Help!! I need Trees!!

[Anonymous]

I am going to do a search on-line for Queen of the Praire to see if I can get the seed or buy dried of the stuff. I would like a variety of trees instead of just one kind. I am going to do my first attempt at a picture of my layout for posting. You will see why I would like more trees.[:D] I love the mountains so that may be why I could use more trees than you would want.[8D]

[unionpacific4]

I know what you mean. In the november 2005 issue of MR Lou Sassi has a page on trees in his artical on scenery. Also, Heki has some inexpensive ready-made trees that I recomend. I hope that your model rail rood turns out great.

[ARTHILL]

My Sr Hi layout would have been better if I would have had a forum, but then, we didn't even have TV. We didn't have powerpacs, I learned to use a transformer and a silicon Recytifier. Life is better these days. About getting DCC, I waited 56 years, I bet you get one sooner.

Queen of the Praire grows in my wife's garden, so I suppose a garden store or site could talk about getting it. She had one big plant and it gave me enough to do my birch forest and a little more.

I am glad you found the forum as well. See you again as things progress.

I think you have to log on to check the new posts.

[pcarrell]

I think you can set up notification in your preferences, but I'd be afraid you'd get 4 million Emails a day. The General forum is quite busy.

[Anonymous]

I signed up for photobucket.com. Thank You!!

I sure wi***hat DCC was a lot cheaper. I would love to upgrade my system to DCC but it is too expensive for a High School Freshmen.[:D]

Where can I get Queen of the Praire? Can you buy it?

Is there a way to get an e-mail every time a new Topic comes onto the forum? I would like to know when there is something new to read about and not always have to check the website.

I am so glad I found the forum because I have learned alot about trains and modeling RRs.

[pcarrell]

Railimages is another hosting site, but it seems to go down a lot. I think I'm going to switch.

[ARTHILL]

Jonathon - To put pics in the text you need them stored on a site like photobucket. COM. There are others, but that is the one I know.

1. Digital camera
2. pics on your computer in a place that is easy to find
3. Site like photobucket - Will need to register and wait but it is free
4. Copy the last line (IMG) and paste in text. That should do it. Try it and then we shall help more if needed.

I do not remember how I did the quote thing.

[Anonymous]

i know it's the wrong time of year, but this coming Christmas, head to dollar stores and buy those bottle bru***rees, any size,cut them,stretch them, paint them brown and roll in green ground foam,plant.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your help. I am planning to try some of the furance filter trees this coming week. I will let all of you know how they turned out.

I have an unrelated question. How can I insert a picture? When I click the insert button I can not select where I want the picture to come from. Same with the quote button.

[pcarrell]

You can also make your own armatures from twisted wire. Just take a bunch of wire and twist it together lightly for a trunk, then bend out sections and twist them for branches and roots.

[Train Boy aka Luke P.]

I used unwanted christmas garland to make some of my trees, just trim them up and cover them with diluted white glue, then sprinkle WS ground foam on them, and then just let them dry!

[ARTHILL]

For maples, oak etc. I have had good luck with flowers. Queen of the Praire is great. I wrap several stems of Bridal Wreath together with florists tape and spray dark and then light green, and add WS foam on the last coat. I brought some Sage brush home from AZ, wrapped it with green polyfiber, sprayed it with hairspray and sprinkled on a little foam. These make great Oak trees. Once you get the hang of it, you will find all kinds of sticks and weeds that work. Hair spray, cheap spray paint and a little foam will make anything but a weeping willow.

Here is my first pic of the Oak forest.



Here is an old pic of Birch trees from Queen of the Parrie.



None of these are hard.

[selector]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jdbastian

Thank you for the link.

I think that I will follow the directions of AggroJones but I may change some things. How do you make your trees?

I also need to make 8 maple trees for O gauge. I am looking for something that is quick easy and cheap. A friend asked if I could get him them since he is not into trains. The trees are for a Civil War model.

