Matthryo - tobacco plants

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Tyson Rayles

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Sep 25, 2001
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Poverty Acres, North Carolina
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I'm the first to admit just one of these standing by itself doesn't look like much, but when you plant 3 million 4 hundred quadzillion of 'em in a field together then they start to look like something (there are about 350 on that tobacco farm between the two fields).These things are called pinwheels or starflakes depending on the manufacturer and are available thru craft shops.There are 500 in a bag for about $3. The size I used is 10 mm. Because the "leaves" are up & down instead of left to right (not really noticable to the naked or semi-clothed eye in N-scale) I'm not sure how they would look in a bigger scale(would go with 18 mm in HO). Four of these will give you about a 6 ft. plant. I used a 1 inch by #19 brad for the "stalk", although small finishing nails would probably work O.K. also.After assembly spray paint a dark flat green (these things come in all colors but even the green ones are to light colored and shiny). AFTER you have planted the field dry brush the sides of the plants that are facing the front of the layout with a med. then a light green. Follow up with a very few plants being dry brushed slighty with a med. and dark brown.THIS CAN EASILY BE OVERDONE! If you do overdo it the field will look polka-dotted. Yes I had to much free time (need to get myself a hobby).Actually it only took about 2 hours to do both fields from start to finish.:D
 

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Tyson,
You really did your homework, they look fantastic. You convinced me, I'm a city boy and have only seen fields from the road, I've never been in a tobacco field to examine them closely. I remember your original post for suggestions on what material to use. Did you go to the craft store for that specific reason?, - or like me, did you happen on something and say to yourself, "hey, I can use that for this or that". Example, was out with the wife several months ago and she wanted to go into a fabric store. Boring I thought, nothing in there I can use on my railroad. WRONG, - the tall grasses you see in my pictures are from a piece of imitation fur I bought, the fur color was just right. Also picked up a roll of this wide ribbon, it is a fine screen like fabric. Going to make some great "N" scale chain link fences with it.

Bill P :rolleyes:
 
You guys are perfect examples of railroad modelers (as opposed to model railroad purchasers). The latter would still be poring through the Walthers catalogs for tobacco plants and chain link fences and complaining that there's none available, etc, etc, or would have found and purchased same and wondered why they didn't get a feeling of accomplishment.
 
I went to the craft store out of sheer desperation!:D Taught me a valuable lesson, I need to spend more time in craft stores. Please post a picture of the chain link fence made out of that ribbon if it works out. That's another road I will have to cross one of these days.Billk I only have so much (never enough) time I can spend on the layout, so if there were comercially available, decent looking and affordable plants out there I probably would have bought them because of the sheer number I needed. However you are right, you can't put a price tag on the satisfaction you get from doing it the hard way (and probably saved a ton of money to boot). :D
 
Almost forgot! I know the lady at the craft store (she's a customer of mine). When I went in looking for something to turn into a field of tobacco she of course asked me what I was looking for so she could help me. When I told her she nearly died laughing. Well yesterday I took some of those photos by. The look on her face was priceless as her jaw hit the floor!!! :D Next thing I knew (and this was a little embarassing) she was showing the pictures to some other customers saying "Look what he did with my starflakes". When she came back to the register I was holding a bag of little orange beads. She asked what I was going to do with them. I looked her in the eye and said "pumpkin patch". She never even cracked a smile! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH, revenge is sooooooooooooo sweet.:D :D :D :D :D
 
Great story, Tyson. BTW, when can we expect to see pictures of your punkin path?

Didn't mean to upset anyone with my "model railroad purchasers" comment. To me one of the enjoyable aspects of the hobby is using my imagination to make things, even if I could buy them. But there are always limitations - time, money, skill, whatever - to consider. There just seems to be a lot of an "if I can't buy it, I'll compain about it instead" attitude (present company excluded, obviously).
 
No one upset here. I agree with you that there is a lot of fun and satifaction in seeing what you can come up with by whatever means other than just buying it RTR. As far as the punkin patch goes you will never see any pictures, why??? I never had any intentions of making one I just wanted to see what kind of reaction I would get.:D Yeah I know I wasted 59 cents, but it was worth it!!! besides tobacco and pumpkins can't both be in season at the same time.:D :p :D
 
Tyson,
It will be a while till I use the ribbon for chain link fence, but I did a small section to show you. The ribbon spool is in the background and is made by Horizon Fabrics. The roll, I bought on sale, is 2 1/2 inches wide. Bought the wider width because to simulate a chain link fence it has to be cut on the bias and this width will give you the longest strip. The silver naturally looked best, and given a little aging with some rust or whatever it will look better. Those are "N" scale figures alongside the fence.

Bill :D
 

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Tyson, you bought those beads just so you could say "pumpkin patch"? Priceless!

Bill, that's a good looking fence. Too bad they don't make it so you wouldn't have to cut it on the bias - how long of a strip can you get? I'm guessing about 3-1/2 in. That's about a scale 50ft. so I guess it would work most places without a lot of splicing.
 
billk, some things are worth wasting 59 cents on, even though the Natahala Midland treasury never seems to have much money in it. Bill P. (lot of bills around here)smart thinking about getting the wider ribbon to get a longer run when cutting at a angle. Don't know as I would have thought of that. That stuff makes great looking fencing. Finishing nails make good posts, the head of the nail resembles that round ball on top of the real posts. For rust I started using a product called Rustall. It works better then anything else I have tried so far even though I'm still learning how to use it. I will be posting some more pictures later tonight and one of them has a close-up of the farm house. The roof on it, the pick-up truck and the partly visable roof on the barn were all rusted using this product.If you make sure all the splices are on a post it shouldn't be a problem, thanks for the info! Hope your missus doesn't think you have totaly lost it.:p
 
Thanks very much Tyson for the method to make tobacco plants. Who would have thunk it other than you. Now we should all have tobacco plants on our layouts. Tobacco used to be a huge farming business here in south west Ontario around the town of Delhi. These were small farms and very productive when smoking was still acceptable social behaviour. Today that industry has collapsed and the farms are too small to grow any other crops. The only thing growing there these days is corn.
Thanks Bill for the tip on fencing.
Great stuff and we all need tons of it.
 
That was a very ingenius solution to your tobacco plant problem, Tyson! Very nice work!
I'll admit to being a craft store junkie myself! You can find the coolest stuff there! My wife always gets a kick out of the fact that I love browsing through all the dried flower arrangements, ever vigilant in my search for that perfect tree!
 
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