Am I the only one that seems to see that out of all of the aspects of the model railroad hobby that scenery seems to be one of the most expensive. I mean when you go into the shop and pick up a package of trees and see that the price sticker says $15 for a pack of two trees that are barley 6" tall. I know that there is a lot of mark-up involved in importing and marketing of products but still I think that scenery should be cheaper. I myself have found very few companies that offer a detailed but yet inexpensive product (ex. Timberline Scenery Co., Ts Custom Trees, just to name a few.)
Some companies offer some products at a low price but when you go to buy a bottle of scenery adhesive from the same company the charge you like $7.
Am I the only one that sees this? This might be a good topic to talk about.
I could not agree more! All scnery materials are very expensive, with trees reaching the top. Here in Germany we have one guy making beautiful trees, but at 80 to 100 $ a piece they better have to be!
I go for scratchbuilding - takes a lot of time, but the result looks better than any ready to plant item bought in a shop!
There’s always ways of making trees that still look good but are a fraction of the cost of the commercial brands. One way is to buy a scenicking book and attempt your own “homemade versions” of many of the commercial products.
When someone does the work for you, you have to expect that you will be paying more for their time and materials.
Unless you’re living in the middle of the desert, there are lots of plants with a branch structure suitable for making trees: flowers, weeds, ornamental shrubs, and even real trees. Get some polyfibre and two or three shades of ground foam, some white glue and/or cheap, unscented hairspray in a manual pump sprayer, and have some fun making your own.
perhaps all those Chinese children and prisoners are too busy making locomotives that don’t run or have missing parts to get any trees done.
well, at least trees don’t have to function and you should be able to see what you are getting before you plunk down your money.
in truth, i don’t use many trees. my layout theme is “urban grunge” and the chemical industries i model have polluted the area to the extent that not much grows except noxious weeds.
Scenery is the ultimate example of trading time for money - and vice versa.
Don’t want to spend $7.50 plus tax per tree. Fine. Get some free or inexpensive materials, spend some time and make your own. Chances are your time per tree, paid at your normal pay and benefits rate, will exceed the over-the-counter price. OTOH, the trees you make will exactly fit your design parameters - and won’t look like the trees everybody else bought commercially.
The same applies to structures, telephone poles, fences, paved roads and rocks. Either spend your time making the desired widget, or pay somebody else for their time and buy it ready to install.
One thing is certain. Since model trees etc. are not essential to life, the ready-to-plant versions are sure to get more expensive as time goes on. Unless, that is, you make your own…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with a planned cedar forest)
amen to building your own. it is a skill that i have not yet attempted to master but i did watch a guy at a train show making them as a demonstration and he could knock them out pretty fast.
hey, if i can scratch build cabeese, how hard can trees be? there might even be some videos on you tube about it. anyone know of any?
my layout is an urban theme so i don’t need a whole forest. just one here and there to accent the buildings and vacant lots.
I think scratch-building is what levels the playing field for modelers who don’t have the resources that others do ($$$). Some people can create trees from scratch that are magnificent, enabling them to have the same, or better, results than the next guy who can unload some cash for a bunch of kits or ready-made trees. The same goes for rolling stock, structures, wiring etc., etc… That’s why, for me, the hobby stays pretty fresh. There is always a different way to do something and I am continually learning. And, of course, having fun.
Absolutely correct…the hobby is called model railroading, inferring that the hobbyist does the modeling himself. It’s not supposed to be a hobby based on model purchasing.
I build my trees at an average cost of $.35 per and have made many hundreds of them. Not only are mine better looking than most of the commercial examples, but I can give them any specific appearance (size, shape, color) I choose to. The hobby has no future if the current and next generation figures they are incapable of building anything and must rely on purchasing all their materials and equipment RTR.
There are a few people in the HR field who are saying that we’ve fallen on our butts over the past few years–more like decades–in that since we’ve convinced ourselves that no one knows how to do this, that and the other thing we’ve created a weird situation here. We now have to relocate that process of learning back on to the jobsite. An example of whence ‘experience’?
Same thing happened to schools when we started seeing school boards taking shop classes out of schools to save money. Take out the shop classes and we now have even more issues around this----
Where do people get the skills they need? How do we acquire them? These skills did not fall unbidden from the sky. They came through one word-----PRACTICE.
