First is a shot of the armatures ready for foliage to be added. Extraneous material has been removed and the armatures have been straightened somewhat and painted gray/green. This is a picture of a longer armature that was really curled. I did the recommended soaking in warm water for about 30 minutes and then hung it upside down with a weight attached. I let it stand about an hour before removing it and painting.  After spraying the armatures with hair spray, one of my friends prefers to use 3M spray adhesive, I just sprinkled a combination of coarse turf and blended turf allowing it to stick where it wanted to. The following images are the final results.     |
|---|
| Bob DeWoody |
What a dramatic change of flavor! Keep it up, Bob!
A couple of questions, if you don’t mind. I have never used this product, but I am interested in something like this for a current project.
From the photo above I see that you made a fair number of trees. Did all of those come out of one kit, or did you need multiple kits to produce that many trees?
Secondly, I suspect that your layout is HO from the pictures posted. I model in O. Are the raw armatures of such size that they would make decent trees in O, or will they come out looking more like bushes?
Stebby, one box of Super Trees can make 40 to 80 tress plus depending on you break them up. Plus it depends on how they grew before they where harvest. They are a type of tumble weed. The tallest I have had come out of a box is around 10 inches tall. Most of mine are 7 inches or so. If you glue some pieces together you might be able to make them taller, but you will need to add some modeling clay to the trunk to make them thicker.
I have glued some trunks together to make fuller tress. If you look at the tree on the right, you can see 3 trunks. Used 3 skinny tress to make one full looking tree.
Cuda Ken
You may want to get a Supertree Starter Kit for the first time; it has all the tools and instructions.
653-220 SuperTree™ – O-HO Starter Kit $41.98
Fron Scenic Express http://www.sceneryexpress.com/products.asp?dept=1008
The kit is a bit pricey, but look at some on-line sales companies.
Also, for O scale, you may want to try Supersage, it is larger armarture from sagebrush that may be better for your use.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/search?category=&scale=&manu=&item=&keywords=supersage&words=restrict&instock=Q&split=30&Submit=Search
From Scenic Express http://www.sceneryexpress.com/departments.asp?dept=1011
Bob,
Great looking trees. In the transition from bare to done, how many applications of adhesive and foliage did you appy?
Paul
Superb trees, quite authentic, the process seems time consuming but well worth it, my thoughts were how long and expensive would this be on a large project?
How do you straighten the trees? I’ve soaked them in diluted matt medium for an hr., hung them upsidedown with HEAVY washers clamped to the tips & they return to their original shape after hanging straight all night.
Jerry - Simply dipping SuperTree armatures in diluted matte medium and hanging them up, almost regardless of the weight added, won’t straighten the trees. They must be boiled for 20 minutes, or so, to first make them supple. Immediately after removing them from the hot water, you hang them up side down and add weight to the inverted tips until they do hang straight. Then leave them to dry.
Once dry, then you dip them in the diluted matte medium, shake off the excess and re-hang them (without any weights this time) the same way to dry again. Once they are again fully dry, then you can start applying your ground foam “leaves”.
CNJ831
I did heat the matt medium before soaking, but I will try boiling them…Thanks
I still say that this is by far one of the best applications I have seen of Supertrees in autumn tones…
All the above advice is good. So far I haven’t made any really tall trees but I will try these methods to sww what happens.
Regarding the number of trees you can get from a box. I’ve made well over 75 trees and haven’t made a dent in the box. I’ve gone through a couple of bags of foliage though. Most I have only had to dust once but a did spray and double coat a few.
Depending on how tall you want your trees to be I would say there is a sufficient quantity of large armatures to make O sale trees. I also build 1/48th scale plastic model planes and I intend to use super trees in a diorama scene I plan to build.