My Peco Static Grass Applicator arrived over the weekend. This is my first branded applicator as opposed to my hand-made (not by me) applicator.
The original Noch applicator (that introduced the static grass method a few years ago) is nearly $200 which is a crazy amount of money to spend on such a small and simple tool. Even though I could afford it I could never justify spending that kind of money and therefore via Ebay (and Australia and $30) I bought my hand-made flour-sifter version. It has served me well for several years now.
However as I was building the diorama I realized that my old applicator would not fit into the modelling area and that I was going to have to purchase a more suitable (smaller) applicator. I’ve just finished Gordon Gravett’s book on static grass (which I purchased on a recent trip to the UK) and in it he used a small British-made applicator. The size was perfect for my purposes and I was about to order it but then I saw the new Peco applicator advertised on Ebay. I like and trust Peco products so I went ahead and spent about $90 for a brand new static grass applicator. It arrived five days later.
I unwrapped it, added a battery, and starting testing it on one of my landscaping scratchpads. All I can say is ‘wow’. It’s a completely different experience from my older applicator. Very powerful and easy to use: the fibers just dropped out the bottom and created a beautiful and dense carpet of grass.
I was very excited after that first test – actually too excited – as I then added grass to the some of the areas of the diorama only to realize a day later that I really didn’t like the color. I now need to cut it and lay another layer over the top. No big deal though. The lower level grass will act as a foundation layer and I’ll have more to say about that another time. In the meantime I’m super excited about the possibilities of the new applicator.