The Tufty Club - making tufts for basing

If you are old enough to know what the original Tufty Club was congratulations for still being here with me! If you are not or reading this from foreign lands also well done for either not being an old fart like me, or possibly living somewhere with a functioning health service and sewage free rivers.*

Anyway as you can see by the picture above this brief blogpost is not about a perky hare with a road safety message but is about tufts. I use a metric ton(ne) of tufts in my work as a commission painter and decided I wanted to be able to make my own to different sizes and colours than those I was in the habit of buying on Ebay. I tried the hand held shaker type but never really got the results I wanted due to lack of technique and the limits of the equipment. I looked online and saw various flock boxes but this one caught my attention as it looked like the mother of flock boxes available elsewhere.

Essentially it is just a metal box which generates a lot of static but it produces results even a muppet like me can be happy with. It can cope with static grass up to 10mm and is super fast. You could stop here and just go buy one however I have learned some lessons and produce tufts like those below in less than 5 minutes per strip. All those in the pic were done in less than 30 mins.

My technological advance

Yep its a lid off something which i hit with a hammer until it lay flattish then epoxy glued with Gorilla glu to a stick. Before you mock remember if it looks stupid but it works its not stupid! At some point I will make a more refined version but this does the job.

When I first got the flock box I was putting the glue on the greaseproof paper and holding it above the box in both hands as the clip was also attached to the paper and unbelievably easy to touch.. This was useless and lead to a number of surprisingly strong static shocks. The results were poor as well. This neanderthal piece of stick tech - The Neandertool - combined with 6 tiny magnets alows one handed, far more control and excellent results.

Step 1 - load the plate with your choice of static grass. with longer static grass its best to do fewer and repeat. With up to 6mm it doesnt seem to matter!

Step 2 - cut your piece of greaseproof paper to size and fix to the neandertool using magnet. Add glue blobs to the size and shape that you are after. For smaller blobs i use the not the bristles end of an old brush and for larger areas the actual bristly end.

Step 3 - position the box against something heavy so it doesnt move as you are trying to press the on/off button. Doing this one handed is a quick way to get a shock as you will accidentally touch the surface. You just will! You cant do it with both hands as you need to have the neandertool in the corre waiting for action. As soon as you hit the button the static grass will fly.

Step 4 - Attach the crocodile clip securely to the mtal plate on the Neandertool and hold the neandertool in position about 2" above the box for about 30 seconds then turn off the flock box. Check your result and feel smug. If you want to be super smug repeat using a different colour and/or length of static grass. I tend to use the longer grass first as it leaves gaps the smaller stuff can fill I think.

Dont touch any of the metal bits for a few seconds as they can retain a small charge.

Static grass travelling upwards. I used two shades of basically dry grass for my tufts as am basing some deserty stuff.

I bought mine on Ebay from a company called Flocking ltd. and it was called Static Grass FK3 Pro Flock Box. It was just over £50 so not pocket money but if you use a lot of tufts or want lots of different tufts it is worth it. In case you are wondering I have no connection to this company at all but am pleased with the product

Finished tufts

• I started writing this before the election result of 4th July so hopefully things will get better