Winter bare trees using floral wire

Dectrain,

I've been making wire armature trees.  The process is time consuming; however, you can make them any shape with as many (or few) branches as you desire.  Please check out my posting on my Richlawn Railroad blog for pictures at http://richlawnrailroad.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-04-07T05%3A02%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=10 

I hope that this helps.

Rick

Hi Rick, Thanks for the info.

Hi Rick,

Thanks for the info. The trees look great. I'll give it a go with a little snow to show!

Have you tried using different gauge wire, cutting the larger gauge out as you progress out towards the branch tips? Say wire from stranded lamp wire? How about wood filler instead of gesso? I ask, because it occurs to me I have these materials already.

B.

You might also read

my buddy Ed's article here.  He starts with Super Trees armitures - which are available from MRH supporting vendor Scenic Express.

Ed's trees look great! Thanks

Ed's trees look great! Thanks Philip.

I'm new here. I notice frequent references in signatures to rail roads, as in yours Philip, "Baton Rouge Southern Railroad". Are these your model trains or your employers?

B.

Winter trees

B,

I haven't tried the different guages of wire, that that sounds like a good idea.  I also heard of people using caulking to coat the wires, but I haven't tried that yet.

The railroad links in the signature line are usually to the model railroad, as is mine to my blog.

Rick

I tried different gauge wires

I tried different gauge wires including strands of speaker wire. Yuk! I have patience, but not that much. (It was time well spent though, listening to the Vancouver/Everett playoff ball game.)

I did make a tree with the larger gauge and coated it with wood filler to see if I could get at least the basic shape with branches, sorta like what your (Rick) initial link shows. Waiting for it to dry.

Found an old scouring pad in my sandpaper box that looks like it would work for the finer branches. It is along the lines of the material I have read on other posts. (eg. furnace filter)

The caulking sounds interesting. I expect the filler to crack as it dries, but the caulking wouldn't. Hmmm...

I'll have to check with my local nursery to see if they could part with their small dead trees, like Boxwood. That might be the easiest of all.

B.

In my case

the BRS in my signature refers to both my model railroad, and to the operating unit of WATCO that I'm modeling.  WATCO is a transportation holding company that hase numerous shortlines around the country.

As good as Ed's stuff looks in the articles, it generally looks better in person.

Winter Trees

I remember seeing a layout where the modeler used roots from small bushes etc. for winter trees.  I do remember they looked quite good.  I'll see if I can find it and provide more information.