For those of us that model log cars what do you use for the logs? The plastic or wood logs that come with or are sold for the model or do you go get your own from the back yard?
Gary
Gary,
The hardest things for us to match for realism are seemingly those produced by Mother Nature. Trees, harvested or not, are the prime example. With them we have a hard time getting beyond something that is faintly representational. Show me a modeller whose trees are really nice and I'll bet the rest of his stuff is top shelf, too.
For logs, most of what I've seen at the hobby store that is real wood is too uniform (unless it's finished for phone poles or something). If you're off to your yard or local woodlot, you'll have to take your and be smiled upon by good fortune. The first thing that comes to mind is the straightness, fineness and uniformity of the surface. Obviously certain species of trees and shrubs will be better sources than others. And if you live in the desert you will probably be a bit more hard pressed to come up with stuff than if you're from Wisconsin or Vermont.
If only because of scale, any irregularities will be visually amplified the moment they appear next to your prototypical equipment and structures. The same goes for the ends. If you're doing HO, multiply the appearance of the shafts and ends ends of your twigs by 87 and ask yourself if you've ever seen anything approaching that in nature. As an example, a great twig in all other respects that has been snapped off at the desired length will have a rough end. Have you ever seen anything proportionally rough, unless it was the top of a tree recently demolished by a tornado? Ends look a lot more acceptable - especially if you're modelling anything related to logging - if they are evened off by your moto-tool, and perhaps carefully sanded.
Hey, it's your pike. If you can live with what you've come up with, dismiss the occasional views and comments of your visitors. After all, how much did they invest in your work!
(BTW, nice work, nice photo)
John
Excellent points. I'm going to try it and see what comes out. If successful, it should be quite interesting. If I fail, I'll at least have tried. Probably some of you more experienced at this are having a good laugh
I have a lot of trees around my house, so I prefer getting twigs. White pine seems to be the smoothest. Oak and maple twigs have a lot of bumps where the leaves are attached, so they do not look so good on top of a load. I will use them in the middle where only the ends show, and after smoothing out the bumps.
This is an Ambroid wood kit that someone else started, and I finished for Boothbay Railway Village.
The car was very light, so I put a wood filler in the middle with holes drilled to hold some lead weight
EDIT: Images should show now, moving from Photobucket to ImBB
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
i use small mariosia trees that seem to spring up over night here found that cutting them green with a cable cutter makes the ends look right , look for fast growing trees to supply good looking logs but watch the but size try to keep them at 2 ft 6 in or smaller but not too small. cant post photos here but if you go to the MTF you can see some potos i've posted there.
G Paine none of your photos loaded. PhotoBucket has a new policy that you cannot upload to another site.
Attuvian And if you live in the desert you will probably be a bit more hard pressed to come up with stuff than if you're from Wisconsin or Vermont. John
And if you live in the desert you will probably be a bit more hard pressed to come up with stuff than if you're from Wisconsin or Vermont.
Hey John-
Although this sounds intuitively obvious, I'm not sure it is correct. The scrubby, scrawny, dried-up, stunted vegetation we get in the desert makes very realistic miniature trees and whatnot. Sagebrush and greasewood come immediately to mind. I don't have access to photos, but maybe others might.
I'm not trying to be critical of your very thoughtful post, but this just came to mind.
Robert
LINK to SNSR Blog
For tree trunks on living trees I like using real twigs. I’m not sure what kind of trees I use or what kind I’m making, oak perhaps.As for logs I use a couple of different size wooden dowels that I paint to look more natural. Logs are usually pine trees which are the preferred type for construction because of how straight they grow. The branches are small compared to other type trees and are easily stripped off with modern logging equipment which leaves a generally uniform looking log. They are cut to a uniform length which makes transporting them and milling them easier. I cut the ends with are pair of diagonal wire cutters (dykes) so they look like they were cut down and part of the trunk broke instead of being a perfect cut. Sorry the picture doesn't show the sides better.
