Trees

The standard approach in OO is to use wire cable (tow cable and/or bowen cable) with the strands un-twisted to form the branches, you need to add some strands to fill out the upper parts of the tree. To get the shape take some photos in winter to see the tree shape, childrens books on trees are often worth looking at as well. The tree can be coated in plaster (with brown/green paint mixed with it and some PVA glue as well). The foliage most people use these days is Woodland Scenics, a kind of webbed material that is teased out and spread over the ends of the branches (having coated the ends of the branches in diluted PVA). There have been a number of other materials used over the years, ground foam (although I am not sure that is still available and the colours tended to be a bit harsh. One I liked was dyed dried tea leaves, if you want to go over the top the under side of the leaves is a lighter green than the top side To fill in behind the carefully made trees you can get stuff called (I think) sea foam as 'forrest in a box' which comprises some kind of aquatic plant to serve as the tree with (I think) woodland scenics foliage to cover it with.

HTH

Mike

Beginners guide to freight ops

Woodland Scenics, Scenic Express both make very good tree kits.

Make a few trees using their kits, then adapt their methods. You can buy tree making materials from either one (eg flock, fibre-fill).

HTH

It really upsets me buying bits of cut up or shredded plastic, there must be some suitable natural or waste product. Like Mikes idea of tea leaves, perhaps could use Japanese or green tea so wouldnt need to paint the leaves - well it tastes awful so would be nice if good for something.

Cheers, Simon

Bob,

Adding to what others have contributed, you can make very convincing trees using the dried heads of Sedum Spectabile

is a fairly common garden/rockery plant in the UK. Pick the flower heads after the petals have wilted in the Autumn and let them dry out, then roll the heads in dilute PVA or latex glue and sprinkle with flock powders, ground foam, dyed tea leaves, etc. I've used this method to make a range of trees from small bushes to medium sized trees (depends on your scale). You can make a forest in no time and the end product looks very convincing.

The only problem is that the dead heads are only available late autumn, although we've still got a few on plants in our garden - that's until wife does her spring clean :-)

I've known other modellers use the dead heads of lace cap hydrangea in a similar way to get very convincing trees and shrubbery.

Jim.

You can cut 'em up or shred 'em yourself. Use the food processor. Mind you, the wife might not agree that this was a sensible way to save a few bob...

:-)

I knew a bloke who ground up real coal in the food processor for his models. His SWMBO couldn't work out why it was later very blunt!

Graham Plowman

I use a combination of Woodlands and Heki products:

shows trees just above the end of the train - the nearest tree is Heki, the others in the cluster are Woodlands. All trees under the viaduct are woodlands. You can buy woodlands tree armatures separately in quite large quantities. You can also buy the folliage separately. The traditional method of twisted wire/pva/plaster does give good results and it is a cheaper solution, but for the beginner, it is a fairly onorous method.

Trees to the left are Woodlands:

Bottom of: is all Woodlands.

Just a tip about Woodlands. Being an Amercian product, it is based on American scenery. My observation having done many years of scenery work is that the UK has much brighter greens than the US and consequently, many US products are too dark for the UK, especially when compared with the UK in spring when growth is a vibrant green. Just choose the lighter Woodlands colours. Personally, I find that SetScenes do more reallistic colours for ground cover than Woodlands.

Graham Plowman

Great for attracting bugs to the layout :-).

Not (just) the money, it doesnt seem right. Should be able to make or destroy something. Latest trials are on dog hairs (from a retriever) and baby wipes - got through enough of those for full sized tree.

Simon

If the layout was set in autumn you could use regular brown tea leaves :o)

(kim)

Not up here you couldn't. Our trees turn yellow, red, and orange in the fall. Lovely!

Thanks for all the good advice. I think I will be purchasing a tree from each of the suppliers mentioned, and then see if I am capable of making some decent replicas. Looking at the manufacturers websites, you seem to get a lot for a few dollers. Are there any distribitors here that selling these trees or tree kits as cheap, or would I be better off waiting untill my hols in USA and buying the trees then?

Bob

Same here esp orange and gold for horsechesnut (conker) ! Going to take some 'fixative' to mothers garden - thres some of those flowers previously mentioned just waiting !

Simon

Sea Foam : Teloxys aristata. (Chenopodia) From the Gobi desert, would you believe !?

Seeds available from "Chiltern Seeds"

"A real novelty in every sense of the word. And a plant for your dedicated model maker as little chunks of this fascinating plant are sold for use as model shrubs and trees for miniature track-side and road decoration"(/quote)

Not tried it yet, but on my roundtuit list :) There is some uncertainty on how best to germinate it, so perhaps the ready grown/dried stuff in the model shop may be an easier but less adventurous route :) :) !!

In article , Bob Heath writes

Just one thought on model trees. The real thing is a very large object indeed. If you have a fixed layout, consider acquiring trees for the next scale up so an OO layout could look better with O gauge trees. The colours may also be wrong - as a norm trees don't have brown trunks and branches. They are grey with a touch of green especially on the north side (in the Northern hemisphere).