Nearly all of my previous model railroads have had desert scenery, or been set in the chaparral country of the southern California coastal hills. I very deliberately picked a different concept for this micro layout. Though it is nominally located in the southern California mountains at 5000 feet in elevation, the look is inspired by the Rockies and the Sierras.
I needed a lot of fairly large pine trees. Jeffrey pines predominate in the upper elevations of the San Emigdio mountains; these are similar to the Ponderosa pines that are familiar throughout the mountain West. Though Jeffries and Ponderosas commonly grow to more than 100 feet tall, I figured for this layout I should use about half that height; full size Jeffrey pines would call attention to the small size of the layout.
Because this layout is so small, everything is a foreground model, and I wanted trees that stood up to examination as models in their own right. Here's what I came up with:
I tried several different techniques before settling on the you see on the layout. If you just want to know how I built them, skip over the next part.
Experiments
- On previous layouts, I had used Woodland Scenics pine tree kits, both the older metal trunks and the newer plastic ones. I feel like the metal trunk trees, in particular, look like the junipers common to some parts of the high desert, and with lighter, gray-green foliage could pass for pinon pines. I’ve used them mainly for background trees and they’re fine for that purpose, but they aren’t realistic enough for this project, and don’t look much like Jeffrey pines anyway.
- For the winter-themed "Christmas in the Red Rocks" mini I built last year, I used a number of the bottle-brush style trees that you see everywhere at the holidays, sold as mini Christmas trees. With a little work – I clipped the “branches” to a more realistic shape and added Woodland Scenics Conifer Green foliage – they aren’t bad, and they fit the aesthetic I was going for with that layout. But again, not what I needed this time.
- As I was searching online for options to buy or make trees, I spotted a Campbell pine tree kit on eBay at a reasonable price, so I bought it. Back in the 1960s or 70s, the state of the art for modeling pine trees was to use various kinds of miniature fern – asparagus fern or airfern – for the branches, and I made one tree that way for the layout I had as a teenager. Campbell made a kit that included pre-shaped, stained and drilled wood trunks, and preserved airfern for the branches. The kit I bought included eight nice, foot-tall trunks, but the fern, which is probably 40 or 50 years old, was very dry and brittle, to the point of being almost impossible to work with. I managed to make a couple of trees, but while they looked pretty nice, the branches broke at the slightest touch, and I wasn’t confident that they’d survive if I transported the layout. So I moved on.
- A lot of people these days use furnace filter material for evergreen trees, cutting disks of the stuff, stringing it on a trunk, painting, and covering it with ground foam or static grass for foliage. As I was researching that method, I came across a video on YouTube ( https://youtu.be/Hztif1KoJ-g?si=9fPcwWFfvl3mgE-7 ) where a modeler used basically the same technique, but with what he called a “coco fiber basket liner”. This is apparently shredded, compressed coconut husk fiber. A couple of days later I was at PetSmart buying dog food, and I found a Coconut Fiber Climbing Mat in the terrarium section. It was relatively cheap, so I bought one to give it a try. I carved a trunk from a piece of 1/4 inch square balsa, then roughed it up with a wire brush. I cut circles of the coco mat material and strung them on the trunk, shish kabab style. Each later is held in place with a good dab of tacky glue. When that dried, I sprayed it brown, then added Scenic Express Sage Green ground foam, which is a little lighter shade than the Woodland Scenics Conifer (I have almost a whole cannister of the stuff left over from another project). These are a big step forward from the Woodland Scenics trees or the bottlebrush trees, and are a lot sturdier than the Campbell pines. I seriously considered going with these for the Canyon, but I still had one other alternative I wanted to try.
The Method I Used
Another fairly common way to make pines is some variation on a wood trunk, wire main branches, either sisal fiber or longer static grass (7mm or 12mm) for secondary branches/stems, and short (usually 2mm) static grass for needles. This video is closest to the method I finally settled on: https://youtu.be/2BJL5Y4XYhk?si=kov8nO7Ki1d6hzNH
I made my first couple of trunks from balsa, but switched to other wood after that. I used some of my Campbell trunks for some of the trees, drilling extra holes to add more branches, and they look great; I also carved some trunks from some scrap cedar I had lying around.
I cut branches from floral wire – my wife does flower arranging, so we had several rolls around the house. Green is the most common color, but she had some that was flat back, so I used that. Looking at pictures of Jeffrey pines, it looked like the spread of the branches was about a quarter of the height of the tree, so I cut pieces of wire about 3 to 3.5 inches long for the lowest branches, tapering down to an inch or so near the top. The wires go all the way through the trunk and extend out on both sides. I secured the branches with a dab of CA.
I painted the trunk and the base of the branches with matte medium (white glue or PVA would work just as well), then I sprinkled on Woodland Scenics Fine Turf to give the trunk some texture. I used Earth Blend, but any color would do because it’s going to be painted anyway.
For the smaller stems (branchlets?) I unraveled some sisal rope (I used to be a scout leader and I’ve got lots of the stuff around) and cut the fibers into roughly half-inch pieces. I spread Aileen’s tacky glue on the branches, and sprinkled/pressed the sisal fibers into the glue. I didn’t make much effort to apply them in any particular direction, just stuck them on however they happened to fall, though I did go back later and do some trimming of particularly wild fibers. Let dry, then shake off any loose fibers. I sprayed the trees with hairspray, and sprinkled on more sisal fibers in thin spots, but I learned that it’s actually better not to cover the branches too heavily – thinner, lacier foliage actually looks better. Finally, I added a light sprinkle of 7mm static grass.
After letting that dry, I spray painted the tree, including the trunk and branches, with dark brown spray paint. When that was dry, I dry brushed the exposed parts of the trunk with a little tan or buff.
Finally, I sprayed the branches with hairspray, and while it was wet, sprinkled on 2mm dark green static grass. I found I usually needed to do two or three applications, including one applied to the bottom side of the branches. I ended with a light sprinkle of light green, from the top down, to give it some color variation.
I also made a few smaller trees from the Woodland Scenics plastic trunks, adding sisal fibers and static grass. Quick and easy, and it looks much better alongside the bigger trees than the ones with Woodland Scenics Conifer Green foliage -- though I might use a couple of those to represent junipers.
I'm glad I kept testing new techniques, because these trees really look good. I will probably end up making 10 or 12 of these, raging from 8 to 12 inches tall, and also use a few of the enhanced Woodland Scenics pines.
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