Making Trees

[dkightley]

I thought I'd recreate the tutorial from the old site on making trees in T gauge.

The raw materials:

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Starting bottom left...

Rubberised horsehair sheet - used in the restoration of old furniture. Find a self-employed restorer and ask him/her nicely for some offcuts of matting. If you're lucky you'll get some for free...and possibly an interesting conversation if you take along a T gauge loco! Alternatively, pay a fortune for a 6in square from a model railway shop!

A selection of scenery flock in suitable colours.

Diluted white glue - the usual formula with a drop of washing up liquid to break suface tension. You'll need some neat glue as well!

(optional...but useful) A syringe - to apply the glue. Mine was from a printer ink refill kit (its too big for using on myself...just in case you might be thinking!! )

Cocktail sticks or toothpicks, etc.

Not in the picture.....brown paint for painting the trunks the appropriate colour.

[dkightley]

The whole thing is likely to be somewhat messy, as you'll get all sorts of bits everywhere, so I don't recommend doing this in the lounge...or even in front of your PC!

Step 1

Paint one end of a number of the cocktail sticks...about 1 1/2in (4cm) to give a long enough trunk. Set aside to dry.

Step2

The horsehair matting will be about 2 inches thick. Using a large pair of scissors, cut a strip about half an inch wide, then cut into half inch pieces, so you end up with a collection of 1/2 inch square x 2 inch springy blocks. You can vary the size if you want to make larger/smaller sized trees. If making small trees, you might get two out of the 2 inch thickness. Here's a sample selection:

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[dkightley]

Step 3

Once the trunks are dry, put a dab of neat white glue on the pointed end of the trunk and spear into the matting to form a square-looking tree. You may need to insert another drop of glue into the top to make sure the matting will adhere properly. Here's a shot of freshly speared trees:

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Leave to dry thoroughly...preferably overnight.

[dkightley]

Step 4

The first of the artistic bits.

Using scissors, give each tree a haircut to form the desired shape you want for each tree. The finished article will be very slightly bigger...so try and shape each one so it looks .......well, tree-like! Or like a nude tree;theres no leaves yet!


Step 5

The second artistic bit...and I should have mentioned earlier that you wouldn't be needing the dilute white glue until now.

Dip a tree into the dilute glue, shake off the excess, and dip into whatever colour scenery flock you want. Squeeze and tease the flock into the matting until the tree is formed how you want it.

Finish off by dribbling glue all over the flock to make sure it will stay in place when the glue dries.

Stick the tree into some foam, etc to dry, making sure that and glue that runs out doesn't do any harm!

And here's a few finished trees. Don't touch! They're still wet!

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[dkightley]

And here's a few more from another batch I did the same evening:

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[grahame]

Thank you for this. I was just thinking today that I need some trees..and I don't want to pay silly prices for them

[gbtrains]

Hi Doug
thanks for the tips there and all the pics.

Will be a great help in making them...mmmmmmm just need time to build them?.


Will keep you posted.

Graham

[gbtrains]

Hi all
Just to let you all know that you can buy some small trees from ebay from a Shop called Devons Secrets


This is what it says in the title
10/25 x architecture scenery model railway people HO OO gauge new trees 38mm T2

At £3.95 for 10 trees free postage.
Or £7.25 for 25 trees free postage.

[zdrada69]

Most of my trees are bigger (1:220) but I was inspired by fellow modeller from Poland making his models (not working) in 1:700 (cars, railway models, buildings).
You can find some of his job here: http://evadam.pl/en/ I belive his models can be some good benchmarks for T scale scenery.
I also used the principles of the Z-trees technique used by Loren from US: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rf_bejdO8g

Using very thin wire I developed some 1:700 trees. I hope they look realistic:

Larch:
http://postimg.org/image/mjr93pixp/
http://postimg.org/image/8fgts2fcv/
http://postimg.org/image/g55f0ehnv/

[zdrada69]

1:700 birch trees

http://postimg.org/image/hdk5bmnh3/

[zdrada69]

1:700 oak tree:

http://postimg.org/image/t93zzeb0f/
http://postimg.org/image/lckpqvd35/

[dvdouden]

Just found an eBay seller offering a hundred 32mm trees for a measly $12 and free shipping. (and 400 for $30 and some change).
And since the trunk of the trees is supposedly made of metal wire, they should be somewhat customizable so you don't end up with a hundred identical trees.
https://www.ebay.com/str/evemodelus/Tre ... 3286511013
Just ordered a batch to see if they're any good, will let you know how they turned out. It sure beats having to create a couple hundred by hand

[dvdouden]

Received the trees I ordered, pretty happy with them. Got them in a tiny bag that made me wonder if they had sent me the wrong item, but lo and behold, it actually contained exactly 100 happy little trees

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Looking pretty good in my opinion, doesn't look like I need to do much reshaping; each tree is uniquely shaped, courtesy of the Mail Services probably

trees2.jpg (88.47 KiB) Viewed 1783 times

Ordered a bunch more, 400 in this size (32mm), another 400 a bit smaller (27mm) and 100 slightly larger ones (38mm) to add some variety in height. One of my colleagues is kind enough to let me borrow his airbrush, so they'll get a coat in various shades of green before I add them to the layout.