How'd you make your polyfil trees?

[BedfordRR]

I know this thread is old, but it is still a good one.I have tried the spray paint method on Polyfil and it is OK in small quantities. I need to increase productivity by several orders of magnitude over the spray method as I have acres of trees to do between State Line and Roaring Springs, PA. Does anyone know how instead to dye polyfil?

[jacon12]

Thanks Allegheny, Grampy is just about my favorite modeler on this forum.  I always look forward to seeing his work.  Grampy, I appreciate you elaborating on the 'shoe shine' method, I understand it now.  Allegheny, having a tree making party is a good idea, sure would make it more fun at least!

Jarrell

 

Allegheny2-6-6-6

jacon12

Ok!!  thanks for the photos guys!  Special thanks to Grampy and Nick for the details.  Grampy, you've lost me on 'shoeshine' the bag., what does that mean  I had thought of using matte medium, since I already use it to soak Super Trees in so I'll give it a try also.  If I read you right, after soaking the 'balls' and putting them in the bag of ground foam, you take them out and spread'em out on waxed paper so they don't stick, right?

Thanks,

Jarrell 

Grampys Trains

Hi Jarrell: I made my trees like Nick does, with the exception that I soaked the polyfil in matte med., drop them into a bag with med. ground foam, "shoeshine" the bag, and place on waxed paper. I made over 1800, (I had a lot of hills to cover). I used clump foliage to fill in around the trees to get away from the eggs in a carton look.

 

 

 

 

Jarrell I've seen Grampy's tree's in person on his layout and the pictures don't do them justice. I'm thinking of inviting him out here to have a tree making party......lol I have used both his method and my own of spraying the Micro Mark puff balls with spray glue and then dipping in buckets of WS ground foam. His method is by far much cleaner and neater then mine. The problem with puff ball trees is you can't appreciate them unitl you have at least a couple of hundred of them buched together in a semi small area to get the true effect.

 

[HHPATH56]

When it comes to filling in a forest canopy with 300^400 tree tops. I prefer to use circles of green or black painted furnace filters, pushed onto double pointed stained skewers.  I then, spray this set-up with adhesive and sprinkle on WS varied colored green or Fall colored foam. I like to be able to change the tree color with the change of seasons. One can buy varied colored Summer and Fall colored WS turf and static grass. Personally, I prefer swirling adhesive sprayed trees (double pointed stained skewers, with 5-6 furnace filter circles push on and topped with scrap filter material), in a pile of medium foam (turf, or static grass) I use colored foam clumps to fill in the forest canopy of hundreds of distant trees. Bob Hahn Another forced perspective trick is to fill in the tops of hils with a layered canopy of distant evergreens. I cut thin sheets of loco box black foam with a sharp searated steak knife. I then sprayed the sheets with flat dark green. The strips can be overlapped and glued to a narrow background wall, to give the impression of a dense conifer forest, (while the actual depth is less than one inch)!

[Allegheny2-6-6-6]

jacon12

Ok!!  thanks for the photos guys!  Special thanks to Grampy and Nick for the details.  Grampy, you've lost me on 'shoeshine' the bag., what does that mean  I had thought of using matte medium, since I already use it to soak Super Trees in so I'll give it a try also.  If I read you right, after soaking the 'balls' and putting them in the bag of ground foam, you take them out and spread'em out on waxed paper so they don't stick, right?

Thanks,

Jarrell 

Grampys Trains

Hi Jarrell: I made my trees like Nick does, with the exception that I soaked the polyfil in matte med., drop them into a bag with med. ground foam, "shoeshine" the bag, and place on waxed paper. I made over 1800, (I had a lot of hills to cover). I used clump foliage to fill in around the trees to get away from the eggs in a carton look.

 

 

 

 

Jarrell I've seen Grampy's tree's in person on his layout and the pictures don't do them justice. I'm thinking of inviting him out here to have a tree making party......lol I have used both his method and my own of spraying the Micro Mark puff balls with spray glue and then dipping in buckets of WS ground foam. His method is by far much cleaner and neater then mine. The problem with puff ball trees is you can't appreciate them unitl you have at least a couple of hundred of them buched together in a semi small area to get the true effect.

[Grampys Trains]

 Hi Jarrell: I"ll try to explain a little better. Grasp the bag with your hands on each side. Then, alternately raise one hand, drop the other. What that does is roll the saturated poly in the foam, puffing it out and covering the balls with foam. And, you are right about the waxed paper.

[MAbruce]

jacon12

 Thanks for the replies and suggestions.  MAbruce you've got the kind of un-uniform look I'm after., thanks for the photo.  Did you paint your polyfill black or was it already that color?

Jarrell

 

I painted the polyfill black with cheap flat black spray paint from Wal-mart.  Manageable if you use disposable vinyl gloves.  Keeps the mess down.

 

[jacon12]

Ok!!  thanks for the photos guys!  Special thanks to Grampy and Nick for the details.  Grampy, you've lost me on 'shoeshine' the bag., what does that mean  I had thought of using matte medium, since I already use it to soak Super Trees in so I'll give it a try also.  If I read you right, after soaking the 'balls' and putting them in the bag of ground foam, you take them out and spread'em out on waxed paper so they don't stick, right?

Thanks,

Jarrell 

Grampys Trains

Hi Jarrell: I made my trees like Nick does, with the exception that I soaked the polyfil in matte med., drop them into a bag with med. ground foam, "shoeshine" the bag, and place on waxed paper. I made over 1800, (I had a lot of hills to cover). I used clump foliage to fill in around the trees to get away from the eggs in a carton look.

