Alright I am reposting the forum on the "over priced scenery problem" because it was drawing so much attention and seemed to be very helpful. Please keep the subject matter on the scenery issue.
OK--one thing that I found was that Queen Ann's Lace, a type of wild flower/weed can be used as a good base for the decorative "Plane Trees" that one may find on some of the older streets in some towns.
Another thing that I also found that is useful for concession/country roads are various types of sandpaper, which, in the 1000 grit range makes for good roofing material----find a lot of these things in Dollar Stores.
Rounded toothpicks with points on the end can also be used for telephone poles---clip one end off for the top --use other pointed end to stick into the foam or what have you
BTW---also fiddling around scratchbuilding a bunch of houses---
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
I've found that yellow hayflower that grows along the roadside makes great looking trees when dried. Spray paint different shades of green and wa la...inexpensive trees.
Thin corkboard looks great as boarded up windows in plastic buildings. Cut to fit, and then glue.
I model the Pacific Northwest so I need pine/firs - tons of them. With that in mind, even though I'm not ready to plant any trees on my layout yet, the week after christmas I went down to my local "big box" store and bought one of their artifical Christmas (or should I say Winter Holiday?) trees. The six footer cost me (on sale) about a dollar a foot!
With the help of a pair of heavy duty wire cutter (the kind electricians use), some spray glue and some ground foam, I expect that fake tree will provide me with several hundred trees for my humble layout.
-George
"And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers ride their father's magic carpet made of steel..."
Union Pacific:
The current issue of RMC has a very interesting and extremely helpful article on using parts of natural shrubs, leaves and dirt for scenery. It's very imformative, and has some great ideas.
Also, if you're needing evergreens, Aggrojones posted an article several years ago on this form for how he makes pine trees out of bamboo skewers and furnace filter material. Use the 'natural' filter material and not the polymer. I've used this method to make a great many evergreens on my layout, and it's really quite inexpensive. The material comes in a 12x24" pad, and I've constructed well over 100 trees and still have at least 3/4 of the pad left. It's very easy to work with.
For deciduous trees, the large package of "Super Trees" and several packages of different shades of ground foam works extremely well. The foam can be attached to the Super Trees with common cheap unscented hairspray that generally runs under $2 for a large can. And one can also make bushes out of the left-over Super Trees branches.
And instead of spending a small fortune on Scenic Cement, thinning regular Elmer's White Glue will give you just about all the 'fixative' you need, and it can be got a most hardware stores in large containers for a fraction of what you'd pay at the hobby shop.
Just some little 'tricks' I've learned (and am still learning about) when it comes to scenery.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
A thing I've gotten into is to go to trainshows and pick up older magazines. There are all kinds of tricks in those things to stretch the hobby dollar--
blownout cylinderA thing I've gotten into is to go to trainshows and pick up older magazines. There are all kinds of tricks in those things to stretch the hobby dollar--
I've also seen used scenery books for sale as well - Kalmbach's and others'. Sometimes for as little as $1.
Enjoy
Paul
Over time I've used all sorts of things in making scenery, from Rocks, Sticks & Twigs to Roofing Tile Materials. It's one of the aspects of this hobby that I really enjoy, seeing how creative modelers are when faced with tricky problems.
Lately I've been having a blast taking the old standby Atlas Telephone poles and reworking them for use on my layout.
Mark Gosdin
Since the other thread went south, again I'll post my recommendation for SuperTrees also.
A great price considering the amount of trees you can get from one box. The rest of the required materials one should already have if you're doing scenery anyway.
And the skewer/furnace filter trees are dirt cheap, they just take a little practice to get skilled at making them.
I suppose the cheapest scenery one could make would be desert terrain, you just need to plant a few cacti and scrub bushes, and the rest is dirt and rocks.
Here's an example of a "little bit of this" and "a little bit of that"...
The water is clear acrylic gloss over acrylic paint, right on some CDX plywood (the wood grain provides the ripples)
The concrete bridge pier is scratch built from Evergreen styrene sheet. The bridge itself is composed of a Walthers kit and a couple of Micro Engineering plate girder spans, with ME bridge track installed (all commercial kits)
The trees are fabricated from stuff in the yard, the rocks were collected from the WM right of way at McCoy's Ferry. The foliage and ground cover is gravel and ground foam products from Scenic Express and/or Woodland Scenics.
The stone retaining wall is a commercial casting, I believe by Chooch Enterprises.
The guy on the bike is by Preiser.
The adhesives that hold everything together are Plastruct Pro Weld (for the styrene bits and kits), Elmer's White Glue, (for most of the scenic elements), Walmart Clear Spray paint (for bonding foliage to the trees) and Acrylic matte medium to bond the ground cover and ballast, and to secure the rocks to the shoreline.
I'm sure that with another investment of $50 to $100, I could have built this whole scene from the Woodland Scenics rack from the foam base up to the tree tops. But over the years I've learned a lot of cost saving tricks. It wouldn't make the scene any better or worse, maybe a little more recognizable with more "off the rack" products, nor would it require any less skill to use some of those products. Just more money, and maybe a little less time.
From my perspective, it's not so much the products you use, but the creativity and composition you use to get your final product. AND most importantly, that the finished product satisfies YOU, in terms of effort expended, creativity unleashed, and pleasure derived from the results.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
pastorbobNow that is uncalled for, so I will remove myself after posting from this forum, and you can be sure I will not renew subscriptions to MR or Trains. I would not presume to question your authority, and I will remove myself from the temptation to tell you what I think of YOUR POST. Bob Miller
Now that is uncalled for, so I will remove myself after posting from this forum, and you can be sure I will not renew subscriptions to MR or Trains. I would not presume to question your authority, and I will remove myself from the temptation to tell you what I think of YOUR POST.
Bob Miller
that was al mayo. fortunately, his post was deleted. The give-away was the join date, which was today's date. that was in no way Neil's opinion. mods, feel free to delete this post if you explain it better than me.
Sawyer Berry
Clemson University c/o 2018
Building a protolanced industrial park layout
Ok, here it is again...my original post from the original thread...again, hope this helps:
Two inexpensive tree making methods:
Excellent timing that I just read an article this morning entitled String Trees, by the late Art Curren, published in the June 1986 Model Railroader, pp. 83 - 85. Art demonstrates techniques for making your own highly detailed foreground trees using carpet thread, cotton string, jute and clothesline. He details making trees with each type of string material using a combination of floral wire, CA, and correction fluid such as White Out, along with various flat spray paints and several tools. He says that one very large tree or several smaller trees can be done in an evening. Art is also famous for the book about kitbashing and kit mingling plastic structures, which I found a used copy online about a year ago since it is out of print. If you have this back issue then you are all set, if you don't have a copy then I am sure you can order it from MR.
Another method I learned awhile ago at a train show demo is for making a large number of background trees utilizing polyfil fiber. This material which can be bought at the fabric stores or Wal-Mart in large bags for around $5.00 will give you enough material for a huge forest. I posted a short clinic here in the MR forum on Jan. 22, 2008 on that method entitled Making Trees ~ In a Frugal Sense! In this short clinic I enlisted the assistance of my son and we also demonstrate making trees with dried floral material, another inexpensive item. Both of these methods are very similar to the techniques posted by Lee.
For more links to making scenery on the cheap, check out my Modeling Techniques web page at http://piedmontdivision.rymocs.com/modeltech.htm and scroll down to the Scenery section.
Hope this helps!
Ryan BoudreauxThe Piedmont Division Modeling The Southern Railway, Norfolk & Western & Norfolk Southern in HO during the merger eraCajun Chef Ryan
kcole4001 I suppose the cheapest scenery one could make would be desert terrain, you just need to plant a few cacti and scrub bushes, and the rest is dirt and rocks.
You reside a long, long way from the Desert Southwest where I reside. Believe me when I say that you can screw up desert terrain easier than you can screw up almost any other kind.
. . . . . . . . . . and it is frequently done. I'm not sure whether it was at Seattle in '04 or Cincinnati in '05 but at one of those conventions I encountered a layout with a "peavine route" Uncle John theme. His layout came down out off of the rim into the desert country and the transition was perfect. I commented that his was one of the few desert themed layouts that looked realistic. It turned out that he had been on the staff at Northern Arizona University for about 15 years so he was intimately familiar with the "peavine" between Williams and Phoenix. Desert terrain is much more than just
a few cacti and scrub bushes, and the rest is dirt and rocks.
Due to circumstances which I have previously outlined in postings here on the forum few of my layouts have ever progressed to the point of installation of very many trees. I employ the wire armature/clay/lichen method; this procedure was outlined in Kalmbach's late-'50's-early-'60's publication titled HO Railroad That Grows. Most recently I have come to sprinkle my lichen with finely ground foam to add texture to my trees. This method is conducive to constructing large quantities of wire armatures while watching TV; I currently have several shoe boxes full of armatures. These "trees" will be planted on my next/future layout.
ATTN: pastorbob
I have been chastised a couple of times for postings which one of the moderators found to be of an uncivil or impolite nature. This chastising was always done through an e-mail. Unlike the moderators over on idiotboreddotcom the moderators here are very polite and always offer their reasons for why they are removing one of your posts. When I read NeilB's posting to kcole4001 I scratched my head--it didn't sound like something which you will see here on this forum.
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
I've been willing to part with cold cash for many of the more expensive scenery materials, not out of laziness or financial independence... I move my layout frequently, whether to shows or when the Air Force gives me orders to a new assignment, so the layout is exposed to significant changes in climate. It's done summer in North Carolina and winter in an unheated Nebraska basement. It's also spent weeks in a crate in storage, and days in a hot moving truck last summer.
Because of this I need my modeling materials to be relatively inert, not subject changes due to large swings in temperature and humidity. As such, I try to avoid all but the most sealed and preserved biological material, relying very heavily instead on ground foam and plastic armatures. The little bit of lichen and twig material on my layout tends to dry out rather quickly.
I suspect that once my nomadic days are over and I can build a permanent layout in a climate-controlled environment, I will by necessity have to "roll my own," since I plan a large layout based on the heavily wooded hills of Pennsylvania.
Modeling the Rio Grande Southern First District circa 1938-1946 in HOn3.
nucat78Various dried flowers / foliage from a craft store can work well for trees and bushes. Clip off a piece, apply your favorite fixative and sprinkle on ground foam. Not perfect but well within the "good enough" unless you're modeling something like a foreground Crimson King maple or live oak, etc.
You don't even need a craft / floral store. I have a rough dozen sedum plants in my garden, which produce a floral top -- if the friggin' deer don't eat them -- which makes a pretty good tree armature. I just wait for Mother Nature to dry them out in the fall, then go harvest them. The plant obligingly grows new ones every year!
Unmodified, they serve well for the "scalped" trees next to a right-of-way, especially one cut through a forest canopy which has killed off the lower branches of the trees. These trees take years to recover their lower branches (and many never do -- several of the trees at the edge of the woods in back of my house are still barren below the crown, 11 years after the adjacent trees were cut down), and you can simulte this growth with a little lichen or similar twiggy material. By combining stems and adding poly fiber and ground foam, you can make a tree that looks pretty good to very convincing, depending on your skill.
Here is an unmodified sedum floret, for your viewing pleasure.
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
CTValleyRR Unmodified, they serve well for the "scalped" trees next to a right-of-way, especially one cut through a forest canopy which has killed off the lower branches of the trees. These trees take years to recover their lower branches (and many never do -- several of the trees at the edge of the woods in back of my house are still barren below the crown, 11 years after the adjacent trees were cut down), and you can simulte this growth with a little lichen or similar twiggy material. By combining stems and adding poly fiber and ground foam, you can make a tree that looks pretty good to very convincing, depending on your skill. Here is an unmodified sedum floret, for your viewing pleasure.
Another thing about this is that there are decorative styles of tree trimming---not the topiary type--that do give the tree this very look.
Make it a point to go out with your camera and take photos of various types of trees and their associated forms as well as those forms that make you go "What the-------happened?!??!!" Incorporate those weird ducks for variety---do not, though, overpopulate your forests with them ----
In N scale, you can snap some of the canopy off, then re-combine them to get a multi-tiered crown...
For concrete I use Durabond -- it is a lightweight "mud" used for drywall patching that looks like concrete when dry, with a little paint/weathering. I used it for the concrete pads under the sanding towers on the the local club layout, a passenger depot, foundations for under buildings, roads, and I also use it to coat loading docks made from styrene. I chip it here and there and add cracks. Looks just like the real thing. The beauty of DUrabond is one can mix it thick or thin and watery depending on what you want to do with it. DUrabond is easy to clean up as well. It is relatively cheap; the price varies depending on where you buy it. I think I paid $5 for 5 pounds which will last me a very, very long time. I also have heard of people making rock castings with it. Note of caution; if it is used in a thick application, it may crack.
I am going to try unsanded grout for dirt roads -- I just mixed a batch for doing some grout work in the bathroom. It looks just about perfect for a dirt road as it has a grainy look to it. I'll experiment with it and let you know how it turns out.
Chuck
Modeling the Motor City