grass but along with static grass guns like Noka and a German Mat called Buch, we are now able to create some stunning grass effects.
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