Trees

[healey36]

I picked up a stack of NOS Woodland Scenics tree kits a while back...cracked one open over the weekend and, jiminy crickets, that looks to be a pretty involved process for making a tree. Fiddled with it for a bit and the results seemed less than satisfying.

Anybody here have a good process? Murph, I've seen pics of yours and they look very sharp...what's the secret?

Healey

[Rufus T. Firefly]

...what's the secret?

Spending money.

[webenda]

...what's the secret?

Healey

Bend the armature to look like you think a tree should look, add glue to branches, sprinkle ground foam onto the armature.

In this video Trevor dips the armature into the foam, then sprinkles more onto it.:> https://youtu.be/qtxz5yi9CiI

[Rufus T. Firefly]

...what's the secret?

Healey

Bend the armature to look like you think a tree should look, add glue to branches, sprinkle ground foam onto the armature.

In this video Trevor dips the armature into the foam, then sprinkles more onto it.:> https://youtu.be/qtxz5yi9CiI

Yes, but that's the obvious part. The secret part is actually making it work and to produce something tree-like at the end

[chuck]

Realistic O SCALE trees is pretty hard/expensive. Real trees are big. Average mature tree is 50-75 feet tall, aka 12"-18" high. Most of the kit trees are better scaled for HO, maybe S.

Old school method outlined in this 1964 book "The Complete Book of Model Railroading" by David Rose used heavier gauge stranded wires with adhesive tape wrapped around the wire bundles to make the main truck/branches. Scratch the tape to make the bark and paint brown. Use the clear acrylic glue to attach clumps of lichen, spay the lichen with spray adhesive and dust with different shades of ground foam.

Pine trees can be simulated with dust brushes used to clean out under the refrigerator (does anyone do this anymore?) trimmed to size, sprayed with adhesive and rolled/dusted with ground foam. I've seen conifer cones used to make "pine" trees but you need cones of the right size/shape and they aren't always easy to fine. Some of the mature spruce trees have the elongated thin cones but you need a really old tree to get big cones.

[healey36]

Evergreens seem fairly easy...I've used some of the larger Dept. 56 conifers in the past, trimmed up a bit into something not quite so triangular, over-sprayed them with a bit of green flat to mitigate the "snow", then dusted them with ground-foam. Seems to produce something of fairly decent appearance.

It's those damn hardwoods. I recall the wire-unravel method with lichen attached, but at 1/48 that's probably not going to look great. These Woodland Scenic trees feature some sort of stretchy foliage material, a bit fiddly, and as you pointed out, Chuck, they're not very tall.

Dept. 56 makes some decent looking deciduous, bare-branch trees...might take a look at those and see if some form of foliage could be added.

[webenda]

...heavier gauge stranded wires with adhesive tape wrapped around the wire bundles to make the main truck/branches.

Wire trees:



Reference: http://www.inspiration-now.com/wire-scu ... -maddison/

[webenda]

Some people make excellent trees from weeds, even upside down using the roots for branches.
Art Hill used grass that had gone to seed.
Weeping Willow trees from grass:

Posted by ARTHILL on Monday, May 12, 2008 2:53 PM
After this thread ran the first time I tried a couple. It is a fall project. I took seed stems from a very tall grass plant. I sprayed them green and while they were wet, wrapped them around a piece of pipe.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/p/43475/551576.aspx

[healey36]

...heavier gauge stranded wires with adhesive tape wrapped around the wire bundles to make the main truck/branches.

Wire trees:



Reference: http://www.inspiration-now.com/wire-scu ... -maddison/

Wow, that's impressive, but hardly a candidate for mass-production...

When I was into N-gauge I made a bzillion trees from cuttings of the sorghum plant. Didn't even flock those, just dried them and sprayed 'em a flat green. Did whole mountains with those things.

[Roy]

I see that Clive Maddison was inspired by a paper cutting artist to make his wire sculptures. I'm curious about the wire material he uses.

[webenda]

I'm curious about the wire material he uses.

Aluminium* alloy wire.

*He is British. In the USA you could use aluminum wire... it would work just as well.

[rogruth]

Many of the trees on my layout were made using the Super Tree kits from Scenic Express. Any size can be made.
There are very few ready-made trees on my layout. I had a lot of fun making them and that is important to me.
All are different but if any were the same it was accidental. I usually set sort of an assembly line type of process.
Someone mentioned, and I agree, that many trees on layouts are too small. Many sizes look most natural.

[Roy]

A recent episode of The Zoo on Animal Planet discussed the replacement of an artificial tree in their rainforest setting. It worked out OK, the animals in the exhibit liked it right off.

Are there any tree modeling competitions in O scale?

[Jim K]

Good evening. I took some photos at club last week when a fellow was making trees for his home layout.

This is a technique used by the Mooresville Indiana Model Railroad Club using the plant/flower/weed?? called Sedum to make trees. The plants are around in a lot of Indiana areas and I would think most other areas at least in the mid-west. Harvest them in the fall and let them dry and use as is. Obviously the stems/trunks need to be trimmed as desired but you can make several in an evening once you are set up. Just a thought.

Train and Trolley ON!

Jim K.

[healey36]

Thanks for that, Jim...looks like it produces nicely realistic specimens. I’m not familiar with sedum, I’ll have to look for it.

Healey