Hi Gang I am hoping that some of you might show and share your methods for making trees. I have been looking at the Scenic express Super trees and I just haven't been able to step over the line and buy any yet. The information on them says they range from 5 to 8 inches tall. I am thinking about trees in the 2-5 inch range. I want fine trunks and branches as the scene I am imitating require. The trees in the front of the scene should not exceed 4 inches tall because they would otherwise block the view of the train. Behind the train I want to imitate spruce, yellow pine, Ponderosa pine, with a few alder and birch lightly mixed in. Of coarse the Pines would likely exceed the 5 inch rule and that is OK because it is behind the train and there is plenty of room. Another challenge I am experiencing is finding gray and light to medium brown turf to mix in with the earth (kind of a greenish brown color) turf that I am using as a ground cover. Anyway if you would like chime in. I will standby. Thanks again you guys have always come through with lots of good suggestion in the past. Attached is a picture of the bare of trees and ground cover scene.
For background pines, I twirl my own with floral wire and rope twine. For oaks, cyprus and other more gnarly trees I use stranded wire to twist into shape, and sawdust&whiteglue to emulate bark: [video=youtube_share;7tnBIdbL9sY]http://youtu.be/7tnBIdbL9sY[/video] [that's the abridged version: the complete 30 minute step-by-step is on my YouTube channel] The real master, though, is a dude named Jos (Grove Den) who does some spectacular trees of all ilk in both HO and N. Hope that helps.
I planted about 1,400 trees on my Marias Pass. Nearly half of them were Busch brand that I trimmed with a scissors to remove the extra long fibers, then sprayed with 3M adhesive, followed by ground foam, followed by a coat of green spray paint, in three different colors for variation. The other variety of tree that I found was used straight out of the box, and I found those on ebay. Obviously I wanted volume without breaking the bank, so I found a good compromise between a fairly realistic tree, a size that fit a small portable layout, and not having to make each tree by hand. HuskerN www.nscaleaddiction.blogspot.com
Hi JoeW, Here are some trees I planted on a hillside recently. Almost all of those are made from sedum twigs, poly fiber and ground foam. I used to make soldered wire armatures for trees but I have switched to sedum twigs. They are much quicker and easier. I have to make a lot of trees. I use Woodland Scenic armatures for conifers but I must say I prefer HuskerN 's shown above. Good luck, MCB
I use HuskerN's method as well, but to give my trees more variety, I modified bumpy chenille (found in most craft stores) to make my conifers. I started by cutting the chenille to length with a maximum of the bulk of the tree at one end: I untwisted the chenille a few turns to loosen the fibers, then removed most of the fibers near the top, and pulled the lower fibers at the thickest part of the tree, to make the tree larger in girth, but not as full: I retwisted the trees with a hand drill, and then removed the loose fibers by hand: I trimmed the basic tree with scissors to get the shape I wanted:
I lastly sprayed the trees with ultra-flat dark green paint, sprinkled on deep green ground foam, and oversprayed cheap ultra-hold unscented hair spray to fix it all into place:
I tried to hand make trees once...it wasnt pretty!! LOL. The new THERR will have a few trees here and there...maybe a dozen or so. That I will buy commercially made ones for. If THE Wife wants more then I put on there...she can make em...or buy them with HER $$$...
Personally, I used WS "Forest Canopy" kits on my 4'x3' layout. This was my first attempt at making trees, and I was on a budget. I used the dried twigs supplied by the WS kits and instead of using their fine ground foam, I used the larger variation. I dipped the twigs in tacky glue and then rolled them in the ground foam. This was a bit of a tedious venture, but turned out ok. Unfortunately the drawback with using the dried twigs is that... they are dried twigs. Therefore, they are fragile and will break at even the slightest bump. Also the WS kits were a bit pricey at roughly $8 a kit, and iirc I used about 8 kits. The results: Obviously, after reading some more blogs and how-to threads I plan on using a bit more detailed of a method for my current layout. But for a first timer, I'd say my method was pretty low-impact. If you have a bush or something of that nature on your property with similar "branches" I'd say trimming and hanging them to dry could save the cost of buying the kits. Also Mr. Fujiwara you are once again an inspiration, but with the price of copper, what are you paying for your wire?
Hi Gang Lot's of good ideas here. The link to (Grove Den) wow tree making unleashed. Well you guys have educated and inspired me. Thank you
