Re: Where to get fine sand?

On 17 Mar 2007 06:52:07 -0700, "Hawkeye" <hawkeye@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Go down to your local building center, see if there is any 'broken'
bags of plaster grade sand or silica sand. Ask the clerk if you can
sweep some up, take a long a ziploc bag. I keep a couple of ziplocs in
the truck just in case I find such a treasure midst my travels.

Thanks guys. I like this route and had in fact got a couple mugfull
of the popcorn ceiling texturing stuff from a broken bag once. That
was all I needed to cover up a water stain on my ceiling. And as for
the sand my nephew said I should be able to get some from the school
playground sandlot and that's just behind my house. I knew I should
have a freebie source nearby but clouldn't put my finger on it.

The sand is for desert scene dioramas. For the base I use laminated
floor board panels as they are suitably (1/4") thin yet very stable
dimensionally and won't warp. I then glue a paper towel on the
surface to provide a suitable surface and texture. The edge of the
towel is shredded to give a ragged appearance. I then squirt dirt
colored thinned white glue to dampen and hold down the paper. The
dirt colored part is the craft acrylic color paint from the dollar
store. For desert scenes I sprinkle the sand on this wet glue
surface. The natural sand color is usually a mismatch with Panzer
yellow or Br. desert yellow. So I mist the sand with one of these
camo colors to bring it close to but not identical to the camo color.
Features like track ruts have to be added while still wet. Once dry
the surface is exactly like sandpaper and next to impossible to work
on.

On making dioramas its easiest to do desert scenes and snow scenes.
Snow scenes are plaster of paris dressed up with canned Christmas
spray on snow to make it look realistically fluffy. I also used that
popcorn texturing but this comes up as very lumpy snow - like snow
having been churned up by a lot of heavy traffic.

For vegetation covered scenes I use tea leaves from old tea bags,
lichens and natural twigs. That Sludge acrylic gel I described
elsewhere is excellent for fixing the lichen and twigs to the base.
Color painting is with craft acrylic colors from the dollar store.


.

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