In a final dash to improve the layout before this weekend’s VanRail open house, I warmed up the static grass machine and let it loose on the fields in the foreground of the engine facility. In the messy flurry of ground foam, flock and glue, I learned several new tricks and techniques.
On second day, I noticed the grass wasn’t standing up as well, and wasn’t sticking to the inside of the hopper as well. Theorizing that static grass works a lot better if the air is dry, I ran dehumidifier in the layout room for about half an hour. This lowered the humidity from 66% to 32% and helped the grass stand straight up much better.
I’ve never found the ground pin driven into the scenery satisfactory, and tended to drag the pin around in the glue instead. With the large area to cover, this became tiresome, so I replaced the pin with a piece of brass I found in my scrap bin. This is so much better, I might get rid of the alligator clip altogether and solder the wire to the brass.
If you hold onto the grounding wire when you’re reloading the hopper, you might get a shock, even if you don’t deserve it. It’s worse than touching a live wire, at least here in the land of 120V; the first time it happened, my arm ached the next day. It took me an incredible five electrocutions to learn to let the ground wire dangle while refilling the hopper.
The risk to life and limb was worth it in the end. The new fields make a huge difference to the south end of the layout.
Pembroke:87 
Very nice! Thanks for sharing the brass piece ground trick, I have to try it myself.
I never considered the effect of the room’s humidity on static. Makes so sense now you say it.
And I laughed more than I should have at the count of how many shocks it took to let go while refilling the hopper. I worry, in my distracted case, five would only be the beginning.
Chris
The effect of running the dehumidifier is shocking! 😂😂
Ahahaha!!