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HOW TO GET SAND
GW modelling sand is ridiculously expensive, but it is to some extent conveneint because you dont need much. sand from a builders merchants is dirt cheap (sic) but only sold in quantities far too large to be of practicle use.
So how do you get sand? You could just dig some up or go to a beach, but there is a difference, the sand will likely be very coarse, though getting some coarse sand for a sprinkle layer over the thin sand is a fairly good idea. In any case rinse out the sand with plenty of water, i suggest afterwards allowing the sand to stand in water and then rinse again overnight. This will clear away all the sand and assorted junk. sieve the sand and pick it clean then dry it and box it up.
However this is still not properly the sand you need. So travel to a building site, choose one with ground breaking going on, you want to catch them while they are around foundation laying stage. If you see multiple stories its likely too late, though that depends on the building type. A concrete multi level car park will have the right materials all through. Remember dont approach the site approach the site office. You wont get very far if you are making a nuisance of yourself by doing silly things like not wearing the hat and high vis in the appropriate areas. The site office will likely be a portacabin, but can be a semi finished property on the development.
Now just ask for sand. Explain that you want it for a potted plant, note singular. If you have lots of plotted plants you will likely be told to go buy a bag, but builders understand you dont want a huge gardening bag for a plotted plant in a small flat. They will understand that and give you sand. Dont tell them its for gaming, not out of shame for the hobby but because you will end up having to explain and it wont look like you really need sand, a potted plant is a good enough reason.
Sand, that is buiklders sand comes in long polythene tubes, likely they will give you the end of a tube. Builders sand is very high quality as sand goes, it needs to be for quality concrete and you need quality concerete for decent foundations. Builders sand is precision loaded, hence the plastic tubes, but by precision I mean builders precision not scientific. so a mix would say be x metres of bagged sand and y buckets of water. This leads to a lot of offcuts, because its simpler and safer to open a new bag and pour x metres out of that than try and judge how much of the current bag is saved by using the last bits of the last batch. So you get many offcut bags of high quality sand just dumped. In any event you get the gist that a kilo of the stuff or thereabouts. Builders sand is expensive enough to have a kilo pricetag, but wastage is not an issue unless measured in tons, even for a small development.
Present a small handy container, get a fill of sand, say thankyou and be on your merry.
A kilo of fine builders sand for concrete making will last you a lifetime of basing, you want about a kilo maybe a little more so they you can box the sand in a small or medium sized tupperware container, with enough depth to submerge a glued base properly and enough length and breadth to dip the base of a big stuff like titans, Valkyries, chariots or *** vehicle, or a terrain piece base. Frankly the GW containers are actually not big enough for the job. Having a bigger contasiner about 6" or so accross is about right even for normal basing you cant get mess everywhere even though you have to hurry with the PVA glue unless you are a real clown. With a depth of 1"-2" of sand will allow you to dig plane and level the base of sceneric bases and allow good coverage. Sanding basing a base is ideally something you want to do all at once to get a good even cover.
Also a kilo is about right for a house plant.
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