This is part of what you will need to grow weed using Pete’s method. The Grasmaster, acrylic fibers, horse hair, glue, and a Teflon cookie pan. There are two and six mm acrylic fibers used in the photos that follow, the horse hair (straw) is hand cut to around 10mm.

Here’s part of the secret in getting your fibers fully aroused- excellent conductivity! That’s a new Teflon baking sheet; SWMBO took a dim view of the use of the kitchen’s utensils for such activities. A file was used to rub off the coating where the grounding clip is attached.

Here are the glues that work for me. The tacky glue is a permanently flexible stuff from Wal-Mart, it’s cheap and effective. The matte medium is a concentrated PVA; it works a tad better but costs more.

Squirt the glue onto the Teflon coated cookie sheet. Don’t use a plain pan or aluminum foil if you want the weeds clumps to come free. I learned this from experience. Also you don’t have to make just dots- s-shapes, lines, ect. will all pull free in one piece and transfer off the sheet.

Apply your chosen mix of fibers using the Grasmaster. Look at those fibers stand at attention!!!

It looks messy at first. Don’t worry you can recover a lot of the material that didn’t stick after the glue dries.

Here is a close-up photo of a freshly “grown” weed. The glue is still soft, but once it dries out and shrinks, it will pull all those wonderful strands into a nice tight clump.

The Army is guarding the crop. There’s two crops here actually, although they look the same, there is a subtle difference in the mixes. The “greener” stuff is going closer to the water feature on the layout. Once the glue is dry the clumps come off easily with a credit card, sort of like removing cookies from a cookie sheet…

Those little plastic cases that the 4mm die cast cars come in are great for storing your “stash” and keeping the different crops separate.

In this view the weed clumps look a bit like a bad hair job on a bald fellow. Down low where I normally photograph trains this isn’t apparent, but more weeds are needed here. It will be a simple matter to use my leftovers to fill in the gaps.

Some of the weed clumps have edges or shadows underneath that show in the close-ups. It’s easy to go back after the fact and add some ground clutter to cover these edges. Alternately, a little paint mixed into the white glue will easily color your grass clumps. Or you can do the occasional photoshop, because these sorts of defects aren’t visible at normal viewing distances.