The best way I have found is to take dowels and taper one end. Then take spackle and coat the trunk area that will show and the take a bunch of brads bound together and scrape the wet spackel into bark (used a saw blade sometimes for this too). When dry spay the trunk flat black and then dry brush the bark with colors of choise. Next take black furnace filter material and arrange on the trunk. When happy glue the two together. Next apply your choise of glue to the filter material and ground foam it and when dry cheap hair spray it or other way of sealing. This will make trees good enough for most peoples fore ground models but of course you can make even more detailed models a branch at a time but the most detaled I got was adding a few individual branches to the ones I descibed as dead branches. For background trees I used Architrees and that is what I use on my currant layout but their quality is inconsistant and not very good for trees over 6".
Another idea you might consider especially if you're looking at taller trees is to look at Christmas. Or, more acurately, an undecorated plastic and metal green Christmas wreath. Each of the "branches" are of sufficent size to make a tree for HO scale. I had started to use this idea for my old layout which had a large hill that would have needed a lot of trees. My new one doesn't have that need but the idea is still valid. Cut the branches from the wreath, trim the "needles" as needed, spray with a plastic safe paint as desired for color variety, spray with hair spray (or some other clear "glue", and toss on turf. You can leave as is or add foam as desired. I made a few and I thought they looked pretty good.
Wayne, that's a good one too, even though it's in N gauge.
I did manage to find the one he did about tall conifers (at this LINK). That dude is a past master, a tree modeling wizard, a djinn of sylvan miniaturism, a... a... well you get the idea.
I don't know if I could EVER manage what he did, at least not for a whole mountain, but even he said that. He only does a few that way for showcase areas. In fact he laughed that he would regard it as a punishment if a judge sentenced him to make two thousand of them. ("I'll serve the time instead.")
However, having seen the superior quality of those trees, how very realistic they look, it makes me much less inclined to settle for trees that look like clumps of foam.
I'm not there yet, but I can tell I'm going to have a serious talk with my soul come scenery time.
-Matt
Returning to model railroading after 40 years and taking unconscionable liberties with the SP&S, Northern Pacific and Great Northern roads in the '40s and '50s.
I'm not sure if it will work, but I'm including this LINK to the tree-making video that I watched. It was done by the same modeller who shared the video of the long CPR train running through the pine-covered mountainous forest.
Wayne
I'll have to trawl through all the available (not members only) videos to see if I can find that one. Another video showed about three seconds of him doing something with a drill and some materials, and shaping the tree, but it was sped up about 8x and it was only a montage, so even when I slowed it down to .25 speed it was still fast and it didn't clear show the process. If it was in still another photo, I didn't see it. And yes, I'd make them larger for HO scale.
Wayne, as always, beautiful photos. And the process you describe "sorta" makes an image in my head, but not a super clear one. I'm still not even sure what kind of bristles we're talking about or how to come by them, or how to lay them on the wire. I need to see it.
Thanks guys. At least I know now it can be done.
crossthedog Robert, thanks. The video here shows beautiful conifers, just what I would want (those and even larger ones). But although the narrator talked about having added several of the trees, he didn't say how he "spun up" 400 of them. I'd love to know more. Thanks, -Matt
Robert, thanks. The video here shows beautiful conifers, just what I would want (those and even larger ones). But although the narrator talked about having added several of the trees, he didn't say how he "spun up" 400 of them. I'd love to know more.
Thanks,
The process looks pretty easy, but if I'm not mistaken, that tree-building session was for an N scale layout. If you want HO scale trees, I'd guess that the procedure is similar, but perhaps with more (and larger diameter) wire.
crossthedogClose-up photos will be appreciated (Wayne? Free ticket for you to go crazy here).
I''ve been crazy for years, Matt, and the craziness seems to be increasing as my brain shrivels.
I have only a handful of small conifers on my layout. They're actually the old Christmas tree decorations that were made using twisted wires and bottle-brush bristles. I got them in a box of junk from a yard sale. I decided that the toy-like appearance needed a little help, and chose to make them into some semblance to cedar trees.All that was required was an application of hairspray (unscented Finesse, from a pump-type sprayer), followed by a sprinkling of Woodland Scenics ground foam. I think that most of them got at least a couple of applications.
In HO scale, they're only about 35' tall, and definitely not pines of any type...
I do have some taller evergreens, about 55' HO at most, but they're more like junipers. I don't recall what plant was used, but it might have been the flowers on goldenrod....
These are more like shrubs (We want a Shrubbery!!! We are the knights who say "Ni!").
These are thistles of some type...maybe Scottish or Bull thistles ...I'm no horticulturist. I call them shrubs. Same procedure, but they're used here mainly as representing a property line...an orchard is planned for the adjacent property.
You might be able to build your own tall pines, using a combination of soft metal wire and bristles from some sort of brush, preferably not a wire brush.Place some wire down on your workbench, add some bristles, then more wire and more bristles, then put the bottom end of the wires, which will form the trunk of the tree, into the chuck of an electric drill. Hold the top end of the "tree" using pliers, then activate the drill at a not-too-fast setting, hopefully creating a suitable-looking trunk, with branches needing, perhaps a spray of paint to hide the metal, followed by some hairspray and ground foam.Hopefully, someone with experience making evergreens can give us a better description of the process, as it's pretty obvious that I've never made a tall evergreen.
Most of the trees on my layout are a background segue from scenery to sky...
Hey Matt-
One of the videos on his channel deals specifically with making conifers. Another videos for aspens. I think his total for pines is up to about 4000 now; less for aspens.
He has a great layout, and he produces great videos. This is not an endorsement, just an observation.
Robert
LINK to SNSR Blog
Southern Alberta Rail. You Tube.
I live out west, where men are men and trees have needles. I'm starting to think about how I'm going to fill up several hillsides with tall conifers. I see some for sale that look okay, but they're kits, which means the package will include some wadded-up lichen-like material that I'm supposed to make look like their wonderful "floor model". Then there are some ready-to-roll, as it were, which I might be able to squeeze into my budget, but only if they look stellar. I don't have a lot of patience for dipping things in vats of crumbly "foliage" (though I'm willing), and conifers don't look like deciduous trees anyway, so I'm not even sure that would suit.
What are some ways you fellas have grown your forests? As Ross Perot famously said, I'm all ears.
I'm not really talking background masses at this point because my layout will have access all around, so the trees will have to be mostly individual except where there are dense clumps (copses?). And if I could find a product that really looked stand-out, truly looked like a 100-foot Thuja plicata or Pseudotsuga menziesii or Abies amibilis, or a way to make them myself, I would rather do that than buy something that looked like a clump of wool wrapped over a bent wire.
Close-up photos will be appreciated (Wayne? Free ticket for you to go crazy here).
Thanks for any help.