Dying Sisal Rope

Sisal rope is a great versatile modelling material, the main application within model farming is as straw, either loose or baled. But it can also be effectively used as vegetation to add life to a diorama. In either case its natural colour isn't quite right for purpose and so we need to dye it. I suspect there are various methods for dying it but I will just demonstrate one that I know works.

What do you need? Some sisal, chopped, a mixing pot, and some paint. In this case for speed I'm just using some acrylic deep yellow to make a straw colour. For more accurate colours mix up your own pallet. I'm using acrylic as it is fast drying and can be watered down but any paint should work.

I start by adding a drop of paint to the side of the tub.

Then scoop the paint up with a clump of sisal.

Rub the sisal between your fingers and thumb to move the paint around, if you are struggling to spread the paint wet you hand with water and continue, this thins the paint down making it spread easier.

Thoroughly spread the paint so the sisal is all pretty much the same colour. It is now died and read to use. If you are making bales it is great to make the bale out if the sisal while its still wet, as it dries the paint will hold the sisal as well as the twine making the bale less prone to splitting.

The dyed sisal compared with the natural rope colour.

The light colour of sisal means it lends itself to dying any colour, here yellow, green and brown have been made.

Making Square Bales - Baling

With the baler made its now time to bale the straw.

To start with cut some strands of cotton, I'm using which reald cotton here so it shows up on camera, really a fine orange thread would be more suitable or any colour of your choosing. Once cut line them up centrally in your baler as shown.

Pinch the strands between your finger, thumb and the balerholding them tight. Then add the first layer of straw, evenly covering the strands.

Compress the straw with the plunger keeping the twine tight, then let the twine drop a little moving the straw down the chamber.

Add another layer of straw, compact and move down. Repeat until the bale reaches the bottom of the chamber. 

When you are happy the bale is well compacted tie the string in knots. This is where the notches to the holes help as the string can be tied tight and close to the bale.

Tie the knot

And trim the excess string

And repeat for all the string

Give the bale one last compaction

 And then pull out the base plate

Flip the chamber upside down and compact the other end of the bale with the plunger.

Moving back to the top of the chamber use the plunger to push the bale along the chamber.

And out of the bottom

Voilà, one bale

You can just see the like along the centre created by the groove.

A stack of bales.

The sisal isn't quite the right shade for any straw and so to improve the appearance there are a few methods. For the two bales shown on the left the sisal has been dyed, see here for how to dye sisal. (I now have a method for dying sisal in larger quantities which can be found here)The one on the right has simply been spray painted after being made, the paint doesn't adhere to the twine while nicely coloring the sisal. The ideal method here would be to airbrush various shares onto the bale.

Hopefully this guide has been useful, any ideas or suggestions on improvements feel free to share them.

Making Square Bales - Making the Straw and Building a Baler

Within this page I aim to explain the process for making square bales. The process is applicable for both large and small bales and 1/32 & 1/16 scales.

To start with you will need some straw to bale. There is an array of materials that can be used but the most realistic I have found, both in appearance and behaviour is fine chopped sisal rope. Making this is the most tedious part of the process. How you chop the sisal is up to you, a knife is suitable (check out this video which seems to be a very quick method of production), as are scissors (for thicker rope tin snips are a suitable substitute for scissors). My preferred method is with a guillotine, you want to be chopping the sisal into about 5mm stands so it separates out from the rope nicely. Chop as much as need, as a guide I find a large quadrant bale requires about 30 grams of sisal, a small bale 2-3 grams.

Guillotine

About 5mm strands are best for making bales, the rope should seperare nicely as its cut, if it remains in a rope untwirl it by hand or cut your strands smaller. It takes a while to build up a good level of stock, I find the guillotine fastest, a 500g back could be made in half an hour.

Now you have the straw you next need a baler. I will add to this section at a later date with 2d plans for one but for now this sectional view should suffice. The basic principle is a bale chamber, that you fill with straw, and a plunger to compress the straw. Added to this are guides to hold the twine where you want it, and a slot at the bottom to push the bale out. Dimensions for a small baler and a quadrant baler chamber (x,y,z) in 1/32 are included units are centimeters. For ither bales a quick google should give you the real dimensions and then just divide them by 32 or if making for a particular model make to those dimensions. The bales tend to grow a little as the stretch into the string so consider making the chamber shorter (z) than the actualll measurements would suggest. The following photos should show the construction method I have used.

The baler, constructed from laminate flooring and pine strip wood, both left over materials. Anything strong enough and easily workable will do. Note the slot for the bottom, this allows the bale to be built up and then it is slid out and the bale pushed out. The slot is milled out using a pillar drill.

The guides for twine. These are drilled out and then notches cut down, the notches make tying the twine easier.

The sides where built up with appropriate sized stripwood. A thin Mount board layer was sandwiched between, set back from the timber, to create a groove. This produces the line down the middle of the bale like a real one.

Looking up the bale chamber, note the groove on each side.

Showing the bottom plate slid into position

With the straw chopped and baler made its time to make some bales by clicking here.

Basics - Ground Cover

With your sheds now on your baseboard you'll want a way to hide the rest of that bare wood. There are various options out there and to start with we look at one of the cleanest methods
Mats
Mats come as rolled sheets with a scenic scatter applied to one side that can be cut to shape and glued directly to your baseboard.
Brushwood Toys offer a range of mats suitable for model farms from gravel textured ones through to grass and and harvest.

