Detailed Trees in T

Yes, I may be crazy. I've been thinking a lot about trees for the little layout, As part of that, I have been looking at different ways of making trees and seeing how well they work in T. Most recently, I have been working on some deciduous trees that would stand up to foreground scrutiny. The basic idea is to use stranded wire, in this case 18 gauge speaker wire as the basis for the trunk and branches. In my case, I picked up a roll of 18 gauge stranded wire which has 10 strands of 28 gauge wire. Lengths of this wire, with the insulation removed were cut and used to form tree-like structures.

The process was simple enough. I took a stiff piece of flower wire, about 3/4" long, and inserted into the stranded wire for the trunk. The flower wire extends past the bottom of the trunk to provide an anchor into the scenery. The speaker wire is twisted, and as you go up the tree, you can form smaller limbs and branches from smaller groups of wire twisted together, until yo get to individual strands. There is no particular pattern, just trying to get something that is tree like. A few drops of super glue, strategically located will hold everything together. A few branches may also need to be clipped to length as the tree takes its final form.

Some of the trees use one length of wire strands, others use two or more bunches. The lengths do not need to be identical, but probably need to be close to look right.

After the super glue has set, I use a little bit of caulk adhesive for projects to fill in the trunk and eliminate the stranded look. The key is that whatever material is used, should be paint friendly. At this point, you have a bunch of shiny metal trees. Next up is to paint the trunks.

I first painted the trees with a brownish color, and then followed up with a dark grey. The exact colors don't matter, as long as the look like trees. Most trees have much more of a greyish he to the trunk, but most also have some dark brown or black features. The key with the second grey coat is that this coat focuses more on the trunk, and does not need to cover everything. I follow those paint coats up with a little bit of another grey acrylic paint, brushed onto the trunk and major branches. I used a lighter grey paint, but again, the exact color is up to you, and again, the goal is not full coverage, just adding some color.

This is the result. The trees have some texture due to the colors used int he paint. For a dead tree, or a leafless tree, this is a decent model. Most of the first set of trees I made are in the 25-50 foot range in T. That is about 5/8" tall to 1.25" tall. This approach is much easier in larger scales.

The next step is to add some foliage. I used some polyfil fiber that I had previously painted a dark green color. Darker green is better here than lighter green, as we will add more texture and color. The key is not to make a big piece of polyfil and wrap it all over the tree, but to make a bunch of little balls, that tie into the ends of one small group of branches. Again, a little super glue to help things stay in place is useful. Note also, that sometimes, you can get a spread of roots at the base of the tree from the twisted wire trunk.

Next up, I spray the tree with adhesive spray glue, and sprinkle ground foam on the tree. Try to avoid glue or ground foam on the trunk. Fortunately in this case, the tool used to hold the tree will cover the trunk. Also, make sure to sprinkle ground foam on not only the top, sides, but also the bottom of the tree to get the undersides of the branches. Allow the tree to dry and shake the tree to remove any loose ground foam.

The neat thing about the finished trees is that in the right light and angle, you can actually see through the tree a little bit in places. But at a distance, and not backlit, the trees are solid, just like the real thing.

At this point, a few errant strands of polyfil may need to be trimmed away with scissors, but we are almost done. The last step is to spray just a little yellow spray paint over the top of the tree. The goal is to slightly lighten the upper leaves to achieve a highlighting effect. Generally though, the goal is not to turn the tree yellow. It is easy to overdue the effect. If that happens, a little ground foam on the wet yellow paint solves the problem.

Two nearly finished trees. I need to prune one or two errant fibers still, but these trees are almost ready for planting on the module. Overall, I did a dozen trees in a week. The first night was about two hours of work getting to wire trees, and the remaining nights were 10-30 minutes. The slow part is allowing things to dry between steps. If done in an assembly line fashion, I could probably make 60-70 trees a week this way, with an investment of about 15 hours of work. A little slow, but the results are fantastic.