Hornby Skale Scenics

SCALE Any PRODUCT Hornby R7182 Static Grass Puffer Bottle; R7178 Static Grass – Grass Meadow, 2.5mm; R7183 Grass Glue PRICE R7182, £6.50; R7178, £3.50; R7183, £10.50 AVAILABILITY Hornby stockists or www.hornby.com

Hornby has, traditionally, offered all the components needed to build a model railway, but over the years it seemed to neglect the accessory market, choosing to focus on locomotives and rolling stock instead. That has since changed and Hornby’s 2019 range contains no fewer than 72 new scenic items.

The reinvigorated Skale Scenics range includes ready-made trees, foliage, ground cover, ballast and flock, plus one vital product never seen before in the Hornby range – static grass. It now offers a new range of fibres, a new glue and an applicator. Rather than produce

an expensive electrostatic applicator, Hornby has gone for the mass market, price-sensitive option: a puffer bottle.

Puffer bottles are ideal for planting fibres in small areas and are a good introduction to the world of static grass (they work best with fibres under 5mm). The action of ‘puffing up’ the grass fibres in the plastic bottle provides the necessary charge to the make the fibres stand up. Hornby’s offering is virtually identical to the ones from Gaugemaster and Noch.

CLEAR ADVANTAGE

The Grass Glue is excellent. It works out more expensive than PVA, but it’s thinner, and dries clear with a matt finish.

The static grass comes in five shades (Grass Meadow, Alpine Meadow, Mixed Summer, Ornamental Lawn and Spring Meadow), but they’re all 2.5mm long. The quality is comparable to Noch’s static grass, but the 20g bags don’t offer the same value for money you’d get from other manufacturers.

It’s good to see Hornby rejoining the model railway scenery market and Skale Scenics is one of the better ways of taking your first steps with static grass. We look forward to more from Hornby in the future. (PM)