trees

[Jon Grant]

I have been working towards building some new trees for the layout and re-vamping some old ones, mangled by either kids or cats.

Here's what I got done last night.

Still to get the 'sea foam' or 'Forest in a Box' added to the wire branches

Jon

 

[Jon Grant]

Here's the 'big' tree on the layout. I finally got round to putting branches on.

Jon

 

[Gary Pfeil]

Jon, very impressive, I'd love to read a how to. What is sea foam?

 

[TomPM]

Great looking trees!

 

[jasbourre]

Same here I would like the same info as Gary.

Jon, very impressive, I'd love to read a how to. What is sea foam?

 

[Matthyro]

Very natural looking trees Jon, I too am curious about the sea foam.

 

[CBCNSfan]

Hi Jon, sure are realistic looking trees. Nice work, I too am some what curious about that sea foam stuff, what exactly is it made of, and where do you get it?
Cheers Willis

 

[J&A_RR]

Jon, what type of paint do you use on the foam you have the trees in? I need to paint foam for our layout and am curious. thanks, john

EDIT TO ADD: nice trees, I need to get back to work on more trees for our layout. also I painted some stryrofoam today with some flat interior acrylic paint and so far so good. note to self: spray paint no worky on stryrofoam

 

[Doc Holliday]

Those are some mighty fine looking trees. While I'm not needing many trees in my desert setting, I too would love to read a how-to.
Doc

 

[Jon Grant]

Thanks guys

For them's that wants to know, here's how I did the 'wire and seafoam' trees.

Get some lengths of stiff wire (find a flower arranger) and twist together

Twist the wire into several bundles and keep splitting the bundles as you twist, until you end up with a tree-like object

Cover the wire tree in 'Artex' - a paint/grit mixture used by decorators - or 'flexi-bark'

Take a seafoam tree (Forest in a box, Forest in a flash, or the Noch seafoam tree pack) and pull off the branches.

NB - For some of the trees I did, I just shoved a cocktail stick up the seafoam trunk (ouch!), glued it in with superglue, and covered the stick with flexi bark

I then attached the seafoam branches to the wire former with superglue and sprayed it with matt earth brown and olive green.

This is where I stop for winter trees, but you can make a summer tree by spraying spray glue on the branches and sprinkling on suitable flocks

Jon

 

[Jon Grant]

Here's a couple of pics of the trees in situ

First the 'big winter tree' before I added the branches

and my solitary summer tree

Jon

 

[Gary Pfeil]

Thanks Jon, It seems you have some products I'm not familiar with. Seafoam then is a Noch product? As are forest in a box and forest in a flash? And do any of the US members here know of an equivalent to the Artex Jon mentions? I've made trees using twisted wire like you've done, but only applied bark to the lower reaches, using things like perma gasket and putty. And the standard polyfibre and foam for foliage which is ok but yours look so much better. Will have to look into the Noch line for sure.

Thanks again.

 

[NYC-BKO]

Has to be tree gnomes at work!!


Great work, Jon!-:thumb: :thumb: :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

 

[Jon Grant]

Here's a link to the US version of the seafoam.

http://www.scenicexpress.com/supertrees.html

Now to find somebody who knows the American equivalent for Artex

Jon

 

[Gary Pfeil]

Thanks Jon!

Gary