Ah yes, trees. I model central and northern Oklahoma, which has areas of very few trees, but still trees are needed. I do make my own, or should I say I help make my own. My current layout broke ground in the early 1980’s. At that time, I was in the Automation division of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. part of my job was to make trips to the Denver, Omaha and Oklahoma City branches to teach them how to use micro computers, how to use different packages, and generally consult with the branch staff.
I was allowed to take a bank car on these jaunts (I don’t fly), and my wife was able most times to go with me when I as gone for a week or less. We had a portable “tree making” board which fit in the backseat of the Mercury Marquis and later mini van that we took. So instead of sleeping, or reading, she would make trees. One round trip to Denver netted me around 300 trees. So by CNJ 831’s standards, I guess she is the modeler but I know better and he doesn’t even know me.
Anyway, I don’t enjoy scenery, my wife does, and participates accordingly, even today. I will agree some of the materials available today are pricey, but the silfor tufts are pretty hard to make on my own, so I bite the bullet and buy the materials to plant for praririe grass, buffalo grass, etc.
Finally, at age 73 I can sit back and observe, and I think some of the best modeling today is being done by the younger/middle age crowd. I don’t worry about the survival of the hobby. As a final note, we also have a garden railroad all over our backyard. Two of my former congregation participate and we do a lot of landscaping on the layout, but I will be darned if I will tackle making outdoor trees.
I don’t think spending money on pre-made trees needs to be regarded as any sort of admission of defeat or of being less than a “true” model railroader. Everybody buys something ready made – compared to the early early days of the hobby when even power supplies were built in the workshop. I think it is a matter of priorities and preferences. If you handlay your track and scratchbuild your structures and design your own CTT system but buy your trees because you want trees and have no time to build them, and are willing to pay the money, what exactly is the problem? And some premade trees, such as this new JTT line that Model Rectifier is importing (from VietNam?) look awful nice. I could imagine making a boxful of homemade trees for background but wanting some of those JTT trees in the more prominent signature scenes of the layout.
Living in the Milwaukee area, I get to visit the Walthers headquarters regularly and check out what is on the “damaged goods” tables at bargain prices. Pre-made trees are almost always on those shelves because the packaging is so easily crushed, what with the light cardstock surrounding a large clear plastic window. I suspect the cost of shipping such light goods, the high mortality rate for salable fresh looking packaging, and the need to compete for dealer shelf space with a rather bulky product, is a big reason why the prices seem high, quite apart from the fact that you are paying someone to build the tree itself (probably a pittance in labor costs, as speculated above). Yeah you could build a wonderful tree yourself for next to nothing. OK. What would it cost you to ship it to a friend, totally intact, across the country, or across the ocean? Now we’re talking ral money.
By the way that is also one reason why scale lumber is rather costly – the mortality rate fo
One of the biggest problems in the hobby today, and along the line of what you are saying, is that hobbyists want quick answers and instant on-line instruction concerning modeling methodologies that take a little time and practice to actually acquire. I could easily teach, in a hands-on situation, anyone to build world-class model trees in about one hour. But you can’t get that sort of instruction by viewing any 3 minute YouTube video, or reading a 4 paragraph posting…and that’s the problem.
It would seem that not all that many are willing to purchase some of the really good manuals, or full length videos, on scenery building and then take the time to practice the necessary steps to accomplish an outstanding job. What we are getting, as a result, is a hobby that is evolving in reverse, in many respects coming ever closer to being identical to that practiced by mostly juveniles with their Lionel and Flyer trains back in the 1950’s…which I would remind all that the hobby took great pains to totally separate itself from, half a century ago. [sigh]
MMM–that was why a lot of my books from guys like Dave Sutton(?) actually took great pains to clarify. If one looks at the CTT site and then come back to MR–sheeesh! Talk about a difference! And yet there are more doing that Lionel thing here now.
Eric, this disabled child that I’m helping build his layout for, does anything that he’ll get his hands on. He will find it difficult to do a lot of the fine modelling but the point is he’ll do it. He has CP–his hands are not the most coordinated for sure but he does the modelling on his own, as much as is practicable. He’s getting better—with practice[:)]
As far as trees are concerned I’ve found myself playing around with braided wire and Tamiya Basic Putty. That stuff can be clumped up to make it look like burled parts of a tree and such—I’m still, however, having the leaf mass look like giant furballs-----[:-^]