I've used twigs from lilacs, viburnum and ash. A clean cut can be obtained from a cutter used for pruning (the ones with long handles you need two hands to cut with). I can't post because of the new Photobucket policy.... Simon
When harvesting twigs and small sticks to use in modeling, I learned that an orange crate full of raw material MIGHT yield enough to load a half-dozen HO skeleton flats, AFTER cutting the ends with a razor saw, smoothing off some leaf bumps and discarding anything with a visible bend. Some of the log car/log deck rejects would have been good enough for tree trunks. Others cleaned up into adequate phone poles. A lot (well over half) ended up in the compost bin.
At the time I was living on 7 1/2 wooded acres in Tennessee, so I could simply walk around and have a full box in minutes. To get the equivalent here in Southern Nevada would require an all-day safari to the mid-level forest in the Spring Mountains. Tumbleweed is not a suitable sub.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
ROBERT PETRICK Attuvian And if you live in the desert you will probably be a bit more hard pressed to come up with stuff than if you're from Wisconsin or Vermont. John Hey John- Although this sounds intuitively obvious, I'm not sure it is correct. The scrubby, scrawny, dried-up, stunted vegetation we get in the desert makes very realistic miniature trees and whatnot. Sagebrush and greasewood come immediately to mind. I don't have access to photos, but maybe others might. I'm not trying to be critical of your very thoughtful post, but this just came to mind. Robert
Not tweaked at all, Robert. As an insightful (and sensitive) guy, you are correct in my response being intuitive. I've never lived in the desert; Michigan and Oregon makes me an outlier on the matter of desert materials.
When it comes to modelling logs, long and fairly straight are the primary factors and they can limit one's options. But when you expand to modeling trees (particularly trunks and limbs) and other flora, your options and imagination can expand, perhaps even dramatically.
When it's possible and I've got the time to build from scratch, I'm all for finding something natural rather than cast plastic or metal. When it comes to foliage and grass, etc., one has to be a bit more flexible. After all, there's a reason Woodland Scenics doesn't market a bag with 9543 1:87 oak leaves that you can tack onto the Forsythia twig from your front yard. We do our best and don't sweat the final product. We must dismiss the message of those the old margarine ads: "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!" BTW, those ads were so catchy that I've long since forgotten the brand that the company paid big bucks for me to remember! Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
AttuvianAfter all, there's a reason Woodland Scenics doesn't market a bag with 9543 1:87 oak leaves that you can tack onto the Forsythia twig from your front yard.
Um, this is what I use: http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/category/Foliage
and I put it onto twigs from the yard.
I use a variety of real wood sticks gathered from nature. Getting scale texture can be tricky but it is possible. My buddies who model logging lines (all of us basically) are always on the look out for sticks, branches, trunks, etc that look like the real thing.
It is also possible to make those kadee plastic logs look great with some paint and experimentation.
Guy
see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site
Lone Wolf and Santa Fe Attuvian After all, there's a reason Woodland Scenics doesn't market a bag with 9543 1:87 oak leaves that you can tack onto the Forsythia twig from your front yard. Um, this is what I use: http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/category/Foliage and I put it onto twigs from the yard.
Attuvian After all, there's a reason Woodland Scenics doesn't market a bag with 9543 1:87 oak leaves that you can tack onto the Forsythia twig from your front yard.
Indeed, LW&SF. And it's the best that's a reasonable commercial replacement for those 9543 separate scale leaves!
Loads for log cars I believe is the question...
.
For pulpwod cars I use loads by Chooch. For bunker cars hauling logs for the mill I use resin cast logs. These are available from a few manufacturers, and are very realistic.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I used sticks, from the yard.
Mike
My You Tube
mbinsewi I used sticks, from the yard. Mike
Those look good! Do you do anything to them other than cleaning them up. Dulcoat ?
Those are nice. I'm amazed that you could find that many sticks that are straight. I don't have any in my yard.
I found a couple more angles of my log truck with wooden dowel logs so you could see the sides.
Many moons ago I was told small branches of certain trees are the exact duplicate of the full grown trees in miniature, take a close look at the bark of some trees and bushes and I believe it's true, I have had great luck creating logs from branches , don't forget the crack in the end of the log where ir snaps off when felling the tree.