Great Tree

Thanks for the demo.  I'll have to give it a try.

Yeah! Great tree!

Thanks for the great video on making oak trees, this is the first time I have seen poly fibre used in a way that looks convincing to me. I will certainly give this a try!

M.C. That is A Great Shrub Oak

Coastal (Shrub or Scrub Oak ) both spellings are correct are not as common on the east coast as they are on the west Coast. On the east coast you find the big brothers of the Scrub Oaks in vast hardwood forests and will grow as close as 15 feet from tree to tree.

The Scrub Oak is more of a loaner where most of the time they grow 50 to 100 feet apart due to their 30 to 50 foot branch lengths that grow out horizontally.  The shrub Oak Grow to a maximum height of about 40 feet tall and of the 9 varieties of Scrub Oaks most stay between 6 to 10 feet tall.

The tree M.C. is showing is the California White Oak or Oracle Oak and they average 30 to 40 feet tall with branches stretching out as much as 50 feet horizontally. You will find these Oracle Oaks Dotting the West coast from S.Calif to Canada.

All Scrub or Shrub Oaks require a sandy rocky soil with excellent drainage as standing water around the roots will drowned the Shrub Oaks or cause their roots to rot killing the tree.

.M.C has shown the best place to plant these trees, on or near the tops of grassy hills. Shrub Oaks are of the evergreen variety of Oaks, these Trees remain green and leafy year round and unlike its East coast cousins grass and flowers will grow under them right up to within inches of their trunks.

You will not find much brush growing under the Scrub oak if any at all but, grass and all varieties of daisies thrive around and under them.

M.C You have shown a Beautiful video of how to build these Shrub oak Trees. Make sure you post a couple photos of the Area once you have finished all the planting. Oh!!, and the rest of your scene is very well done also Keep up the beautiful work.

Dan

Other resources

Thanks, Dan, for posting all that info on oaks!

The polyfill works with N scale oaks due to their small size: if I were to build oaks in HO I'd look into cutting up aquarium filter material like Jos (Grove Den, from the Netherlands) describes in his inspiring posts on how he builds his fabulous trees.

He also shows how to use floral wire instead of the stranded electrical wire that I use.

Check out post #49 for a great HO oak he made.

Sometimes modeling in N is easier because you just have to suggest details instead of actually spending all the time to do them

Well, back to building bark!

Very nice!

Oops: too heavy on the polyfill paint

After making a couple more, I've learned what NOT to do:
When spray painting the polyfill, just shoot from underneath, leaving the tops green.
On this recent batch, I sprayed Grimy Black from the top, too, and it didn't turn out so well:



The newer tree on the left looks more toy-ish & blobby, while the first tree (sprayed only from the bottom) has a better blended look.
It also helps to spread the polyfill out a bit more horizontally, rather than clump like q-tip heads around the wire branches.

Here's the "wrong" tree:



And here's the first one that turned out better, IMHO:



The other two I made the same "wrong" way turned out a little better, and I planted on the hill.
A couple more smaller oaks will help blend the scene better, so I'll post some picts when I get those built & planted.

Thanks for looking.

Oak Trees

Even the ones that didn't come out perfect are great, so don't sell yourself short.

Irv