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Beginner In The Railroad

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  • Member since
    July 2008
  • From: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
  • 9 posts
Beginner In The Railroad
Posted by Diego Murray on Thursday, July 3, 2008 7:39 AM

Hello All! My name is Diego Murray, I'm from Brazil and live in Rio De Janeiro city. The forum is great, many information about the railroad model. I hope help and learn in this railroad forum.

I'm starting the construction of a railroad with my father and we have some doubts of how to make vegetation without kits purchased in stores! If the friends have any idea would be grateful!!!

Hugs

 

 

  • Member since
    August 2006
  • From: Franconia, NH
  • 3,130 posts
Posted by dstarr on Thursday, July 3, 2008 8:01 AM
Ground cover can be green or brown latex house paint.  While the paint is wet, sprinkle sawdust, dyed green, into it.  Roadside weeds can make decent trees.    Or, twist a number of soft wires together to form the treetrunk.  Un twist some to the wires to form branches.  Coat the wire armature with stickum and then dip it into  the same green dyed sawdust  to make leaves. 
  • Member since
    July 2008
  • From: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
  • 9 posts
Posted by Diego Murray on Thursday, July 3, 2008 8:17 AM

Great dstarr! Thank so much!

I was planning to make a dense vegetation, as many trees very closer together. For it I was planning to use polyurethane foam applied in tufts not uniform and then dying with a ink, it would be a good technical?

Hugs

 

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • From: Omaha, NE
  • 10,621 posts
Posted by dehusman on Thursday, July 3, 2008 11:06 AM

Another method is to buy polyester pillow stuffing, it looks like a huge cotton ball.  Pull it out to thin it and spray paint it with green or black paint.  While the paint is still wet sprinkle ground foam or dyed sawdust on the fibers.  Shake of the excess and give it another hit of paint or hairspray to lock the foam or sawdust in place.  One bag of it can make dozens of square feet of "trees".

Dave H.

Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com

  • Member since
    July 2008
  • From: Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
  • 9 posts
Posted by Diego Murray on Thursday, July 3, 2008 11:32 AM
Thanks Dave!
It seems a very good idea and a very reality effect.
  • Member since
    July 2008
  • 12 posts
Posted by Hog Driver on Sunday, July 20, 2008 8:56 PM
 Diego Murray wrote:

Hello All! My name is Diego Murray, I'm from Brazil and live in Rio De Janeiro city. The forum is great, many information about the railroad model. I hope help and learn in this railroad forum.

I'm starting the construction of a railroad with my father and we have some doubts of how to make vegetation without kits purchased in stores! If the friends have any idea would be grateful!!!

Hugs

 

 

Heres another idea Diego. Most of the time I use ground parsley flakes if that is the only thing available.
  • Member since
    February 2005
  • From: In the State of insanity!
  • 7,982 posts
Posted by pcarrell on Monday, July 21, 2008 6:43 AM

One of the best tricks I know of: http://www.dansresincasting.com/Ground%20foam.htm

You can then find weds that resemble tree shapes and dry them.  Once they're dry, cover them in the ground foam and you'll have a good looking forest in no time! 

Welcome to the forum!

Philip
  • Member since
    March 2007
  • 947 posts
Posted by HHPATH56 on Monday, July 21, 2008 5:30 PM

To reduce the amount of paint needed to color the ground up foam, I would suggest that you visit a florist and ask about purchasing the green foam that they use to support flower displays.  I use an old coffee bean grinder to grind up the green foam clumps.  I use twisted bus wire to form the trunk and branches of close-up tree.  Background trees can be formed cheaply from furnace filter circle pressed onto thin stained BBQ skewers, or just use stained toothpicks.  While a bag of Woodland Scenic Foliage Clumps is quite expensive, I mix the ground up clumps with green colored ground up foam, or fine sawdust.  Distant trees are slightly bluish in color and can be made without trunks, by forming clumps of furnace filter wire, spray painting it with spray adhesive, and then dipping in piles of varied colored ground up foam. Then, glue the clumps to a stained background. This is the way to create dense foliage, over large hillside areas.   Bob Hahn 

  • Member since
    January 2008
  • 56 posts
Posted by majortom on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 10:42 AM

MR magazine had a short article not too long ago where they used dyed cotton balls in different shades of green to simulate dense foliage.  Outline your area with small nails so your forest won't "roll down the hill".

 

majortom

  • Member since
    April 2006
  • From: THE FAR, FAR REACHES OF THE WILD, WILD WEST!
  • 3,672 posts
Posted by R. T. POTEET on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 11:09 AM

 Diego Murray wrote:
. . . . . . . . . . I was planning to make a dense vegetation, as many trees very closer together . . . . . . . . . .

If you are planning on modeling vegetation so dense that the crowns of your trees blend together in a solid carpet then you don't want to expend the time or the effort - or the monies - to model trees where the trunk is not going to be visible to the viewer. One technique for this is to place individual trees in the foreground and suspend a netting stretching back to the backdrop and cover this netting with material simulating the crowns of trees. 

From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet

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