lichen

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

years ago the method used for softening and preserving lichen was to use glycerine. any alternate methods floating around?

jon in tennessee

2

it was simple and worked.

nowadays most people buy precoloured stuff which is more expensive but easier to get hold of (in a city at any rate) and doesn’t fade with time if exposed to UV light.

3

Nowadays most people don’t even use lichen anymore. It’s not very realistic. They use ground foam, mostly.

4

thanks for the posts. i thought i might use some as it grows all over the place here in southwest tennessee.

jon in tennessee

5

I gathered up a ton of lichen on a trip to Maine a few years ago. I got a gallon of glycerine through a medical supply pharmacy back home here in Connecticut (they supply nursing homes with stuff- also a good source for plaster gauze cloth…) and boiled the lichen. It has stayed soft for the last 5 years. I sprayed it with some cheap green spray paint (Krylon in a can) and then did the matte medium-ground foam-matte medium thing. I’ve been really happy with the results for covering large areas of background on my N scale layout.

6

The stuff grows all around the place where I live. Carefully selected, they make good models of shrubs of the type common across the western US.

Michael Loik
Ben Lomond, CA

7

It’s Dirt Cheap at Hobby Lobby. Sold in the floral section as deer moss. Seems to be cheaper than the chemicals and colors needed to make it. Is still a viable scenery material. FRED

8

I beg to differ, if use correctly. In N scale I use it for the bushier portions on the upper parts of live, growing Summer deciduous trees and I cover it with ground foam to simulate leaves. I agree that the old fashioned way of using it alone with nothing covering it did not look very good, but with the ground foam foliage It looks very nice.
Ron

9

I beg to differ, if use correctly. In N scale I use it for the bushier portions on the upper parts of live, growing Summer deciduous trees and I cover it with ground foam to simulate leaves. I agree that the old fashioned way of using it alone with nothing covering it did not look very good, but with the ground foam foliage It looks very nice.
Ron