03-07-2021, 11:10 AM
The working links are a big help in understanding what you're trying to do, and it looks like your plan is to have the crop running towards the curve of the track, rather than alongside it.
Looking at the strips of crop material, I wonder if that base to which the crop is attached would be sufficient to represent the furrows.
If you're planning to use real dirt, the suggestions and cautions already mentioned are good advice. Another choice to make your dirt more to-scale would be to at least run it through a sieve, so that the particles don't look like HO scale boulders.
I sieved some limestone screenings (available at garden centres and probably home improvement stores, too...I got mine at a nearby lumberyard for around five bucks for a 50lb. bag) to create ballast. However, I couldn't get it to look like the same stuff given to me by a friend, as some of his finer stuff was a lot smaller than I could get with the several grades of sieves I had on-hand.
When I asked how he managed to get such fine particles, it turned out that the final sieving process was done through a spatter guard, normally used over a frying pan to prevent the stuff being fried from spattering it all over the stove-top. I found a reasonably priced one at Canadian Tire, and running the already sieved stuff through it yielded limestone dust, probably the equivalent of HO scale 1/4" stone chips. It would likely work equally well or even better for creating realistic-looking dirt for your field's planting soil.
Wayne
Looking at the strips of crop material, I wonder if that base to which the crop is attached would be sufficient to represent the furrows.
If you're planning to use real dirt, the suggestions and cautions already mentioned are good advice. Another choice to make your dirt more to-scale would be to at least run it through a sieve, so that the particles don't look like HO scale boulders.
I sieved some limestone screenings (available at garden centres and probably home improvement stores, too...I got mine at a nearby lumberyard for around five bucks for a 50lb. bag) to create ballast. However, I couldn't get it to look like the same stuff given to me by a friend, as some of his finer stuff was a lot smaller than I could get with the several grades of sieves I had on-hand.
When I asked how he managed to get such fine particles, it turned out that the final sieving process was done through a spatter guard, normally used over a frying pan to prevent the stuff being fried from spattering it all over the stove-top. I found a reasonably priced one at Canadian Tire, and running the already sieved stuff through it yielded limestone dust, probably the equivalent of HO scale 1/4" stone chips. It would likely work equally well or even better for creating realistic-looking dirt for your field's planting soil.
Wayne