Model Railroading > Modeling corn fields?

I am modeling a HO cornfield using Bluford Shops cornfield system. Injection molded flexible plastic (think green army men) stalks on a stick. Each box covers about a square foot and I have to cover about three square feet. So far so good. The question is: how do I attach this to the module surface? It's Styrofoam that's gonna be covered in ground goop. I'm trying to avoid the pool table look, so there is some gentle (+- 1/4 inch) elevation changes here and there. This is a portable train module that's gonna get jostled, stored on end, etc - so adhesion is very important to me.

I was thinking of assembling 15-20 foot wide sections (planter width) and planting those onto the module. Individual sections might be staggered a bit to show different passes of the tractor and planter. Another possibility is smushing individual rows into the goop, but I'm concerned about alignment side to side and row to row. I figure the planter machine drops a seed simultaneously across x rows, so the stalks should line up and the rows should be parallel per planter pass.

Option One: Glue the corn stalks to the foam, then putty up to the corn with ground goop. Maybe try to work a bit of goop over the edges around the stalks.
Option Two: Lay down the ground goop, then smush the stalks into the goop.

Any ideas or recommendations?

Thanks,
Clarence G

Photo 1 shows the box so you can see what I'm talking about.
Photo 2+3 show 15 scale feet assembled corn, top and bottom. You can see there isn't much room for goop to ooze up into the center between the stalks. There might be a suction effect though.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/17 22:10 by Clarence.

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Picture 4 shows individual stalk assemblies. On the vertical one you can maybe see the small alignment pins that fit into the holes on the next stick over. I painted the bottoms dark gray to blend with the ground cover I'll eventually sift into this.

Picture 5 is an end-on view of the corn stalk assembly.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/17 22:09 by Clarence.

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I would use latex adhesive caulk underneath the molded stalks, available at all the hardware and big-box stores. Cheap and very sticky, even to engineering plastic. Then dust the whole assembly with your soil and feather in the edges.

~RGDave

For an "O" scale layout at our club home, I used an "Astro turf" door mat. It represents an early season crop of corn. ( Just a littler over knee high.) I lightly sprayed the mat with black paint to take off most of the shine.

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Looks as if car 101 has had an oops.

I am working on this very problem now, and I think I may have an answer. This is still in the experimental stages, but I'll share what I've done so far.

First, take the cornstalks as they come out of the box, spray paint them lightly (corn isn't a uniform green, likely to be kinda khaki color near the ground, and the tassels at the top will be yellowish also). Use an uneven, ripped paper mask to cover the central part of the stalks that need to stay green. The irregular ripped surface helps avoid a too-neat masking line.

The problem with putting them on the ground is that honkin' big sprue that the stalks are all connected to. It doesn't bend all that well, and it's so thick that it's hard to blend into the surrounding scenery. So the answer is to get the corn anchored into something else.

So we set up the rows of corn right next to each other, sprue to sprue, and then dribble in some liquid latex to cover the tops of the sprues. You want a thorough coating that totally covers the sprues. Texture that with some fine, sifted dirt while the latex is still wet (I think ground goop is too coarse for a plowed agricultural soil). Allow the latex to dry thoroughly, at least overnight, probably 2 days. Modest use of a heat lamp helps.

Now comes the cool part. Your corn is now anchored, not just in the sprues that came from the factory, but also in that latex sheet that you applied over the sprues. So turn the whole assemblage upside down, get out your Xuron sprue nipper, and cut off the corn stalks just above the sprue, peeling back the latex a little bit at a time.

When you're done you have a flexible latex sheet with a whole bunch of corn stalks standing up out of it. This will conform to curved landforms, so you arent' constrained to pool table flat surfaces.

So far, I've only done this on an experimental basis, with 3 or 4 rows of corn. But the preliminary results look pretty good.

Gardiner Cross
Cripplebush Valley Models

You don’t need to worry about lining the stalks up across the rows. The row units on the planter will all sew independently from each other, so staggering the placement of the rows would be accurate.

That is an issue, but so far its been pretty minor. The stalks that were visibly out-of-plumb were repositioned and seemed to stay OK in the new orientation. But as I noted, this is still in experimental stage, and I haven't tested it on a steep hill.

Have you guys seen Pelle Soeberg's book or MR article on making cornfields? He used plastic stalks too but they may have been different. His end product looked great though.

Don’t forget you can also model the corn at harvest time too. A tan/brown golden color looks good to.

The liquid latex is a very interesting approach - I wouldn't have thought of it. I do plan to dust paint the stalks with shades of green (dark and yellowish).
I have genuine Illinois corn field dirt (harvested from across the street from my sis-in-law) for ground cover ha ha.
I did find a Cody Grivno MR article from 3-4 years ago where he used a similar product on the MR&T, but haven't seen the Pelle article.
Clarence



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/14/17 20:42 by Clarence.

I've posted here or elsewhere, I've been trying to tackle the same project, although fall corn. The commercially available products do a decent job, but I feel they fail to capture how thin stalks actually are. I'm still playing around with my concept, hope to have something worth sharing soon

Posted from Android

I think I would secure the strips to the foam with liquid nails, then mix up a batch of 50:50 diluted white glue with some brown coloring. Have it in a bottle with a long tip applicator that can reach down between the stalks and flood the mix over the strips at the base of the stalks. Shortly afterwards sprinkle a soil like material over the corn field and have it settle on top of the wet mix, blowing it off the stalks as needed.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR