I was looking on Ebay, and there are several outfits( in China) that have trees of various sizes and shapes,
listed at low prices, about what I could make them myself without all the hassle and give me time to work on other aspects of my layout.
Has anyone used any of these and give an opinion?
Thx
TheK4Kid
Like everything on ebay, a wide variety of quality and value. Didn't see much that particularly stood out.
Making trees isn't rocket science, at least for background trees. I do have several hundred foreground trees that are RTR, mostly the Busch 100 count (189-6499) assortment, as I model the mountains. But my total tree count is somewhere above 7,000, with most beiung small (but powerful! ) bumpy chenille trees made from that pipe-cleaner-like item (yields 8 trees each).
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Mike your trees are absolutely fantastic, perhapps you have a tutorial on them somewhere?
I also have seen the china trees at a rediculously low too good to be true prices and have often thought perhaps if they werent as they looked they may be good for background trees blended in.
Lynn
Present Layout progress
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/p/290127/3372174.aspx#3372174
Lynn,
You can see the terrain fill up with them on this page of my Cascade Branch thread:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/219241.aspx?page=2
I have a tutorial here:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/p/225143/2506390.aspx#2506390
I will tell you the basics here. I primarily use green bumpy chenille, although I've also had some success with using tan and black (they take more paint to cover, though). I have a piece of foam that I stick one package at a time (dozen) in it, then spray paint the whole bumpy chenille. I use a variety of greens and like to intermix the trees of different colors to get a more realiztis, less uniform look.
I se theswe colors.
Krylon: Italian Olive; Hunter Green
Rustoleum: Moss Green; Leafy Green; Spruce Green
Let the paint dry.
Using a pair of sidecut pliers cut each stick of bumpy chenille into 8 parts. The middle of the thickest part of the bump is the base of the tree, so one cut goes there. The top is the thinnest part, so cut there in the middle also.
Make a bunch of them.
Take the box of trees to the layout and use an icepick or bit to punch holes big enough for the "trunk" to fit. Your scenery determines how best to do that. I then dip each base of the trunk in Aleene's Tacky Glue, pushing in to where they hold.
So where do you find this "bumpy chenille?"
I have searched local sewing and materials shops and am told they never heard of it.
I have tried dress material shops, craft shops in my area to no avail.
I have seen other guys that use it, but gave up trying to find it here.
TheK4KidSo where do you find this "bumpy chenille?" I have searched local sewing and materials shops and am told they never heard of it.
Hobby Lobby--- Craft Stores
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
I looked on their website, but the local Hobby Lobby store does not carry it.I'll see if i can special order it
mlehman Home » Model Railroader » Forums » Layouts and layout building New Reply Fill out the form below to create a new reply. mlehman wrote the following post 2 hours ago: Lynn, You can see the terrain fill up with them on this page of my Cascade Branch thread: http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/219241.aspx?page=2 I have a tutorial here: http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/p/225143/2506390.aspx#2506390 I will tell you the basics here. I primarily use green bumpy chenille, although I've also had some success with using tan and black (they take more paint to cover, though). I have a piece of foam that I stick one package at a time (dozen) in it, then spray paint the whole bumpy chenille. I use a variety of greens and like to intermix the trees of different colors to get a more realiztis, less uniform look. I se theswe colors. Krylon: Italian Olive; Hunter Green Rustoleum: Moss Green; Leafy Green; Spruce Green Let the paint dry. Using a pair of sidecut pliers cut each stick of bumpy chenille into 8 parts. The middle of the thickest part of the bump is the base of the tree, so one cut goes there. The top is the thinnest part, so cut there in the middle also. Make a bunch of them. Take the box of trees to the layout and use an icepick or bit to punch holes big enough for the "trunk" to fit. Your scenery determines how best to do that. I then dip each base of the trunk in Aleene's Tacky Glue, pushing in to where they hold.
Thanks Mike I'll take a look a the topic.
It may not show on their website, but I suspect your local HL has it anyway. There's a substantial part of one aisle given over to the various forms of this stuff in our HL. On the other hand, the local Michael's doesn't have any.
Santa Fe all the way!I've purchased several batches of trees at great prices from China. If your careful, read the description and look at the pictures carefully you can get great trees for a incredible price. I've also ordered just the trees without foliage and then added my own. Trees and streetlights are two items that you can really save big on.
I'm glad to see someone has ordered some of that stuff. I was looking at some of the lighting for my layout and was a little curious. The trees they offer look pretty good. I do make ALOT of my own trees, but they have some that look pretty good, and I have thought about ordering a few
This is a bit off the original topic, but the subject of street lights was raised so I thought I would chime in.
Sorry to be a contrary SOB (Sort Of Being) but I have yet to see a Chinese mfrd street light that actually looked like a North American lamp post. Too bad. They are missing a huge opportunity.
You can make your own for peanuts in a couple of hours. These cost me less than $2.00 each:
You need some brass or copper tube, some 1/32" x 1/64" brass stock, some 30 ga. wire, a 3mm warm white LED and an 8mm plastic bead. The washer for the base is optional. Don't forget the resistor to protect the LED.
If anyone would like some more details please post or send me a PM.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
I have built many Woodland Scenics trees with their bendable armatures. They build into beautiful trees and use them in locations that sort of "Show Case" them. However as far as building a forest of them, that might be a bit expensive and time consuming.
Somehow; or, another I ended up with about 20 feet of some of the old multi-conducter telephone wire. I strip off a length of the outer sheath and bend the 4 wires into branches and paint the trunks to look like Aspen trees (Popple trees, locally) and use woodland Scenics foilage to simulate leaves. These turn out fairly nicely.
I've also bought some small conifers off of Ebay which are very nicely done.
Model Railroader has had some great articles on building trees from local weeds and I will eventually make use of Mike's Bumpy Chenelle, too. Building trees is a good place to let your creative juices flow and it's alot of fun, too!
NP 2626 "Northern Pacific, really terrific"
Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association: http://www.nprha.org/
I haven't seen many commercially finished trees that strike me as a good value, and most of the offerings on ebay leave a lot to be desired in terms of appearance once you see them up close.
The above were built from Supertree material, available from Scenic Express http://www.sceneryexpress.com/SuperTree-Material/products/1007/ . The site claims 30 trees from a $29.98 package, but you can create a lot more than that. They can be cranked out quickly too.
Rob Spangler
Around Christmas time the Dollar stores around here sell 2 packs of pine trees for a dollar - they look similr to what Mike has on his layout - I've picked up a few to mix in on my layout.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
The stuff from china is garbage for the most part. The most realistic (for pine or fir trees anyway) are ones from e-bay by Architrees and they will ship big batches to you (big batches are shipped from the Philippines (soposidly made by hand by the poor), for the price they look very good!
Santa Fe all the way!OK, just looked up Architrees on Ebay. The pine trees look OK, there deciduous trees, IMHO look very, bad. rrebell, you need to take another look at the Chinese trees before calling them garbage. Nothing by Architrees looks better or even as good as the Chinese listings. Imho, of course.
Santa Fe all the way!I stand corrected, you like their pine/fir trees, which are nice. I'm always looking for good deciduous trees. I shouldn't have sounded so grumpy :-)
Making my own trees is one of my favorite parts of the hobby. In addition to the bump chenille Michaels has a medium chenille in long strands (about 3 or 4 feet) which I cut to the lenght I want. Then trim a little of one end completely to give you a trunk for "planting." Trim the other end at an angle to give you a nice shaped pine tree. Then spray with hair spray, roll in fine ground foam, one more spray with hair spray and you have a nice, cheap tree. For foreground and decidous trees I use weed and shrub cutting for my armatures. Add a little green or black polyfiber, spray with hairspray and roll in ground foam. Bottle brush trees also work but take a whole lot more time.