May I suggest a cheap way to make realistic ground foam:

http://www.dansresincasting.com/Ground%20foam.htm

I do realize that the picture of the finished product doesn't look very nice but you have to add enough paint and the right realistic color.[:D]

I used Aggro's techinique with great success. As Art has found, you can overdo the filter pieces on the skewer, resulting in heavier, denser foliage, not unlike an elm. By cutting smaller and smaller disks of the filter product, and then forcing the skewer through them, somewhere near centred, and then teasing the disks apart to a fair extent, you have the skeleton of your trees. The rest is straightforward.

In this rather poor image below, the trees further back are Aggro-type. The ones in the foreground, were, shall we say, and experiment.

[selector]

QUOTE: Originally posted by ARTHILL

No thunder to steal, but great trees to make. "Only God can make a tree", says the poet, be we can sure have a good time modeling them.

"I think I shall never see
a poem as lovely as a tree."

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the link.

I think that I will follow the directions of AggroJones but I may change some things. How do you make your trees?

I also need to make 8 maple trees for O gauge. I am looking for something that is quick easy and cheap. A friend asked if I could get him them since he is not into trains. The trees are for a Civil War model.

May I suggest a cheap way to make realistic ground foam:

http://www.dansresincasting.com/Ground%20foam.htm

I do realize that the picture of the finished product doesn't look very nice but you have to add enough paint and the right realistic color.[:D]

[ARTHILL]

No thunder to steal, but great trees to make. "Only God can make a tree", says the poet, be we can sure have a good time modeling them.

[pcarrell]

Sorry Art, I didn't mean to steal your thunder.

[ARTHILL]

Jonathan, you get a different kind of tree with the two meothods. The furnace filter gives Christmas trees and can be as full or green as you like. Vary the paint color to get spruce or balsaam of other types. I add a lot of WS green foam and get very full trees. For the White and Red Pine I vary the fullness. Some look dead. Older trees are more sparce. Younger trees are more full. Part of a good forrest is to make sure all the trees are different.

The third refernce above is for Aggro's trees. That is what I started with and it didn't take long to get the hang of it. My biggest problem was learning to tear the filter into thin enough layers. Too little is better than too much. I then had to learn to trim more.

I am working on a tutorial for White Pine, but imagination may be better than instruction, though I hope to have something in a couple of weeks.

Let's continue to talk.

[pcarrell]

This is AggroJones ( a great modeler ) clinic on furnace filter tree's;

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=1&TOPIC_ID=26674

I'd be interested in Art's method though.

[Anonymous]

Thank You
pcarrell-

QUOTE: How about this

[^]I am looking for something with a little more green to it. My layout is a Northeast U.S. layout. Thank you for the site. I may adapt to what it suggests. [^] Thank You!!

ARTHILL-

QUOTE: Agrro had a great tutorial on evergreens from skewers and furnace filters. I tried them and they were easy and fast. My gkids made some. A couple of pics. If this is what you want, find Aggro's thread or I could tell you what I do.

[:D]I like your idea of the dowl and casia. But the furnace filter idea might work to. I would be interested in knowing how to make the two kinds of trees. [yeah]
Thank You!

[pcarrell]

WOW Art, those look great!

I think the tree clinic you're talking about can be found here;

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=36405

[ARTHILL]

Agrro had a great tutorial on evergreens from skewers and furnace filters. I tried them and they were easy and fast. My gkids made some. A couple of pics. If this is what you want, find Aggro's thread or I could tell you what I do.



Also pines can be made from dowel and caspia but they take more work.



I also made small christmas trees from pine cones, but have no pics yet. I also am expermenting with astilbe, no decission yet. Keep asking. Many of us are working on this.

[pcarrell]

How about this?

http://home.cablerocket.com/~crowley/easy_trees.htm

[Anonymous]

[%-)]
Hello,

I need to make 100-200 evergreen trees cheaply and easily for an HO scale layout. I have tried a couple of ideas but none seemed to be easy.

[banghead]Also I tried Woodland Scenics Trees where you glue the foam to the plastic trunks. I tried white glue and liquid cement. The foam keeps falling off.[banghead]