[Don Chovanec]

Yesterday I went out and got some dowling to start making trees for the forest of my layout. I have made many kinds before and they come out pretty good. After I cut the dowling down to an HO scale I will chuck it in a drill and taper it using course sandpaper, then score the sides with teeth from a sawblade. next is drilling for branches. I at first thought to use round toothpicks for branches gluing foam on it as I have done before but I had a thought. These trees will be Sequoia and Redwood and I would like crookity branches so I am thinking to get some fake fern from Michael's. They have some really real looking stuff made for flower arranging. There is a type that has real fine pointy leaves and looks a lot like the real leaves and branches of evergreen trees if you cut and use the smaller ones. Lastly I will use ink and stain to finish the trunks. What do you think of using the fern. If you have seen it it could easly pass for evergreen. I have a lot of trees to make so it may be to much hassel. Anyone come up with better idea for these trees? I have looked at many plastic, cast metal and other kinds but I always seem to come back to making them from scratch. The cast metal are pretty good though.

 

[Don Chovanec]

Oh yeah the falling part

I almost forgot I also have been working on a way to get a falling tree and I think I figured one out. I have some old Trurtle switches from an old layout. the advantage is that they move slow and will stay put till switched back. I mount a tree on one flip the switch an presto - falling tree. If it will not go down far enough I will have a second tree cradle it like in real life. This is just a concept but I think I could make it work what do you think?

 

[stationmaster]

Why not use weeds(Queen Anne's Lace would be one example)? Dried of course. Paint 'en up and use them.i believe that it would look more realistic than dowel.

 

[Don Chovanec]

Well for one reason I have no idea what it looks like and where to get any, flower shops do not carry weeds, I will try and look it up and maybe find some. As I have said I like to use as much natural stuff as I can. The dowels really can look realistic if you do it right. I want lumber type quality so straight is good. As I said I have had good luck using dowel before but the branches are the tricky part. If they come out ok I will try and post a pix of them, but they take a while to get made. The thing about dryed flowers and plants is that they are very fragle. One thing is that I have a cabin in the mountains that is surrounded by similar trees so I know what it has to look like. I will definately check them out though. I get lots of free moss there.

 

[stationmaster]

Queen Anne's Lace may not work for your application. I have used flowers out of the better half's flower beds. Statice and Baby's Breath are two of my favorites.

 

[scratchbldr]

A Falling tree!! Thats cool, I never thought of that. I have done a lot animation on a club layout but never a tree.
Do you plan on it being a deadfall tree or a logger cut tree? What about sound with it falling or being cut.

 

[mr_x_ite_ment]

I found a VERY quick easy way to make a whole forest of evergreens...it looks authentic too. I bought a Christmas tree on clearance for $8.00 and I cut all the points (chutes) off with a clipper. The box said there were 550 points to the tree. Yes, that is 550 evergreen trees for $8! That's 1.4 cents PER TREE! I simply chose a drill bit that was about the same size as the "trunk" and started drilling holes at random on the layout. All I had to do was poke the chute from the Christmas tree into the hole...no glue needed even! Some might say it would look "fakey," but I would disagree immediately. It looks as authentic as any evergreen I have seen on any layout, and it was INSTANT! If anyone tries it, make sure to have the chute from the tree cascade downward...like a real evergreen. The "branches" left behind after clipping all the chutes off look like they will make awesome pine trees too!

 

[scratchbldr]

falling trees

Did you ever get your falling trees working? If you have pleas show us. perhaps video even. I KNOW I would LOVE to see it!