Furnace filters?

Figures. Oh well - I just remembered that one of my brothers-in-law used to have a small A/C and furnace repair business a few years ago. I’ll check with him to see if he knows of a source for this stuff.

Art - I certainly hope to fit in a visit to Becker’s - don’t know exactly when yet.

We fly in to the Twin Cities on June 15th, and stay for a week before going north for a week of family vacation on Leech Lake, then a couple of days in the Cities again, then a week in Helena, MT to visit my wife’s sister and her family (railfanning on Mullan Pass, eh ?), and then finally a couple of days more in the Cities at the end before going back to Norway.

Anyways - if you are home in mid-late June or mid-July, and would not be too inconvenienced, I would be honored if you allowed me to see your layout, and in particular that magnificent canyon you have made !

Smile,
Stein

I just bought a few at an Ace Hardware store in San Francisco for about $1.50 each. They are easily found in most box stores in the Central Valley in California: places like Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield. They may also be called ‘air conditioning filters’ and are typically used in central air/heating systems for homes.

Hope this helps,

Wayne

Just saw them at Wally World yesterday.

Joe-I see your point about the needle length. I noticed this when I did a batch of trees a while ago. I have some OLD Life Like grass that isn’t a foam product. Almost more like dyed saw dust. It makes better looking needles than fine foam does. (knew there was a reason I’d hung onto that stuff for 30 years…[:-^])

The Lowes closest to my home had them in stock for about $5.50 for a 30x25x1 size filter. I tried to find the receipt to look up the SKU but haven’t found it yet. If I find it, I’ll post it for reference.

Don Z.

Tom:

Yes, Pondersoa Pine have relatively long needles (4"+) , but pine needles grow in clumps which are very hard to get to look right. It’s almost as if you could only dab glue on the branches in little spots and hit the tree with the static applicator, you might get the look.

But needles all over the branch is how fir and spruce needles grow – and those trees have far shorter needles. Static grass is 300% or more out of scale for these conifers. If some details on our loco or rolling stock models were 300% out of scale people would have a fit. I believe scenery texture details, if you want first-rate realism in your scenery, need to be more or less to scale as well.

Making an accurate-looking HO model of a pondersoa pine with the proper filiment texture of the long pine needles, and being able to do these trees in quantity, is still something yet to be achieved. Also yet to be achieved is an easy way to model HO scale ferns – and ferns are a common forest plant here in Oregon.

Still noodling on these scenery modeling problems … [swg]

Joe–

Gotcha–I know that in trying to populate my Tahoe National Forest up here in the Sierra, I’ve been using various techniques and it’s trickier than all get-out. Most embarrassing–a grove of furnace-filter trees that I thought looked okay, until a buddy of mine pointed out that he didn’t think Cedars grew at that high an elevation.

“They’re NOT Cedars.”

“Sure look like them.”

After staring at my grove for a minute I sighed, “Yah, you’re right. I guess they ARE Cedars.”

Back to the drawing board, LOL!

Tom [:D]

Hi everyone, what a great bunch of guys you are. Thanks for all the info. I haven’t been replying since I’ve been quite busy with building my train house and having a paper to write as well as other stuff with the university.

The reason I want to build these trees are Joe Fugates excellent video number 5. Those trees look so nice that I can not imagine me using any pre bought junk after having seen these.

Chip, great that you have the coal. Could you check how much it would cost to ship to Sweden? I’m kind of poor right now since I’m spending an good awful amount of cash on the train house. But it would be so cool to have some real coal that it’s worth it unless it’s an outrageous cost.

Thanks once again everyone.

Magnus

I have one more question.

How many trees do you get from one filter?

Lets say I want to make 10 inch trees?

Magnus

Lillen–

I’ve been making 10" trees using furnace filters. So far, I’ve got about 40 or so, and I’ve just used one little corner of the furnace filter flat. You’ll get an enormous amount of trees from the flat–I’m heading into 12" territory now, and I’ll probably be able to get at least 100 trees before I have to go buy another flat. Maybe even more. It really goes a long, LONG way!

Tom [:)]

Thanks for the info Tom. That sounds great, cheap and good looking, what else could you ask for?

What kind of foam are you guys using for them? I was thinking about ordering a huge container from scenic express but I’m not sure what color? I’m going to look at Joe Fugates video again. I was thinking of getting conifer green which seems like a logical choice!

