Being a newbie I guess I posted this in the wrong place the first time (General Disc.).
I made a huge mistake when planning my layout by being very careful with the track layout, but giving only a general thought to the scenery. I have a fairly large layout (18x24) that has three levels creating many hills and valleys. The geographic location is the Southeastern Appalacians. The problem is - How do I cover all these hills with trees without going backrupt with Woodland Scenics products and still look real??? [ Maybe I should have chosen a desert scene during the winter, Ha!)
It sounds like you could use the equivalent of 1000 scale trees that would cost $5 apiece at full price. But you probably don’t need to do that to get a good mass effect.
A couple of the Kalbach scenery books describe covering hillsides with a netting that incoudes foliage but not detailed trees, or sticking sticks close together in you hillside to support blobs of ground-foam covered foliage material for most trees. That will still mean you need at least dozens of Woodland Scenics trees for your foreground though not hundreds and you will need a pound or two of ground foam over the long haul to texturize your foliage.
Less expensive material for mass tree effects: chunks of furnace filter horsehair stuff, florist’s flower-arranging moss.
I did a somewhat different scene- East Texas piney woods, making my own bottle bru***rees.
I also used a few Woodland Scenics deciduous trees, twigs from the garden, minature plastic decorative Christmas tree, imported Chinese crepe paper decorative Christmas trees and plastic aquarium tank foliage, all with ground foam adhered with spray adhesive.
instead of twigs, you could also use toothpicks or dowels painted various shades of gray, etc. since they’ll be in the background.
I take poyester fiberfill for pillow suffing, pull it out very thin and spray paint it green. Then I take tree sized chunks and spray them with a second coat of green paint and drop it in a paper bag with ground foam in the bottom and shake the bag, coating the fiber fill. Let it dry and shake off the excess foam.
Another method is to collect dried weeds in the fall, goldenrod is good. Spray the head with green spray paint and then dust with gound foam.
Loose foam can be fixed with a heavy coat of hairspray.
Dave H.
Some very good ideas. Thanks much.
I have tried to make clumps from chopped up foam (wife’s blender[^]), but haven’t found a good glue combination to keep it together. I have tried matte med., white glue with different ratios of water, and even spray adhesive. All I get is one big mess that still wants to falls apart or takes forever to dry. All of you mention using a support of some kind and maybe that will solve that problem.
I will experiment with all and see what happens.
I thought about taking the easy way out by just using a heavy cover of ground foam, but that would defeat the whole effect. Guess I am just getting too anxious to play.[V]
I use the blooms from the crepte myrtle bu***o build my trees…it has a complex branch structure and they are easy to build…strip the blooms from the crepte myrtle blossum and hot glue woodland scenics “foliage” to the branches, awl a hole in the layout, and glue the trunks in place with white glue…they make great oak trees…also i use steel wool in the background…I roll it into little balls and spray paint it with two different shades of green and hot glue it directly to the hill side in closely knit clusters…one note, keep it away from the trains …any broken pieces of steel wool can get into the engine wheels and cause a short if it’s too close to the track I use it in the background only…Chuck[:D]
check this guy out, he is a wizard in my book ( and another great forum too).
http://www.portsmouthbranch.com/trees.html
www.totoketvalley.railimages.com
Vince
I was just looking in the back yard at a crepte myrtle and I see what you are talking about. Also, like the idea about the steel wool.
Oh yeah! I know what you are talking about with steel wool getting on the track. When I first started my layout, I made the mistake of cleaning a piece of metal with steel wool near the track. Needless to say I had sparks flying and engines jumping and spitting until I finally got rid of it all with a large magnet.
Outstanding web site! The pictures at portsmouthbranch show hillsides like I have invisioned for my layout. The use of polyester toy stuffing into balls, prepared, and finished off with ground foam sure look good and covering a hillside for a few bucks and little time is what I have been looking for .
Thanks much.
REX