 More expensive and realistic mats are also available from model railway manufactures which I will discuss in a latter post. A variety of such more detailed mats can be found at Holly Loves Toys

Artificial Grass
It is common for shops such as Lidl and Aldi to have offers in the summer on rolls of artificial grass. This can be a relatively in expensive way of covering your baseboard however it is far from realistic and is better suited to displaying tractor collections on than use in a realistic diorama. I have seen it used well as a field of crops being fertilized rather than grass on a 1/32 model farm.

Scenic Scatter

Hailing from the model railway fraternity scenic scatter can offer great results. It is basically a loose version of the material applied to grass mats meaning it can be applied in more complex shapes. Simply paint the area you want to cover brown, once dry spread a layer of PVA glue over the area and sprinkle the scatter on. When set either vacuum up the excess scatter or tilt the baseboard on its side tapping it to let the loose scatter fall off. Tap onto some newspaper to collect up and re use the loose scatter. A spray of 50:50 PVA water mix with a drop of washing up liquid over the scatter using a Mr Muscle style squeezey bottle will seal the scatter and stop it falling off over time. Darker gravel, tarmac and earth coloured scatters are also available with a variety of scatter size depending on the surface you are trying to imitate.

Javis are one of a number of companies that produce such scatters

Static Grass

Moving towards the realistic covering methods is Static Grass. This is fine strands of coloured fibre that when applied between an electric charge stand on end like real grass. A more detailed discussion on this will feature latter in the blog but for now it should be noted that although realistic it is also one of the dearer options. Longer length grass such as those advertised for use with warhammer modelling are more appropriate for the larger 1:32 scale models than shorter strands more suited to the smaller model railway scales.

Paints

Many different forms of paint can be used to cover areas of ground. If on a very tight budget green and brown paint can be used for fields.

An effective use of greys and blacks can create very realistic looking tarmac roads and concrete yards. Any matt paint is suitable for this including poster paints.

Companies such as Plasti-kote offer a textured stone effect spray paint that can be directly applied to a baseboard to emulate a gravel yard quickly and effectively.

Dried Coffee

A great way to create realistic looking cultivated or ploughed fields is by sprinkling a layer of dry coffee over the board. This can be worked using models or fixed in place with the PVA method discussed in the Scenic Scatter section.

Sand

Sand can be a cheap alternative to scatter, simply paint once glued down

Basics - Sheds

Now you've got your baseboard sorted you'll need some sheds. In future posts I will discuss building your own sheds but for this Basics section I'll discuss some of the off the shelf options.

Britains Farm Toys
Britains offer a small range of current farm sheds which can be seen pictured below. These sheds come flat packed and are simple to assemble. They provide a good level of detail while remaining competitively priced. With some painting and weathering or by mashing various sheds together very realistic and convincing sheds can be produced.
It is also worth a hunt on eBay as Britains have produced a number of other sheds in the past that you won't find in the current catalogue. These include houses, barns and stable yards that can all quickly build up a farm diorama.

Brushwood Toys

Brushwood offer a wide array of model sheds particularly suited to the UK market. Offerings range from huge tractor sheds to farm houses to dairy parlours. The range is good and very sturdy making them great for children with lots of printed details but they lack the detail to be used in a realism diorama due to their slot together nature. More recently they have introduced a Pro Build range of shed kits that are a great way of producing highly detailed realistic sheds without the effort of making everything from scratch.

Kidsglobe

Producing a more European Style range of sheds, Kidsglobe offer the most bang for your buck. Their sheds are huge and as such require a large space to display them. Their sturdiness again makes them great for children but they lack detail for realistic displays. They do however offer more opportunity to enhance the detail than Brushwood.

Millwood Crafts

Offering a range of indestructible looking buildings Millwood Crafts are perfect for the younger carpet farmer but are not really suitable for those looking to create realistic dioramas.

HS Model Farms

One of the more detailed range of off the shelf sheds come from HS Model Farms. The models are sturdy enough to survive transporting to shows while detail can easily be enhanced through techniques found in this blog.

Basics - Baseboards

A baseboard is the first step in building a diorama. It is the foundations of the build and therefore important to get right.

It is not a necessity to have a baseboard though. If you are creating a basic farm or one that needs to be packed up out of the way you may favor having small bases under each shed and using roll out grass mats for fields etc.

But if you are aiming for more detail in your diorama, or you plan to move the diorama around for storage purposes or for shows a baseboard is a good idea.

The key to a good baseboard is keeping it strong and sturdy while aiming to keep it light, particularly important if you intend on moving your layout around alot. The last thing you want is for your baseboard to warp or break. 

I will start by showing you some links that explain constructing base boards far better than I can

New Railway Modellers is a site you will see linked alot within this blog as it is a great source of information and particularity step by set guides. Ignore the model railway jargon used here and concentrate on the construction and location advice
New Railway Modellers

One of many videos online showing how to construct a baseboard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTVpRRc71iw

The model railway guys have been at this for years and really know what there doing when it comes to creating a baseboard that will stand the test of time. A quick google will bring up countless debates on what materials are best to use and its really up to you dependent on budget, availability, tools and skill level.

My own choices when it comes to baseboards are MDF and Pine. The last layout I built was heavily over engineered and therefore heavy to lift! Constructed from a sheet of 12mm MDF and 3x2 timber it weighed a tone. Realistically a 6mm MDF base with 2x1 timber laid underneath in strips approximately 1-2 feet apart wont warp, will be plenty strong enough to support all your buildings and models and be light enough to carry. In construction I use self tapping screws, though as you'll see in future updates my latest baseboard is just glued.

To add to the weight 3x3 timber was used to create relief in my last layout, safe to say it was a work out moving it to shows.

Within this blog I aim to show you the processes I use to create a 1/32 model farm diorama and along the way share any useful websites and techniques I find.