Hello all. I am quite new to this forum business so please bear with me! I am an old retired guy, that has been building models for nearly as long as I can remember! How ever I have a question and need some ideas on. I am in the process of building an 1/35 scale diorama that requires sand. Any ideas what to use? I have already tried the rail road guys with nothing quite right. The color of the medium, I believe I have mastered with paints. All the grades of real sand that I have found are just too big of grains. Look more like gravel! I just have not come up with a material that looks right. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Have you tried play sand. I am sure i have heard of that being used before. But i would like to see some answers on this as i have a few desert Dio’s plained.
Contact your local dental supply company and ask if you can buy some fine pumice…it comes in extremely fine grades to larger grades. I use it and it is awesome…like 10 micron and higher.
Good luck
Thanks, but the play sand, at least what I am thinking of, is still too rough.
Thanks for the info. I’ll check that out ASAP!
Pumice is cheap and it comes in lots of sizes…
No 1 Course(Not as coarse as regular sand)
No 2 Med coarse
No 3 Medium
No 4 fine(like a powder)
Good luck
For the playsand try sifting it. Get a tea strainer from the dollar store and soft out the big stuff. You left over finer grade stuff may work As for the pumice suggestion - How would you colour the pumice? Do you dye it before setting or glue it in place for the texture and paint over it?
The pumice comes in gray and brown…perfect sand for dioramas…
Hi Vindicator.I’m surprised nobody mentioned aquarium filter sand.It’s dirt cheap[ no pun intended] & comes in a few different grades[sizes] ,most all are so fine it has the feel of silk. Good luck, keith
I’ve always found the best source of “grit” for groundwork is in the curbside along any road. Sandy terrain (especially Desert sand and scrub) is never as uniform as it would look if you use a pre-packaged bag of sand. I use dirt and grit from the curbside glued to a base of celluclay and then paint and weather it to the desired color. I discovered this method many moons ago reading Shep Paine’s Monogram diorama sheets (in particular the North African desert dios such as the Grant tank and the Panzerspahwagen).
sawdust, it takes forever to accumulate, but i well worth it, cut some wood, and if that is too coarse, try sanding it, it is like a very fine powder.
reptile cage sand from petsmart
Nice field piece! Ground work still a little rough for my project! Thanks for the info though, may use that stuff on another one.
Dental pumice…
Have you tried to crush sand to make it finner? Then you could control the size and mix the sizes for realism.
I’ve used Arizona Rock and Mineral Co. sand. It’s is available in different types and colors.and is ground for use with different scales. They also market ground up asphalt and concrete. for use in road dioramas.
I was just searching for fine pumice, I can only find the white stuff in the UK. I was checking Amazon and came across this by Vallejo. I checked their site and theres a range of them.
http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/en_US/water-_-stone/family/21
Has anyone tried these.
If I remember correctly, woodland scenics model railroad ballast is made from crushed nut shells. If you can get your hands on a shaker of it, you could try a coffee grinder and grind it to the desired consistency. It should take paint pretty well to.