I hope you enjoy this, I found a unqiue way to make trees by the dozen. Take cotton balls and spray them green, stick them on a tooth pick and stick them on the layout.
Chuck, that seems pretty complicated. That’s a much higher skill level than I have. Can I buy pre-painted cotton-ball toothpick trees?
I stopped using trees. I mean, everyone of them is different. Making trees is worse than renumbering 100 coal hoppers.
So I’m just going for the snow scene from now on. I saw a ski lift in the Dept. 56 section at Christmas time, I think I’m going to GO FOR IT!
I’ll need more twinkle lights, too…[dinner]
Lee
You would probably be able to wire up a 555 timer to get the appropriate twinkle to those lights. I can look into it if need be.
Bob
Also, it is kind of time-consuming. I want trees right now.
If you don’t know of a commercial source for these, maybe I could pay you to make them for me?
We added WS ground foam to the green spray paint for these trees
only 4,000 more to go !
That’s the way I did my trees on my first N-Scale layout…a quick and easy way to get a bunch of trees on your layout in short order…
Check out Al Skinner’s “how to” article “Trees by the bucket” p56-57 MR February 2008. Here is a vey simple (fairly inexpensive) method of creating a hillside forest. Note the rock outcrops and dead trees. I prefer my furnace filter method, for making trees with visible trunks. Note that the Woodland Scenic foliage clumps also come in Fall colored clumps, so one can have a forest’s colors change with the seasons, with Summer or Fall trees on removable foam hillsides. Commercial deciduous trees are available at most LHS, but if quantities of trees are desired, they are far too expensive. I assume that the “cotton ball trees” are for an N scale layout. I have an HO layout, and have tried cotton balls, clothes dryer filter fuzz, and ended up using furnaace filters. The cheap blue colored fibrous furnace filters are actually somewhat like Oreo cookies. I just finished making 280 deciduous trees for woodland areas on our Historical Museum HO layout. Meat skewers cut in half and sharpened on both ends are stained in bulk, and dried. I found that making 30-36 trees at a time, required somethiing like 6 hrs. of work to turn out 280 trees. Press the stained, half skewers into holes drilled into 3 inch deep insulation,(for a firm holder with the lowest layer of foliage on the insulation surface.) I cut rough circles from furnace filters (spray painted flat black). Single circles pull apart into three circular layers. Press the center of the circle onto the skewer (down to the insulation). Squeeze a circle of Elmer’s glue onto the circle (about 1/4" from the edge). Sprinkle on ground up ( in a coffee grinder) Woodland Scenics (3 green color foam clumps). Repeat, using various size filter circles, with a clump of foliage glued to the top. Rail cutters can be used to nip off skewers, at various heights. Pre-stain tapered insulation strips,or ova
But how do you attach them? I don’t want to drill holes and the tooth pick keeps falling over. HELP!!!
Hot melt glue from one of those glue guns. Cools rather quickly and will help support. Not recommended for very large trees, but we’re not talking about those here.
p.
Well, isn’t hot glue dangerous, I may get burned or something. Besides, that sounds like a lot of work!!!
Then try small wads of chewing gum. My daughter has stuff in lots of colors so there should be something that blends in…
p.
Heh… Bah ZING!
I can’t afford exotic materials like cotton and toothpicks. Anybody got any cheaper ideas?
I just don’t know what this hobby is coming to, most modelers just can’t afford to be that precise with detail, better come up with something a little more economical.
Good comments, guys!!!
I have a friend that made pine trees from bumpy chinille (sp?) - hundreds of them . . . . they started to dissappear from his rr. It turned out that mouse was harvesting them to build a nest under the rr.
loathar. those dust bunnies from under the layout should make good brush. Also spray painted dandelions will work well too. Nice little tree,no expensive toothpick needed.
Verheyen, what is that is your avatar? It looks like an engine but what is THAT?
Cotton? NO! I use ready to run trees.
[#ditto]
My glue gun has become one of my most valuable tools. I had it for years but was apprehensive about using it, probably because of the lack of success I had with tools like an airbrush and soldering iron. I figured it would be one more thing to make me feel stupid because I couldn’t learn to use it right. As it turned out, it was amazingly easy to learn to use effectively. I’ve used it for a number of different applications. I especially like for forming cardboard strip framework for my hills and mountains. Eventually, I did learn to become moderately skilled with the soldering iron. Still haven’t figure out the airbrush.
Green lollipops also work for deciduous trees but they attract ants. They come with trunks though.