Magnus

Lillen–

Personally, I use a mixture of conifer and dark green fine ground foam–about 1 part dark green to about 3 parts conifer. I get mine from WS, but I know that the Scenic Express will work just as well. If I’m doing the type of Fir or Cedar that grows here in the California Sierra Nevada at elevations between 2,000-4,000 feet, I also mix in about 1 part of medium green to approximate frond highlights.

Hope this helps.

Tom

Tom,

What are you using for the trunks of the trees you’re making?

Don Z.

Don–

Right now I’m using 10" bamboo skewers, but I’m rasping them with a file before I slip on the furnace filters. However, the trees I’m currently making have really THICK foilage, so the slender diameter of the trunks isn’t actually that noticeble. However, as I re-populate the high country timber around the Buttes (after I get my new rocks on, LOL), I’m probably going to go to cedar shingles and rasp them out with a ‘bastard’ file (can I say that here? Oops, no I can’t. Think ‘Illegitimate Child of a Medieval Nobleman’ and you’ll know the type of file I mean) to get a thicker, more tapered trunk. That’ll be the fun part, but first–THE BUTTES!!

Not to get the thread off track, but here’s a photo of the Real Thing:

So you see what I’ve got ahead of me, LOL!

Tom

Tom[:D]

Hi again,

Anyone have a suggestion on how to make the naked limbs on the bottom on the trees? I really think it ads a lot of realism and would like to try it once I get to that stage(which will be a while, still not done constructing my train house, but almost)

Magnus

I use a dryed plant called Caspia. I buy it at a craft store called Michaels. It comes in many colors. In the brown packages will be some of the Caspia that does not have “flowers” on the tips. These can be cut off and glues to the trunks of any tree. I drill holes first, though hot meslt glue would work if you had the patience and the skill

I wonder if I can find that somewhere in Sweden.

I checked around the Internet and apparently it comes from the waters just nearby. If I’m lucky I’ll might be able to find some.

Thanks for the info. I’ve ordered the rest of the stuff that I need today so hopefully in a few weeks a few trees will be made!

Thanks Craig!

Magnus

I seem to have no trouble getting the cheap blue fiber furnace filters at my local hardware store. As I have said on previous Posts, "Blue furnace filters can be spray painted either flat black, or with dark green or Fall coloration for deciduous trees. I am a little disappointed with the photo of the Fall coloration on deciduous trees, as shown. The actual tree models are much more realistic. Since I am turning out hundreds of trees, I needed a cheap and fast method of construction. The furnace filters that I use are like Oreo cookies. They pull apart in seveal flat layers, that can be cut into hundreds of circles of various sizes. I happen to use Elmers Glue, but liquid nails, hot glue, or spray adhesive, are also good. I usually lay out 50+ circles on newspaper or cardboad. I squeeze on circles of glue, (on about five filter circles at a time) and use my fingers to apply a small layer of Woodland Scenics coarse turf of various colors. Or use ground up (Busch foliage clumps, florists foam, or stained Styrofoam). Only the trees in the foreground need detailed bark treatment. Only short trees, mixed with glued on clumps are needed to represent dense hillside forests. After the glue on the foam covered filters circles has dried (somewhat), I press the sequential series of about five tiers, onto the sharpened BBQ half skewers. Since parts of the filters circles were still bare, I spray the trees with spray adhesive (or hair spray), and dip the trees into a mixed mound of ground up foliage foam. to fill in the missing foliage. I use reindeer moss or lichens to simulate dead trees, and add clumps of static grass or false fur for undergrowth. By placing the trees on moveable stained ceiling tile ovals, one can exchange dioramas of Fall or Summer woodland scenes.

McClendon’s Hardware carries it out here in the Northwest.

Brian

I need to try the furnace filter method.

I’ve been doing the floral wire, twine and hook in a drill method. Which makes nice random branches, but the trunks just aren’t thick enough or detailed enough for forground trees.

Hmm, maybe I’ll look around San Diego this weekend for furnace filters.

The evergreen trees on our club layout are made by one of the members. He uses BBQ sticks for trunks and furnace filter for the branches. Then a rattle can of dark green paint. While the paint is wet he sprinkles green ground foam on the tree. and finishes up with cheap hair spray to seal things. The trees are excellent.