# Hair spray question



## isoc (Jan 23, 2017)

Reading Frary's book to get ideas on adding scenery to my HO RR.

He recommends any unscented hair spray, but at the grocery, all the sprays had fragrance.

Just how important is "unscented?' 

- Ted


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

I don't imagine it is important, if you don't mind the smell of strong non-railroad fragrances built into your layout.....


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Hairspray is a poor man's contact cement. It does work pretty well, though.

Old Hobo is right. Some of them have a very powerful perfume that lingers forever. If you don't mind that, then who cares. Wally World sells unsented hairspray (Aquanet?).


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## raleets (Jan 2, 2011)

I've had pretty good luck buying el cheapo White Rain unscented spray at my corner dollar store.


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## Overkast (Jan 16, 2015)

Hairspray instead of something like WS Scenic Cement??? Not even sure you're saving money going that route. You can put Scenic Cement in a fine-mist spray bottle to achieve a spray effect if you want, and a 16oz bottle of cement is only $12 on Amazon right now...


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## MtRR75 (Nov 27, 2013)

I do know that cheap hairspray will clean ball-point pen ink out of clothes.

This would make me worry about spraying hairspray on anything that has been colored -- it might dissolve some of the colors.


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## ExONRcarman (Feb 7, 2017)

Hair spray is a glue? get out. you guys are pulling the newbie legs right?


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## raleets (Jan 2, 2011)

Try running your fingers thru the hair of your lovey-dovey right after she's done a spray job.   
I've used hairspray (sparingly) on shrubs, etc. to "firm them up".
Also works pretty good on home-made trees to help hold everything in place.
Warning: keep it away from your tracks unless you want to do a complete cleaning job.


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

I've used it on an old record player. Spray it on the belt on a belt drive system and it makes it just sticky enough to keep the old belt from slipping. I've mostly seen it used when making trees to flock them. An no we're not sending you out to get that left handed monkey wrench ExONRcarman, tempting though


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

ExONRcarman said:


> Hair spray is a glue? get out. you guys are pulling the newbie legs right?


Nope. We do that a month from now, on April 1st. 

It really does work. Pretty nasty stuff, but sticky as all get-out.

I wouldn't say it's a substitute for Scenic Cement, but it works really well for sticking foliage to trees, but not for gluing down thicker layers of material -- it just sits on the surface and doesn't penetrate.

Unless you have a really good (cheap) source for Scenic Cement, though, I think hairspray is cheaper. The last can I got (yes, for removing an ink stain) cost about $3, about 1/3 what a bottle of scenic cement costs.


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## ExONRcarman (Feb 7, 2017)

No kidding. huh. i thought you guys were going to tell me the lights wouldn't work so id have to fill the headlamp fluid. or try making me look for checkered paint for my box car.
or my favorite, my trains carburetor belt is loose. how about a sky hook model? 

Glue. huh. ill try it


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

I learned this from a demo at a train show a couple years ago. Making bottle-brush type trees, the hairspray will stick a light layer of the tree foam to the branches, but as mentioned above, it won't give you a thick coating.

Here's what I did with some baling wire, manilla rope, some flat dark-brown spray paint, aqua-net, and a couple shades of fine tree foam...









You can see the ends of some of the branches didn't get coated, and adding more hairspray failed to make any more foam stick to the trees. Still, these are the first trees I ever made, and I'm pretty happy with the results.


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## daschnoz (Dec 12, 2016)

Hey man, if hairspray could hold this s**t together all day, it can hold some loose stones together on a train layout.










It put the hair in hair metal.












Man do I miss big 80s hair and tight stone washed jeans on chicks - you know the ones that needed a zipper on the calf otherwise the chicks couldn't get their feet through them... yeah those.


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## ExONRcarman (Feb 7, 2017)

lol! the good old days!


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## janedoedad (Jan 24, 2016)

A light coat of hairspray (Cheap Suave or AquaNet from the Dollar stores) works well as a fixative over chalks and waterbase paints.


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## isoc (Jan 23, 2017)

Thanks all.

I was only going to use it as a supplement for some scenery applications as described in the book. Primarily I'll be using white glue in a 1 to 3 ratio with water.

- Ted


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## Bwells (Mar 30, 2014)

I went into a store and wanted to purchase some hair spray. I went to the counter with 3 cans of super hold, mega hold and ultra hold. The lady said " Wow, that is sticky! What are you using this for?" I said to glue down stuff on a model railroad and she suggested the unscented type so back I went and came back with two cans of mega hold unscented. Works great


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## time warp (Apr 28, 2016)

daschnoz said:


> Hey man, if hairspray could hold this s**t together all day, it can hold some loose stones together on a train layout.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 The top picture looks great. In the second picture it is hard to imagine that there is anything that is being held together.


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## Magic (Jan 28, 2014)

I use Suave in the pump bottle, you can control the spray much better.
It won't blow things away. It's great for trees.
Be ready to leave the room for a time though, it really stinks.

Magic


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## isoc (Jan 23, 2017)

I went to Dollar General and found unscented "rave" in both spray and pump bottle.

- Ted


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## Mark VerMurlen (Aug 15, 2015)

Shdwdrgn said:


> Here's what I did with some baling wire, manilla rope, some flat dark-brown spray paint, aqua-net, and a couple shades of fine tree foam...


These are great looking trees! I've been using a spray adheasive, but looks like I should try the hairspray technique to see if that works better.

I use diluted white glue for holding down ballast, dirt, ground foam, etc.

Mark


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Thanks, like I said I was really happy with them. The center one got extra rope caught up down low in the trunk area, which is why it looks fuller than the others. I'd imagine you could use the same technique for making deciduous trees as well, just cut the shape of the branches differently -- but I think the ones made with shrub branches look perfect so I'll probably try that method at some point. My planned layout is going to have mountains though, so I'll need a lot of both styles of trees.


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