How to make snow out of baking soda

First of all ...Welcome Hellcat Man!

I've heard that using "Baking Soda" to use as snow is a very bad idea especially when coming in contact with the model...something about the chemical reaction between the plastic and the sodium bicarbonate. Maybe some others will chime in on this.

Baking soda has been put out as the "snow" medium here of late, for the exact reason as mentioned above. It yellows and actually breaks down over time creating a slime type greasy mix. The new method in practice is baby powder since it's inert.

I've heard of many ways to create the effect, build up your base with celuclay or other groundwork then put the "snow" on top as the final effect. Attaching it or affixing it can be done with flat clear (or hairspray according to some)

Welcome to the site, hope this helps some but wait for others to post up that have far more experience than I do before taking my 2 cents as the way to go.

Dale 

You could try and use non-sanded white tile grout powder. just sprinkle down and mist with water and drop some white glue/water mix in. Dries hard as a rock. All of the snow in my dio here is tile grout powder, even on the tank.

I'll chime in and agree with the others.  Stay away from Baking Soda and any other food stuff.  The baking soda will yellow, can break down into the above mentioned goo, and is often eaten by bugs.  I prefer Woodland Scenics (train layout products) "Snow."  It is made of microballoons of styrene and will not yellow or break down.  I attach it with pump hairspray.  Cover the area to have the snow with the hairspray then sprinkle it on.  You can keep adding layers to get it as thick as you want too.

Good luck.

hey guys thanks for all the tips what about using baking poder i saw it in the December issue of Conrad Savages Russian front diorama and just so u know im about thirteen so dont give me these imposible to do tips thanks here is my early test enjoy                                            " border="0" />

There snow spary in a spray can that makes great snow.

The spray Christmas snow is way too thick and large clumped to look like scale snow in 1/35.  I wouldn't use it.

Hellcat man wrote:

hey guys thanks for all the tips what about using baking poder i saw it in the December issue of Conrad Savages Russian front diorama and just so u know im about thirteen so dont give me these imposible to do tips thanks here is my early test enjoy

Baking powder is just as bad.  It will still yellow, be eaten by bugs, etc.  Stay away from food stuffs.  None of the techniques we have offered are impossible.  Just accept it now that you will have to try some new things and maybe spend a few extra bucks on this hobby.  The Woodland Scenics Snow isn't that expensive, about $8 for a big container.

Lastly, could you use some proper grammar, punctuation, and capitalization when posting?  It makes your post much easier to read.

HeavyArty wrote:

The spray Christmas snow is way too thick and large clumped to look like scale snow in 1/35.  I wouldn't use it.   Baking powder is just as bad.  It will still yellow, be eaten by bugs, etc.  Stay away from food stuffs.  None of the techniques we have offered are impossible.  Just accept it now that you will have to try some new things and maybe spend a few extra bucks on this hobby.  The Woodland Scenics Snow isn't that expensive, about $8 for a big container.

I'm going to go with HeavyArty on this too, stay away from all food related items when recreating snow. Same for the advice on trying new things. Now is the time to try new way's of doing things. With your post on this site you've already shown the desire to learn new ideas and tricks to improve your hobby, your commended! Just don't limit yourself with the ideas of "impossible" to do tips. The secret is to take all the advice, tips, tricks, use what you can and feel comfortable with, then file the rest away for the "next step" when your ready to take it.

The picture you posted looked like a good start on your idea. A little tip though, a tank or anything else that has been running will have different amounts of snow built up on the hull surfaces. The engine area will be warm and won't have the same amount as the fender's. Crew cabin would be the same way I think, just not as warm. Look through the winter themes on this site especially cause these guy's are good!  Remember, there's no such thing as "can't". 

Dale 

Hope these help. The first one I believe is from the battle of St. Vith and the second one is a captured sherman tank captured by a fallschirmjager unit.

Hellcat man wrote:

I was watching Battle Of The Bulge is that a good movie to refrence the bunker interior or no if not can some one give me a movie thats good for The Ardennes style bunker

HC man, I think your tank looks great, keep up the good work and remember to improve with every build.

Don't worry about the comments of others, a lot of us are older and forget that being a kid is not as easy as we remember.  We can't just jump in our car and run to the local HS or surf the internet and plop out our credit card to place an order.  We also forget that $8.00 is in-fact a lot when your a kid.  Nice effort all around.

