That actually looks pretty good

That actually looks pretty good, though most of the trees in my area have a grayish bark so I'd have gone with a darker grey color. Makes a fairly convincing birch bark from a foot or so! I'll bet it would work equally well on those horrid shiny brown WS plastic tree trunks.

I made a whole bunch of trees like this back when I was doing 1/285th scale armor wargaming, but never worried much about the texture.

What gauge wire are are you using? It looks a heavier (both individual strands and overall) than the usual 16-18 ga extension cord wire.

I'm glad to see someone else making 40-50 foot tall trees... most people make saplings.

I still have this fantasy of making a module with 300'+ redwoods on it...

That actually looks pretty

This is not the final color, it's just the color of this particular stone spray. I will paint it with the final bark color tomorrow.

No idea, it was lying around in my lab. As I stated in my original post this ist just a test for the bark material. If everything works out I will start making lots of trees using the appropriate wire gauge.

I know, it's a shame just to look at the stuff that's being sold as N scale trees. Typically 1 - 2" tall.

trees are tricky

Joe F. has talked about it on this forum I know, but it's worth repeating.  

A few months ago I went on a 'tree-building bender' and they look great and are scale-accurate,..but they look huge.  I forested a 3-foot area, took pics and even posted some on this forum, but it worries me...so much so that I stopped where I was and haven't even thought about a tree armature for awhile. Once you get some green on the limbs it may look too big. In my case I wanted the look of tree-limbs over a track, almost tunnel-like, so they had to be scale size.  I'm still not sure, but my area isn't done by a long shot so once it's further along I may feel more confident.

That said, it looks promising as a foreground tree.  Pine/fir tree I assume from the background trees?  Also, a large-ish foreground tree or two can add alot for a sense of perspective (adds distance).  Placement can be crucial in a scale-accurate tree.

Looking forward to seeing the final bark color!

Suprised me that

that spray covered so well Michael.  I made about 5 N-scale trees and filled the trunks in with solder.  What a waste, should have used auto body spot filler.  Wish I had known about your method back then.  I read an article lately where the modeler used wire from a welder cable to make his tree.  Extremely small wire with a gazillion strands.  Not so important in N-scale, but would work better for HO and O, I'm sure.

If you want a good idea how

If you want a good idea how tall trees "should" be, you need look no further than your rolling stock.

If they're saplings, they should be around the height of a high-cube boxcar.

25 to 25 year old fast growing trees (certain maples and poplars), turn your 40 foot boxcar on end.

Mature oaks elms, and other large shade trees, tip up those heavy weight passenger cars.

Mature tall pines... two 52' containers on end.

Mature redwoods... a 5 unit container car!

That will get you in the right ballpark.

If I buy commercial tree armatures (like the WS ones, on the rare occassion...) I buy a scale larger. For N, I get HO. On my BeNdtrack modules, and my old layout, most of my trees were between 6 and 10 inches tall.

The only use for what is often sold as "N scale" trees is for new housing developments or heavily trimmed orchards.

Check out MC's wire armature tree.

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/7120?page=5

This might be of help or give you some ideas.

Den

I decided to make a new tree

I decided to make a new tree out of thinner wire:

This time I first gave it a coat of grey automotive primer to kill the metallic sheen and to add some grip:

Then I sprayed on the bark:

The tree is sitting outside in the sun now to dry.

Michael, looking good!

I really like your trees!  Here's a picture of some of my wire armature trees I tried awhile back:

Not trying to hijack your thread, but here's a link to my process:

http://richlawnrailroad.com/?page_id=138

I look forward to seeing your trees in person in our upcoming visit!

After the bark material dried

After the bark material dried I glued on some 12mm static grass as branches:

Just looking at this thing I knew the tree would be too wide for my taste but this being an experiment I kept working by adding a second layer of the same material:

I then added a layer of 5 mm grass:

And some 2 mm grass:

Now it looks like a big fuzzy brush!

I took a spray can and sprayed the whole tree with a grey/brown color:

Now comes the magic: spray with glue and add fine turf:

In the future I will have to watch the size of the wire armature because the grass fibers add so much volume to the tree but other than that I'm happy !

Looks very good

Michael.

Looks very good, At least you have convinced me that you know what you are doing. I know that it seems to take a lot of time for one tree, but with mass production things will go quicker.

Beautiful tree Michael, yours

Beautiful tree Michael, yours as well Rick. I just wanted to comment on the width of the tree. Unless your tree is really tightly packed with other trees many trees spread out a lot. I had a native Pecan in my backyard that has since been struck by lightning but was very tall and had a span of 120 feet from branch tip to branch tip. I do have a big back yard. When I finally cut it down I will measure the diameter of the trunk, I am guessing in the neighborhood of 4 feet or more. Same thing with trees in the woods on my farm in WV. A lot of trees like wild cherry were tall and thin with out lots of width to the branches but the occasional oak or walnut would dwarf everything around it and have some massive width as well as height. Hickory, Maple, and Elm as well as a few others could produce some massive spreads to their branches as well.

Thanks for sharing

I like it

The finished product looks great.

The core of that tree....

"Let me tell you what I'm looking for in a tree." Your tree passes the test! 

12mm?

Michael,

Where did you get the 12mm static grass?  I'm hoping that you will walk me thru your tree making process during my visit.

Where did you get the

The Germans make it. You can get 12mm grass made by Noch from Scenic Express:

http://www.sceneryexpress.com/NEW-12MM-MEADOW-GREEN-STATIC-GRASS-40g_14-oz/productinfo/NH07110/

I'll have some trees prepared for you when you come over on Thursday. My wife is making plum cake again !

Outstanding!

Great work as always Michael, thank you for sharing it!

Michael - one word....

YUM!

Nicely done...

... now do it a few hundred more times and you'll have a forest (grin!)

BTW, earlier this year I wrote a piece on modelling a forest for Mike Cougill's Missing Conversation series. It's now a how-to - more of a "why to". You'll find it here:

http://www.ostpubs.com/the-missing-conversation/

- Trevor

Oh! Wow Michael!

A 60 foot behemoth! Which brings to mind: Under the spreading chestnut tree the village smithy stands.

Great-looking tree!

That building it up in layers thing works really well, and no tell-tale dacron netting holding the foam over the tree. This stuff is in the tree.

It does look a bit shaggy and overgrown, but as if I've never seen that before! 

The other thing you can try is picture-hanging wire. Twist several of those together and your major branches are already formed. Fray the ends and you have the smaller branches.

Great trees! All what is to

Great trees! All what is to say.

Set a view of these extraordinary trees as single objects on your layout and you will have eye-catchers without an overloading of highlights. Congratulations!

great work again

love your ideas,

i have done the sisal rope and wire twist for my evergreens, but always had the same bark problem with my wire armatures.

son is an electrician so always plenty of wire offcut around,

so will try your method tomorrow.

Thanks again for sharing your progress

Graeme, please post your

Graeme, please post your results! I'm very interested to see how yours come out.

Michael after looking at your

Michael after looking at your tree in the different posts regarding it on the web site I am convinced you have just done the best tree article I have ever seen. You have applied new ideas to older methods and made them completely new. Your paint on the armature idea followed by static grass and then foliage is truly fantastic.

Now imagine that a supply of scrap wire is not around. Instead sage brush or weeds or flowers are used for the armature and things proceed as you have done with your wire. It looks like you have discovered a way to mass produce fantastic trees with a low cost factor. A line of armatures could be stuck in foam and painted. Next static grass applied to fill them out and then it gets followed up with the foliage. What a marvelous way to build a forest that does not look like either the lichen belt or puff ball corner.

Genius.