Making Trees ~ In a frugal sense!

[SilverSpike]

Started making some trees yesterday and got some assistance from my little buddy Ben!

Using some Poly Fil fiber, hair spray, flat black spray paint, various dried floral material, and a special blend of ground foam material we built over 25 trees in just about 2 hours time.

Method 1 ~ Poly Fil, dry floral material, floral tape, flat black spray paint, hair spray, and ground foam material.

Coat some hair spray onto the armature and then stick the Poly Fil on

Then spray on some flat black spray paint

Then apply some hair spray and coat with some ground foam material

Method 2 ~ Dried floral material, hair spray, ground foam material.

Cut the specified dry floral material

Coat with some hair spray

Then roll in the ground foam mix

Shake excess and hang to dry

Some dry on the foam sheet too

And the forest starts to grow (needs more fertilizer)

Twenty-five down......five thousand to go!

[cwclark]

Looks good! another technique you can try that's real easy is take some hemp fiber rope (just don't try and smoke it.)   cut it into 1" to 2" strands, and pull it apart into individual fibers.

   Next, take some small gauge wire, cut it into 8" to 12" lenghts, bend it in half, clamp the two open ends of the wire into a vise. Place the hemp rope fibers in between the two wire halves, chuck the other end of the wire in an electric drill, and give it a whirl. (Sort of like how bottle brushes are made.)

   Un-chuck the wire from the drill and remove the other end of the wire from the vise, take a pair of scissors and trim the loose strands, spray paint it green and continue as you did in your last step by spraying it with hairspray and rolling it in the blended turf. They make great conifer trees and cost about $.03 a piece....chuck

[Autobus Prime]

Started making some trees yesterday and got some assistance from my little buddy Ben!

SS:

Interesting.  While I'm sure the bare spots could have been covered with more adhesive and foam, or by using a stickier adhesive than hair spray, I want to point out that the whitish bare polyfill looks very much like 1:1 caterpillar tents.

What do you use for your armatures?

[yankee flyer]

Anyone

I posted a question earlyer on making birch trees hopefully to get some new ideas on for foliage.Any help will be appreciated.

Yankee Flyer 

[SilverSpike]

Autobus,  I like the caterpillar tent idea, actually after the photo was taken we coated some more hairspray and rolled on more scenery blend.

For that particular tree we used a portion of dried flower known as Candy Tuft Natural color. I bought 7 different dried flower bouquets at Michael's Crafts store and use these as my armatures.

Some of the other dried flowers that I use are Caspia Basil in two different colors, forest green and basil green, Mini gyp (also known as Baby's Breath) in a white and forest green color, and Tassel in natural color.

I have not purchased from them but the Flower Depot online has great images of various dried flowers, their URL is http://www.flowerdepotstore.com/flowers.html

Yankee, I have not made birch trees, as they are not in abundance in our area, but I do remember reading somewhere how to make them. I will search and report back soon.

Cheers,

Ryan

[tomkat-13]

 

I make my trees from a plant called "Forget-Me-Knots"....In the late fall after the plant turns to seed and the plant looks tree like. I cut to different hights and layout by size. I use cheap hair spay on the tops and sprinkle a green ground foam mix on. You can build thicker trees  ("building on")  by adding more branches. Just take smaller ones, use a pin poke a hole into a bigger trunk & add white glue. Also I like to plant them in odd numbers ( 1-3-5-7-ect) seems to look more natural.

 

[yankee flyer]

Spike

Thanks

That is a great site. I did check out Micheals but maybe I was in the wrong department.

Here is to blue skys and a warm.

 

 

[yankee flyer]

 Tomkat

Now we are getting some where! those are some great trees.

 

 Before I get anyone mad a me. Yankee Flyer has nothing to do with the north and south. That was the make of my airplane and my CB handle. And I left the sun off my last message.

Blue skys warm sun

[SilverSpike]

TomCat, thanks for the "Forget-Me-Knots" tip. Going to have to add some to my spring flower planting mix this year.

Yankee, see your other post too on trees! I found some birch references for you and posted them there.

 

[krs]

Some great looking trees guys.  I am just starting to get things together to build some trees.  I picked a bunch of dried goldenrod this past fall.  Hopefully they will turn out as nice as the trees pictured above.

[gatrhumpy]

What about trees on traveling layouts? They need to be stronger and sturdier than typical home-made trees. Anyone got any ideas?

[wm3798]

For a traveling layout, I've seen good looking and very sturdy tree armatures made from stranded copper wire.  Keep the trunk end wound, then unwind the top into a crown of branches using multiple wire strands to go from thicker to thinner limbs.  To hold it all together, flood the wire with solder, then paint.  It is rugged as heck, yet still flexible so it'll take a beating and yet be easily restored to it's proper shape.

I'm going to see about making some of them myself...

Lee