Home Forums Terrain and Scenery Quick and easy 15mm hedges…

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  • #56371
    Avatar photoshelldrake
    Participant

    … with dodgey phone camera photos to help with the explanation:

    You need: Scourer pads, coffee stirrers, a hot glue gun (with glue sticks), spray glue, flock and hair spray.

     

    thin scourer pads – the ones I have used are about 6 to 7mm thick.

    Coffee stirrers – these took me ages to find here in Australia, as apparently they are called “craft sticks”. I guess we use spoons to stir coffee…

    Place masking tape over the scourer, and measure the height you want the hedge to be, and draw a line across the tape to that height. Note – by overlapping the tape, you can cut more out at one time. I only showed one peice of tape as an example.

    Using sharp scissors (I have an ‘industrial’ pair that I used) cut along the line you drew and then remove the tape:

    I measured 25mm for use with 20mm figures, and 20mm for use with 15mm figures.

    Next, get one of your coffee stirrers and make a mark along the stick for the full length of the hedge (sorry, it is hard to see the line in the next photo, so I put a close up in too). This line is important, as it makes it easy to apply the right amount of hot glue that you will need:

    Using the hot glue gun apply the gule along the stick up to the line you drew, then push the cut section of scourer into the glue on the stick, making sure it has lined up and is straight before doing so.

    Using the excess piece of the coffee stirrer as a handle, spray glue over the scourer and cover with flock.

    This will need to be done twice to give a nice finish to the scourer, and it is ok if the glue hasn’t dried before you do a second coat. The second coat helps to add a bit more of a natural look to your hedge.

    Once the glue has dried, use hair spray over the hedge to help seal the flock in. This helps harden the flock to stop it rubbing off.

    A before and after shot:

    You can see the flock has added a bit more thickness to the hedge. It seems to have added about 2mm to the height and thickness.

     

    Once dry, simply cut the excess coffee stirrer off.

    You can paint the coffee stirrer under the hedge if you like, or just cover it with glue and flock when making it to hide the stick.

    A blurry height comparison with some 15mm figures with a 25mm tall hedge:

    Notes:

    You can make a lot of hedges is a very short time when doing this.

    If you use the much wider ‘hobby sticks’ (I have found them in three sizes: the coffee stirrer size, the icy pole [popiscle for those that don’t speak ‘strine’] size, and wider ice pole variant) you can add extra bits to the hedge, such as small trees, rocks or grass for example.

     

    I hope this has helped someone somewhere.

    #56373
    Avatar photoMike
    Keymaster

    I used to do this, but had a bath of PVA/water/washing up liquid I would dunk the hedge into rather than spray glue.

    It is indeed a great way of making loads for not much cash.

    😀

    #56375
    Avatar photoshelldrake
    Participant

    I forgot to add that the sticks add stability to the hedge so it doesn’t fall over.

    #56377
    Avatar photoRhoderic
    Member

    Thanks for posting. The next best thing after building terrain is reading about and seeing photos of other people building terrain.

    An optional extra thing that can be done with scouring pads for modelling vegetation is to pull and tease out the fibers a bit before flocking, thus making it more scraggly and unevenly shaped, like a more rustic country hedge.

    Also, I’ve recently been made wise to coconut fiber basket liners, which as a terrain modelling material is much the same as scouring pads in form and purpose (YOUTUBE LINK), so now I’m going to try hunt down some of those. My favourite material for this kind of stuff is still rubberised horsehair (which I suppose might be extra, extra difficult to source for you in Australia given that it’s animal hair and might not be produced domestically), but I love experimenting with new terrain materials.

    I keep hearing about hairspray used by modellers as a spray adhesive, but it always sounds weird to me. It really works as an adhesive? One that dries like glue? I’ve excluded all aerosols from my hobby pursuits due to living arrangements and local climate, but then hairspray can be used indoors so maybe I should give it some more thought.

    #56379
    Avatar photoshelldrake
    Participant

    I keep hearing about hairspray used by modellers as a spray adhesive, but it always sounds weird to me. It really works as an adhesive? One that dries like glue? I’ve excluded all aerosols from my hobby pursuits due to living arrangements and local climate, but then hairspray can be used indoors so maybe I should give it some more thought.

    I have heard it can be used as an adhesive, but I have only used it to seal the flock after glueing. I would be interested is see what it is like as a glue by itself.

    I have see the coconut fibre and thought about using it. The rubberised horse hair is around, but not the cheapest option.

    Steel wool is another thing I have used to make a bush, and that worked really well too.

    #56380
    Avatar photoRhoderic
    Member

    Ah, my categorisation of what’s what might be a bit amiss. I suppose I unthinkingly equate sealant with adhesive, probably because I use adhesive (PVA glue) as a sealant all the time. Never mind me.

    #56393
    Avatar photokyoteblue
    Participant

    I made some hedges this way but used a wider piece of wood at the bottom to keep them from falling over.

    #56399
    Avatar photoCount Belisarius
    Participant

    Same here for my 6mm. I also used a wider base for more stability and made the top surface a little more irregular. I mounted mine on the base and applied some ‘sand’ type stuff to the edges of it to blend in to the ground. I then sprayed the whole thing dark brown to fit in with my basing and make the bottom of the hedge look more, well, hedgy… 🙂

    A

    #56403
    Avatar photoMike
    Keymaster

    Nice, those the gates from Irregular Miniatures?

    #56410
    Avatar photoShaun Travers
    Participant

    About 10 years ago, maybe more, I bought a pack of exactly the same scouring pads to do the same as you have done.  I know exactly where they are, still in the pack 🙁

    #56564
    Avatar photoshelldrake
    Participant

    Same here for my 6mm. I also used a wider base for more stability and made the top surface a little more irregular. I mounted mine on the base and applied some ‘sand’ type stuff to the edges of it to blend in to the ground. I then sprayed the whole thing dark brown to fit in with my basing and make the bottom of the hedge look more, well, hedgy… 🙂 A

    They look great. I would have probably made this kind of thing, and make mention of it in my original post, but I didn’t have wider sticks to mount them on.

    #56565
    Avatar photoshelldrake
    Participant

    About 10 years ago, maybe more, I bought a pack of exactly the same scouring pads to do the same as you have done. I know exactly where they are, still in the pack 🙁

    Well, I hope this post motivates you to break them out and make some hedges

    #56586
    Avatar photoMartinR
    Participant

    My hedges are also made from scourers, and based like Belisarius did. I based them on artists mount board, which seems to work fine.

    "Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

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