If you clips a metal pin (panel nail or something similar) in the crocodile clip you can apply the grass by not having the clip clipped onto the base. You will need to do this when covering larger areas anyway as the earthing point should not be to far away from the applicator or else it will not work correctly.
My daughter gave me this exact model for my birthday and I was using it just a few days ago. Great results, but I accidentally brushed the side of my hand on the grid when cleaning up. Truly thought my heart was going to stop when it discharged through me, especially considering I've already had two serious cardiac surgeries :D .
Fantastic video, thank you very much for the tips. I have that exact same applicator and that shock scared the crap out of me when it first happened!!!
you can do something slightly different, get a metal tray (a sheet of foil might work, put several small bases on top of the foil/tray and connect the foil/tray to the crocodile clip, for tufts do the same as above but use baking paper of even better a silicon sheet
@@WatchItPaintIt LOL Not passing judgment - I've blown myself across the room with 120vac. The truly painful part is having to go spend $30 on a new set of side cutters afterward...
Not available at the link, but I found one on ebay with the same design, most likely a knock off, but when can you do when the original is not available? I like static grass, but not $300 or whatever applicators cost for those doing the train stuff, but under $50USD, sure, why not elevate my tuff game!
Ah! I did this tutorial a while ago, and I guess they sold out since, I updated the link to another one, thanks for the heads up! Yeah I agree with you, for $20/25 its a fun tool and it dramatically increases my bases IMHO.
One would think that your applicator would be loaded with the batteries and grass before you applied the glue. Just saying. Thank you for taking the time to produce this video.
i got this exact one, does the wire have to touch the mesh for it to work? mine isnt touching and im worried about making it touch for if it implodes or somehing idk xDD
i have this problem in which either im too far and it doesnt pick up the grass or im too close and it makes big strings of grass coming from the glue to the aplicator and it kind of ruins the proces, any ideas on how to fix this?
6:53 Do you think some sort of temporary addon attached to the underside would work? I'm still not sure how this works since the base is not conductive by my understanding, but maybe it makes some sort of electromagnetic field and the grass coming precharged through the grill makes a difference. So like white glue a piece of plastic on the bottom to hold the negative alligator clamp.
Oh yeah, I think you're right, just superglue a little bit of plastic to the bottom, or even a paper clip etc and snap it off after applying the grass! That's if you want full coverage, I guess in an ideal world you want varience so probably do it sometimes, and add rocks other times.
@@WatchItPaintIt Nice thing of course is you can add the rocks to begin with as opposed to adding a rock to hide a flaw, but good to hear it would most likely do the trick.
True. But a lot of things are cheaper to do yourself but quicker to spend money! With this being 20 bucks, I’d rather save a few hours of my life to spend painting one miniature :-D
@@WatchItPaintIt Maybe I managed to solve the problem, I used a piece of wire and attached it to the ground wire with the clamp. The grass seems to be falling well now, I even got an electric shock to see if the current was circulating
Has the wire come away from the mesh slightly? Mine did that once. I just had to bend the wire. The bare wire needs to touch the metal mesh for it to work
@@WatchItPaintIt Most likely i got one that wasn't checked by the quality crew, i opened it, the coil thing is burned, it heats there and heat spreads to the circuit plaque when button is pressed, it smells burned when it heats, i suspect that's what happened after the first use, it only gives led light now with no static current at all. Maybe i got bad luck and got a faulty part that heated and burned. Was cheap at least...
Is it possible that i burned it myself by discharging it? I noticed that for every discharge i did it started to loose power till it died, i did around 500 tufts with it and did about 10 discharges, i suspect that to discharge, the mesh should not be touching the red wire, or it will short circuit it. I think. Maybe. Have you notice it? First use it had a lot power pulling the grass up and even made a sound, and then, it start to loose the static power till went dead. IDK, maybe was just mine in a case of bad parts.