80' High Trees?

Unfortunatly I'm no where close to needing any trees.  Maybe in a month or two I can have enough done on the layout where I can start making them.  I have a box of supertrees, florist wire, cord and flocking.

Nowhere near - my tallest are about 10 inches.  I do think modelers fall short in making tall enough trees, in general.

My goal is verisimilitude, not geometric precision. Many things on any convincing layout are grossly out of scale for many reasons (forced perspective being just the most obvious). Sometimes you make tiny things unrealisically big so that they can be seen and noticed. Sometimes you make huge things unrealistically small for practicality or to avoid distraction.  It's all good. Go for impressions, not precision, I say.

yes, large sage and super trees. Consider trees as important structure just like buildings.

 

 

Beautiful!  I had my son looking out the car window at trees.  He finally agrees that trees in the Northeast should be 2-3 times as tall as a house.

Beautiful trees, wsdimenna. I like the way you can see through the foliage.  Actually all details in both scenes are great.

We had an issue with conifers. The largest we could find were about 8-10 inches and were very expensive. We ended up making our own from Balsa trunks with Ming fern for the boughs.

 

Here are some of ours next to some smaller, "perfect" pre-made trees. 

 

Here are some more. We had made a batch and pinned them into any styrofoam we had standing around. They've since been moved to other locations.

Matt, great scene at the base of those mighty trees!

Dave G.

Some of these are 10-12" high.   See the latest OGR

Thanks. That's the work of Dave O'Connor (AGHR_Dave). As for the trees, we [very briefly] bounced around the idea of doing a stand of giant redwoods to scale. The only problem was that 200 foot + trees might be a bit problematic. We had visions of having to do something like the closing scene in the Disney Animators' homage to Walt (a 1.5" scale modeler and one-time president of LA Live Steamers), "Out of Scale".

Good evening 

 

Be careful with trees closer to the right size. They are like large radius curves, once you go down that path there is no turning back. I found out, bought a couple of 14" trees and all of a sudden everything else was shrubs. or baby trees.

 

Clem  

Tell me about it.

Well, interesting you mention this! 

 

When I made the 4X8 HO layout for the store (LHS) a few years back, I decided to rock the paradigm a bit and do just what you're suggesting.  All of the trees....some 200+...were handmade using a variety of techniques and materials but in a more natural mix of scale sizes.  The height, density, naturalness of the trees is often the first comments customers reflect when they view the layout.  We've had more inquiries about the making of the trees than any other element of the layout.

 

But, just as Clem reflects, now that I've gone down this path, seen the results/reactions, and am about to embark on the 'arboration' of my own O3R layout, I'm in trouble!.....I can't tolerate a layout of nursery stock.  And, with no apparent contribution from testosterone levels (in decline at my age, anyway!), in this case BIGGAH is, indeed, bettah!

 

When my wife and I spend our usual hour at the Scenic Express booth at York, it's the LARGE trees we linger over.  We're always intrigued with their latest examples of these gorgeous trees, how they're constructed...skeleton, branch, texture, foliage, deciduous, conifer, etc., etc..  Lots of inspiration there!

 

The photos that WSDIMENNA has in his response tell it all!  NICE JOB!!

 

And, Rich....thanks for bringing up the subject!  If you're into this part of the hobby....making scale trees....I think you'll have a lot of fun and reward. 

 

KD

 

 

I have noticed for years that O scale layouts always have trees that are way too small.  It's just the reality that hardly anyone has space to go 1:48 with their buildings and scenery.

 

One solution is to model the deser. Saguaros, prickly pears,  and Joshua Trees don't get nearly as tall as Elm trees in real life!!

 

wsdimenna, those large trees are awesome!  Thanks for sharing the pic!

Bill, that is some fine-looking trees!

 

The problem with tall trees (and telephone/power lines) is that if you have any switching to do you don't want these tall things in your way, plus it's harder to get in between them to clean.  Now if you have a good stretch of real estate where your trains meander along, then tall trees would make perfect sense.

 

Most of my trees are 6" or shorter, only because they came off my HO layout and I haven't bought any in a while.  They're so old the foliage is coming off them.

I bought the large super tree box for when I'm ready to start planting them.

I live in the Pacific NW, where trees can dwarf trains, house, and almost skyscrapers in some cases. 80-feet trees are called, "short" ones here.

I model East TN state, which has mostly deciduous trees. Most trees were cut down immediately adjacent to houses from the photos I've seen, so most of my trees with form part of the backdrop along the walls of the layout. But I have about 200 trees to paint, flock and plant. For a layout my size (in a 10X11 foot room), I think I'll have enough to look decent.

I have trees as high as 14 inches (scale 56 feet) and looked at higher, but I don't need one or two, I need dozens - a forest rather than trees, and 18 inch trees are expensive.  

