Great article. It's nice to

Great article. It's nice to see more from Thom and his modeling projects. His presence on the forum is greatly missed.

Welcome back Scarpia 

Randy

Expensive trees

$ $ $

I have been using sage brush for years to make trees and I haven't found anything that has a better appearance because the natural sage looks just like tree bark, but I sure am glad that I have a lot of sage brush growing locally. Super Sage is a bit pricey for me. I figure I can make my trees for about 50 cents each. They're not quite as detailed, but they only take me about a half an hour to make.  

SuperSage prices

SuperSage prices are at  http://www.sceneryexpress.com/products.asp?dept=1012 .  Looks like they run about $2.25/tree for the value pack (9-12 trees), or $2.57/tree for the value case (40-45 trees).

well done article

with a real sense of scale for the trees.  I hate too-short trees. 

And I agree - seeing Scarpia back amongst us is a treat.

Prices

Scenery and the model railroading budget

I have done cost studies of the hobby and my findings show the following as to general costs, in order of cheapest to most expensive:

1. Bare scenery (basic plaster shell)

2. Benchwork

3. Wiring

4. Trackwork

5. Rolling stock

6. Locos

7. Scenery details

In short, other than the cost of the structure housing the layout, the physical plant is cheaper than what goes on the track. My contention is if you want to get the cheaper end of the deal with a round-robin group, you offer to provide the layout and let everyone else provide the equipment and you will get the least costly end of the proposition.

That said, scenery details can add up, depending how much detail you need in a scene. The cheapest scenery to model is desert scenery because it's just bare plaster scenery with a little dirt, rocks and scrub-brush added. Forested slopes cost more, and city scenes can get extremely expensive, especially if you add a lot of details.

For example, I have one scene on my Coos Bay branch at Slater Creek with a curved trestle and several hundred conifer trees compliments of Canyon Creek Scenics. All told, that scene probably cost me $2000 and 4 months of time. And that's just a 2-foot by 2-foot area. Now multiply that by the 800 square feet of benchwork and you can see it adds up fast.

The one good thing about scenery details is you can chose at what point you stop. Natural materials do help - but you won't find a lot of natural materials you can use to model urban structures - and they aren't at all cheap.

With scenery, it's either time or money. Build more or buy more - you get to chose.

I agree with Joe and prices.

I agree with Joe and prices. I enjoy putting scenery in, but depending on what you are modeling, prices change. As I mentioned, sage brush is no problem for me to get where I live. The only real expense is the foliage, which isn't too bad. I try to get along with natural materials as much as I can to keep my hobby budget down. Now that I am building a town, yard and engine terminal, the price is slowly going up and up, and I haven't even thought about the details going into the town.

Got another cheap one for you

I did a module years ago for the Ronald McDonald charity layout.

The module had two tracks on it (basically 1 piece of flextrack with some ends for each line), ballast and some sand around the track.  The rest of the module was blue foam - with two ships on it.  One was a 1/87 model of the HMS Bounty, with one of her boats trailing by a rope in the water and the other was a tugboat with a film crew forward, pointing at the Bounty and preparing for the mutiny scene.

Add a couple of gawkers on the shore side and engine sitting there, and poof a sceniced 4 x 2.5 foot module.

It was a hit, because the HMS Bounty was docked in that city at the time.  One of the other club members encased the whole module in plexi glass to protect it.  Turned out to be a really good idea.

No trees, no buildings, I built the HMS Bounty and the tug from kits specifically for this module.  The module was from my home layout and I had built it, but had not "decorated it" at the time of the charity layout being decided upon.  I replaced that module with 3 more with plywood ones instead of foam later on.

Great job

Scarpia (do I have to call you Thomas, now?)

Great article, and timely too.  I'm just in the slinging plaster around the layout portion of construction, and have been pondering the what-ifs and where do I put:  trees.

Thanks.

Very good article

Very good article and it's great to see you back.

Great article, why doesn't he

Great article, why doesn't he post on here anymore?

Thanks!

Thanks for everyone's kind words!

When I call these trees expensive, it has to do mostly with the cost of the SuperSage (in comparison with the SuperTree boxed set) and the cost of the Silflor foliage. I have to add substantial shipping costs due to my own circumstances, but I'm in a bit more of a unique situation.

I don't think anyone wants to spend money if they can avoid it, so having your own access to materials like sage is fantastic, like Montanan, and his trees look really good (I'd suggest if your interested an if you can, get a box of SuperTrees, and branch out that free sage - I think you'll end up with a much nicer and fuller tree.  Were I stateside, I'd mail you some for you to try).

However I do believe that when you need to spend money, it's best to do it wisely - which does not always mean the cheapest route.  As I mentioned I was satisfied by the SuperTrees; at around $25 a box for 30+ trees, its' a great deal.  Having now seen the SuperSage trees side by side, the difference in scale on my layout is tangible, and spending $25 for 8+ more real sized trees is worth the effect (personal opinion).

tranquilgarden, it looks like your question was somewhat answered, so here's my take on the reply. In addition to the trunk cost quoted (> $2.50), you can add glue and paint costs (really negligible, I'd estimate $.10 or less per tree). Now the foliage...in this case the Noch leaves ($10 a jar) in the way I used it would cost around $1.00 a tree, bringing us to a total of $3.60 a tree so far. Not too bad, until we add the Silflor. 

The Silflor foliage is gorgeous - in my opinion the best looking stuff out there. It's just very expensive in relation to it's coverage, and this is where the cost will add up. While I'm recommending just using it up front where it has the greatest impact, you'll note that I worked to thin it out to a degree with the Noch leaves. I find the Noch leaves go a pretty long way, and look good as well - next on my to do list is to a large tree with just the noch leaves to provide a change in color and texture (most likely I'll use a different paint scheme for the trunk as well).

I used the summer tone broadleaf maple foliage, which is $25.00 a pack. Coverage varies upon tree canopy size, but I got about 4 trees per package, for $6.25 a tree. Add that to the $3.60, and you end up with a tree just under $10, which in my opinion is not inexpensive, but worth it's value depending on your application; on my small layout they really stand out and I am completely satisfied with them.

Don, you can call me anything you like, as long as it's not late to dinner.

Thank you again to everyone for your comments, and I truly hope folks found the article useful.

EDIT:

I apologize for not having taken a before and after picture of this scene, but below is a shot that kinda shows the way the title page image looked before the SuperSage tree (slightly different camera  view)

Those are the JTT Birch trees just behind the building ($20 a two pack), which are a nice product, but as a visual impact/cost comparison,  in my opinion the SuperSage and Silflor trees win out.

...

Thom, I truly appreciated your properly sized trees - it's not often enough I see trees as they're meant to be on a layout!

Noch leaves

Please inform me of a U.S. source for the NOCH #08030 elm leaves used in the Super Size Trees article in the August, 2013 issue.   Dick Bradley

Out of Date Product

Looks like the Noch product I used (I've had it here with me for about 5 years now) is no longer available.   Looking at the listings, I'd recommend trying their medium green leaf ( $9.95 from Scenic Express).  From what I can tell, this may actually be a better product than the simpler ones I used.

Good luck, and please share your results!.