Has anyone ever used pencil shavings from a pencil sharpener for dio bases? If so what would you use it for?

Your right....that was a silly question! Seriously.....I've never used pencil shavings and personally cannot think of anything I would use them for.

I have seen graphite used to show worn paint around hatches in the past. Perhaps an early form of chipping.

what have you been smoking ? Seriously though, you could use them in an alien landscape diorama, ie plants and the like, or crush them all up and use for a wooden ground cover under trees.

wood chips? splintered trees? underbrush?

That's what I was thinking. And no I haven't been smoking anything.

I've seen them used as a type of wall creeper foliage in a recent (ish) issue of Military Modelcraft International. Finished diorama was very convincing.
Paul

I haven't got a clue and really can't think of any practical uses.

It could be broken up and mixed randomly into brick or concrete rubble for texture. Real boards and timbers get shattered into splinters by blast, after all. Old fashioned wall plaster was applied to thin strips of wood called lath, which would be shredded into little bits of wood with plaster clinging here and there. Most diorama rubble looks much too tidy--in real life, a demolished structure has all kinds of stuff in the rubble that simply cannot be identified.

My favorite type of question!

The floor or ground after a new years eve party
http://quinceandquire.typepad.com/.a/6a010535d5b9f8970c0115701dd50e970b-800wi

Sci-fi foliage, as already mentioned above,
or 1/1 scale ginger on a sushi plate
http://www.pencilrevolution.com/uploads/givens1105.jpg

um...ah..yeah, more sci-fi ground work
http://galeriedusseldorf.com.au/GDArtists/Nedela/Enigma2/JNPics/JN19Det.JPG
http://www.galeriedusseldorf.com.au/GDArtists/Nedela/Enigma2/JNPics/JN19.JPG

Glenn Bartolotti has.

The foliage on the wall is pencil shavings



More here: http://www.track-link.net/forum/modelling_dioramas/3130

Not so 'silly' now, is it?

Not the base perhaps, but if you want to be the Guinea Pig, try this:

Use them for palm trees -- the type where the husks from old fronds cover the trunk all the way up. (A variety such as the Chinese Fan Palm come to mind) I've seen this done various ways, including masking tape, which is probably the easiest. But I can imagine if you worked slowly, and got some really big curved shavings, they'd look pretty damned good. You could split and fray them more realistically than anything else I can think of Hell, I might try it myslef now just for S&G.

if you rub it between your fingers it should end up as small thin strands - probably good for splinters and debris. Alternatively, grind it up in a mortar and pestle - use for a coarse dirt (or even flock) depending on your scale.