But Lee....my friend....you will be able to afford that forest because of the fortune you will be making selling hobby related books you have written!!...  OK..OK...just had to have a little fun with ya!!

 

Alan

I made a batch of these up to 14"with 1/4" dowels, toothpicks and clump foliage.  Etch the wood to give it a bark looking texture and stain it a realistic blend of colors - black gray and brown - and they come out pretty nice.  Kind of a Douglas Fir look.  

Reply By William 1: 80' High Trees?

Terrific. Looks good and easy to build. The Boy Scouts should be able to
crank these out!



*From:* O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum [mailto:alerts@hoop.la]
*Sent:* Thursday, September 25, 2014 11:58 AM
*To:* RichO
*Subject:* Reply By William 1: 80' High Trees?

Well, not really, given the downloads are about 2:1 more than the sales (163 to 308 as of a few minutes ago) and the $0.00 royalty doesn't help.  

 

But seriously, my main problem is I can't see the forest for the trees.  I mean that literally.  I have 400 trees in the area of the layout show below, a combination of homemade, storebought, and custom-made (bought at TCA meets). About 200 of these are JTT trees - really nice and really expensive, to which I have added a one to two inch truck extension.    Note it still looks like trees, not a dense forest.  I don't want to use one of these dense "pads" that is meant to look like a forest "roof" you just layou over the whole area, but I want individual trees that just barely let you look through, as a real forecast.  I estimate it will take at least another 400 trees?

 

 

First try at large tree.  Got a 12" x 1/4" threaded rod at Lowes for $1.04.  Surrounded it with branches.  Tied it together with wire ties. Wrapped the base with dry wall mesh tape and the cut the wire ties off.  Will wrap main trunk with paper towel,  paper mache.

 

Paint grey and then poly-fiber canopy.

 

Took less than 10 minutes to put together so far.

 

The threaded rod has two nuts, one for the top of the layout and one to secure the tree from the underside of the layout.

I was fortunate several years ago at York when I was introduced to FATHER NATURE-a maker of huge trees. I purchased several in the 20" or so range and now have them on the layout. They look great placed at several levels with grades running up and they are planted at a lower level. The gentleman was not in good health so I stored them for probably 15 or 20 years. Try Scenic Express for custom trees.He has a great selection.

Rich

For large trees I think attaching super trees would look a lot better then poly IMO

Does Father Nature have a website?

 

Has anyone used Longshadow trees?

 

http://longshadowsmodeltrees.com/

In Model Railroader, September 2014 issue there is a good article on how to make trees from goldenrods. The time of year is just right for harvest them.

 

I was wondering if anyone had tried to do them this way?

 

Steve 

Not me.  Not going near goldenrod, with my allergies.

Golden rod makes excellent canopy effect, put sage trees along edge of forest (front) and mix these behind it.  Think that its better then sedum

 

 

I forgot about Doc Patti's  On30 layout!

 

I made a purchase form Longshadow Model Trees of a sample order in fall colors and the trees I got were all funky color and slightly flattened, they were really sticky like they were packed still wet. I wanted to return them due to the weird colors and they refused a full refund because they were flat. Not a good experience, I did not think the trees looked very good, they looked alright but they were a bit flat

Without reading every post, I agree that generally layouts set in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, most trees are to short in all scales, but in S, O and G it is more obvious. The taller ones are generally have to be built yourself.

 

ncng

Yes and no to your question.  I made, at great expense (in time) and after a good deal of frustration and effort, about a dozen and a half 14" to 21" tall redwoods to go in my forest area.  Scale size they might have been, but they looked way too tall and they were too wide (up to six inches nearly) - they were just too big.  So I cut them down (since my redwoods had a big brushy top with naked trunk farther toward the ground below, I just cut off the naked trunk and trimmed them into a cone shape) to make pine trees about 7 to 10" high.

 

I have an 11" high tree on my layout, a sort of fir that is maybe three inches wide at the most.  It is the largest tree I have and as large as I'm having.  Fir and pine trees 3" to 9" generally work best for me. What I do like is lots of trees, with the locos winding through them.  That looks cool.  This photo was taken with about a dozen trees in the foreground removed - I wanted a clear photo of the loco - but it gives you the idea.  With trees, at least on my layout, I found that quantity definitely trumps quality (at least as regards size).  

 

 

 

Beautiful pictures here guys!  Trees will be coming to my layout soon but most will be smaller since I am doing urban modeling....

 

Alan

Alan - 80 foot trees and going to get lost entirely among all your skyscrapers.  Unless you have a central park, why bother?  Your buildings and streets and elevateds and all are what is spectacular.  Trees, they go in the country only, I think.

OMG!  Another inspirational thread.  My trees are so lame.  But I had to do something or everything would look so bare like it was over the timber line.  I will investigate youtube for video DYI.