 

 

 

[Grampys Trains]

Hi Jarrell: I made my trees like Nick does, with the exception that I soaked the polyfil in matte med., drop them into a bag with med. ground foam, "shoeshine" the bag, and place on waxed paper. I made over 1800, (I had a lot of hills to cover). I used clump foliage to fill in around the trees to get away from the eggs in a carton look.

 

 

[nbrodar]

 I use the dark green poly fiber from WS...Micromark was having a super sale on it a while back.  I tear off wads of fiber and tease them into light, airy balls about 1 inch across.   Normally, I do this while watching TV, and fill up a beer box with them.

When I ready to coat them, I pour coarse ground foam in gallon size zip lock bags, and spread out some newpapers.   I coat about 10 balls at a time with hair spray, drop them in the bags, and shake away.  Then, I fish the trees out and place them on the newspaper to dry.

To install them, I coat the hillside with full strength white glue, and stick 'em on.

 

Nick

[cowman]

I have found the dark polyfiber at a local quilt shop.

A sidebar in GMR 98 shows using a full batt of fiber instead of making individual puff balls.  I think it might be better for more distant hills, not sure, but certainly cuts back on the number of little balls you  have to pull out and roll up.  They did it by teasing the fiber after the batt was glued in place.  Looks simple, but  haven't tried it yet.

Good luck,

[jacon12]

 Thanks for the replies and suggestions.  MAbruce you've got the kind of un-uniform look I'm after., thanks for the photo.  Did you paint your polyfill black or was it already that color?

Jarrell

[MAbruce]

floridaflyer

i used a white fiber used for pillows. Got it a wally world. made small balls about as big as a golf ball. sprayed them black, was a little messy, then I used a cheap hair spray on the balls and rolled them around in ground foam. I model the fall so I used fall colors. If doing spring a couple shades of green would provide contrast. good luck.

 

 

I used a similar method, but I also mixed in some lichen to break up the uniformity.  Here is a before and after shot:

Once the base was on, I sprayed it down with diluted matte medium (4 to 1).  After that I carefully blew on fine foam (in various shades) using a piece of cardboard bent into a 'V' shape.  This allowed me to get the foam into all the nooks and crannies.    

I plan to put in more detailed trees in the foreground.

Also note that this is N-scale.  

[floridaflyer]

i used a white fiber used for pillows. Got it a wally world. made small balls about as big as a golf ball. sprayed them black, was a little messy, then I used a cheap hair spray on the balls and rolled them around in ground foam. I model the fall so I used fall colors. If doing spring a couple shades of green would provide contrast. good luck.

[jacon12]

Thanks for the tip and the link, Tom.  I also found this product from MicroMark...

http://www.micromark.com/BLACK-POLY-FIBER-4-OZ,9033.html

that I think I'll try.  I guess that's the only way, just experiment and see what I like best.

Thanks again for your help!

Jarrell

 

 

DingySP

Jarrell,

   You might want to try some of this material from ScaleTrees. I bought a bunch of it about a year ago, it's basically black polyfiber. The site looks kind of dead, but I received my order in about a week. I like it and will probably order some more. Scroll down to the branch bunches lite section.

http://www.scaletree.com/branchbunches.html

Hope this helps,

Tom

 

[DingySP]

Jarrell,

   You might want to try some of this material from ScaleTrees. I bought a bunch of it about a year ago, it's basically black polyfiber. The site looks kind of dead, but I received my order in about a week. I like it and will probably order some more. Scroll down to the branch bunches lite section.

http://www.scaletree.com/branchbunches.html

Hope this helps,

Tom

[jacon12]

 Thanks Loathar for the tips and information.  I think you've got some pretty good looking trees there.  The kind of forest I'm thinking about is the kind that completely covers a hillside and you can't see tree trunks at all.  I've seen photos of some but they were too round and uniform and I wanted to get away from that.  I've seen some very realistic ones done and was just wondering how it was achieved.

Again, thanks for your help!

Jarrell

 

 

loathar

These are Crepe Myrtle branches with WS green poly covered in fine ground foam. More of a foreground tree.

These are clumps of colored lychin glued onto stained BBQ skeewers covered in fine ground foam. More of a background tree.

Using some of that Notch leaf material instead of ground foam would make either look a lot better. I just used Mod Podge matte medium to glue the poly to the branches. A hot glue gun makes the lychin trees go a lot faster. Used a can of cheap spray glue to get the ground foam to stick. Then sealed them with cheap hair spray. got the WS poly at Hobby Lobby. It's pretty cheap so it's not really worth coloring the white stuff yourself.

 

[loathar]

These are Crepe Myrtle branches with WS green poly covered in fine ground foam. More of a foreground tree.

These are clumps of colored lychin glued onto stained BBQ skeewers covered in fine ground foam. More of a background tree.

Using some of that Notch leaf material instead of ground foam would make either look a lot better. I just used Mod Podge matte medium to glue the poly to the branches. A hot glue gun makes the lychin trees go a lot faster. Used a can of cheap spray glue to get the ground foam to stick. Then sealed them with cheap hair spray. got the WS poly at Hobby Lobby. It's pretty cheap so it's not really worth coloring the white stuff yourself.

[jacon12]

 Is there any certain type of polyfil that you'd recommend  that I should use for making trees that are to be attached to a rear mountainside on my layout?  Any advice on making them... i.e. where to get the polyfil, painting them, type of glue, 'leaves' for the trees etc. and photos you have are appreciated.  I think these are commonly called 'puffball' trees, the kind with no trunks.

Thanks in advance!

Jarrell