To answer your question no B-O-T-B is not the best refrence source, but it can get your creative juices flowing.  Use your imagination, you have plenty of time to work on the technical aspects of the hobby, remember to have fun, that's the most important thing.

I can think of a couple of armor builders, considered by all to be masters, who don't bother with the details of punctuation. I've seen their work fawned over, yet I have never seen their writing criticized.

Those comments above were uncalled for, in my opinion. Nothing to do with modeling, just belittling.

Steve 

I feel that HeavyArty had a legetimate point when he asked that the poster try to formulate more clear communication so that people in the Forum could understand what it is he was trying to communicate. The poster agreed with Arty and then wrote a very clear message. Later the poster reverted back to a post that was very difficult to understand.

This person is obviously intelligent, so asking that he communicate in a way that can be understood is not out of line, IMO...I don't think anyone is asking that folks do a spell and grammer check before every post, but when you have sentences run together w/o any punctuation between them, that can be difficult to comprehend.

We communicate in a written forum, so I do feel that folks be considerate enough to keep clarity in mind when writing...

subfixer wrote:

Well stated, Manny. But what does "IMO" mean? There are numerous uses of abbreviations such as that one that are used in these forums. I understand that they originated for text messaging because they make commonly used phrases less cumbersome to communicate. I think that is where this young man's style of writing has stemmed from. It's a sign of the times, I think. Maybe we should all take a step back and look at our own bad habits and see how we developed them.

PS: ASAP was around long before cell phones...

IIRC = If I recall...

I'm actually sorry for making light of the conversation earlier...I just thought it was funny at the time.

To tell the truth...I wish I was able to build models to the level of Hellcat man when I was his age and had the net forums to gain knowledge and info from all of you guys.

PS...my grammer isn't very good either and this is coming from someone "Who c'aint evn talk good english rite"

subfixer wrote:

Manny, I know that you know that I know what "IMO" means. (whew!) I'm just making an observation on how abbreviating things can get out of hand. I didn't mean to imply that you had any bad habits, if you took it that way, I humbly apologize, it wasn't my intention. But I have seen some of these abbreviations that, if they were decyphered, would be deemed obscene and I feel that these should be avoided.

  You know what really is funny........you have all spelt the word grammar wrong! It is with an a, not an e......

  Maybe we should step back, just a little bit....

  Boomer...

Boomerang wrote:

You know what really is funny........you have all spelt the word grammar wrong! It is with an a, not an e......   Maybe we should step back, just a little bit....   Boomer...

Boomer is correct in his spelling, (at least Downunder or in Old Blighty);

From the Cambridge online dictionary:

spell (FORM WORDS)   Show phonetics
verb [I or T] spelled or UK AND AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH ALSO spelt, spelled or UK AND AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH ALSO spelt
to form a word or words with the letters in the correct order:
"How do you spell 'receive'?" "R E C E I V E".
Shakespeare did not always spell his own name the same way.
Our address is 1520 Main Street, Albuquerque - shall I spell that (out) (= say in the correct order the letters that form the word) for you?
I think it's important that children should be taught to spell (= how to form words with the letters in the correct order).

speller   Show phonetics
noun
good/bad speller someone who is good/bad at spelling

spelling   Show phonetics
noun
1 [U] forming words with the correct letters in the correct order, or the ability to do this:
He's hopeless at spelling.
My computer has a program which corrects my spelling.
Your essay is full of spelling mistakes/errors.

2 [C] the way a particular word is spelt:
This dictionary includes both British and American spellings of words

...wow, you could have spent that time building on a model...

...still not taking a step back...in fact, I am taking two steps forward and stating that if you cannot communicate effectively on the Forum, you should get off of it...

...let's see what gets posted now; should be very uninteresting...

English can be quite confusing to those who are not native speakers and even to those who are native speakers. On one hand you have the verb feel which has the past tense felt. You would think that the verb spell would follow the same rules, instead the rules change it has the similiar sounding "spelled". Ending "ed"'s and "t"'s if slurred can sound similar. My youngest son has a speech therapy issue - "dialect" and has some of these problems.

Old English does allow the use of "spelt" for the past and past part of spell. The rule was changed over time for American English. G. B. Shaw was right, that "the Americans and British are two peoples separated by a common language".

Spelt can also be a split piece of wood (Germanic origin) or more commonly an ancient type of wheat (Triticum spelta) that is still grown today.

Mike T.