How to seal the dirt

Modeling Subjects Dioramas
1

1st time to do a serious diorama and I’ve started to put dirt on it and was wondering if I should use a mixture of elmers glue and water and spray it on the dirt inorder to seal it or does anybody have a better idea.

2

I rarely use elmers glue and water to seal, but you could do a test,it might work fine.Some of the miniatures for the studios have landscapes.(dirt/grass/concrete/whatever,…Aqua net hair spray worked good …also just crystal clear,…many coats.(finally …polyester fiberglassing resin ,srayed gives you a serious hard coat.,but might be to thick…good luck…new to the forum stuff,thanks to those of you who welcomed me…fx guy(1madmodeler)

3

Hey TeeJay,

All I do is just spray the surface with water to make it damp, then I have a mixture of about 70/30 white glue and water mix in a bottle with a pointed tip. I drop the glue mixture on the wet ground and just let it soak in, the wet ground helps the glue absorb better, otherwise if the ground is dry, it will bead up when you are applying the glue. Let dry overnight and it should be good to go. Another suggestion for dirt would be sanded or nonsanded tile grout. Use the same sequence as above, the only thing with the tile grout is that it’ll dry hard like cement, which is good!

Happy modelling

Kelly

4

Thanks. Just verifying, am I to wet the dirt with water before spraying the diluted glue? By the way I use rocks and stones from my backyard and pound them to powder to be use as dirt.

5

as a varaition, instead of plain water initailly, add a couple of drops of dishwashing liquid to the water. It helpd break surface tension when you apply the Elmers glue/ water mix.

6

Ah yes, forgot about adding the detergent to the glue mix, I’ve just been doing it the way I have for so long now! LOL

7

I usually add any dirt or groundwork to a layer of Elmer’s instead of the other way around.

You can easily seal additional layers of dirt on top with Dullcoat. I use it all the time.

8

Nothing simulates dirt better than dirt[:P].

9

Water/glue/soap mix is the way I do it… Model Railroaders been doing it that way for decades…