Found an old artificial Christmas tree and with a pair of scissors, made some wonderful pines, all size, some really big trees that tend to be a bit expensive. Has anyone else experimented with this? Jake
I remember seeing this on a video quite a while ago. However, I don’t remember what video it was on. If I ever run across it again, I will update this thread.
Thanks much, I appreciate it. Jake
Yep Jake and I’ve mentioned this one a few times. You can often find an older (and actually better quality) artificial tree at a yard sale. I find some of the older ones actually have more “needles” on them, thus appearing as thicker trees when you are all done.
The older ones I’ve used have twisted metal that the “needles” are wrapped into, so I have found a hack saw necessary to cut the branches down to tree height. I have experimented with trying to glue Lifelike Grass to the branches, but haven’t found a glue that holds the grass material for any great length of time without the grass coming loose. I tried a spay glue made by 3M and it worked good initially, but the grass soon came loose.
But I have spray painted them for greater variety. I start with brown paint right up close to get the color to the twisted metal. Then I use various shades of green and blue to do the “needles” spaying that color on from a little more distance to get the color on the outshape of the tree, while retaining some brown on the metal core. Of course, I do this after I have shaped the “needles” so that I have some pine trees of variety of appearances.
I tend to use my better looking or shall I say more detailed trees up front, and then the artificial tree pine trees for the back ground. And as you said Jake, you can made some pretty big trees, which are nice to have around the layout for variety. Or you can put a taller pine in the center of some smaller more detailed trees.
I got a half dozen plain pine trees, but with flocking on them, sold at RiteAid with their holiday decorations for half off. I’ve discovered a trick to help these trees retain their flocking material. This goes for hobby made trees from other companies. I make up a mix of watered down wood glue, similar to what I use for gluing down ballast or scenic material. Then I soak the trees in that for 5 minutes or so to let the glue soak in. Then I pu
Thanks for the tips on this, much appreciated, Jake
I believe this was also written about on the “tips and Tricks” section of CTT awhile ago. As Brianel has suggested, probably better to use these in the background with more detailed trees up front.
dennis
How about some PICs ?
Dick
Texas Chief
I’d love to Dick, but I can no longer get photos to post here for the life of me? I never had trouble before the format change here. I can still post them to the OGR forum with no trouble, but here… it’s a major headache. [banghead]
I’ve read Bob’s instructions several times and they don’t really help. I don’t even even get the “preview” button he speaks of when opening the “Insert/Edit Image” window. Could be my computer too?
So to compensate, I tried to describe the process as much as I could. They say a photo is worth a thousand words. But since I can’t get photos to post here anymore, I went with the first option! [:D]
Check out the January, '85 Model Railroader for an article titled A Source for Large Pine Trees which covers this topic
I have an acquaintance who, somtime in the late '80s, visited whatever BIG LOTS was called before they changed their name right after Christmas and came away with a couple of tall artificial trees that rendered him about 800 evergreen armatures of varying heights for less than four cents apiece. I even ran into a fellow modeler in a K-Mart store right after Christmas a couple of years ago and he was buying one of these artificial trees with the string of lights already attached. He said that he had bought one of these a few years before and, even though it took a little bit of doing, he came away with a string of lights in addition to evergreen armatures. It is a way to save a few bucks if you have a layout that needs pine trees.
Any pictures?