Scenery Express

[Mike Trent]

I wanted to share a couple of pictures of six ready made Conifer Pine trees that arrived a couple days ago.

These are from Scenic Express, and they are everything I hoped they'd be. Conifers, distinctive by their upturned branches are very common in South Park Country, my backdrop has thousands of them. I got turned on to Scenic Express by Dennis Tebo in LA (California, not Lower Alabama) when I had told him I was looking for clumped weeds I needed for my Durango Turntable scene. Wow!

Last Sunday I was poking around their website and found these. I'll order a few more, but I really can't use many, as Dickey resembled the bottom of Dillon Reservoir long before it existed.

These a a bit pricey, but man, they are great. And, they are available in kit form. They have aspen too.

Check them out here,

http://www.sceneryexpress.com/Pines-Evergreens/products/1004/ 

Poke around their website. you won't believe what they have. I'll be ordering some late Autumn Buffalo Grass, which abounds in the Rockies.

These have about a 1 1/4" pointed stem for planting. I have drilled holes for them just to see how they looked, so some of them lean a bit. I have three 8" trees, two 10", and one 12". I'll probably duplicate that order tomorrow with some Buffalo Grass.





   

[Lee Gustafson]

Mike,

Beautiful scene. What trees did you use? The Scenery Express website lists many choices and I'm not sure which ones you used. Thanks.

Lee Gustafson

[Mike Trent]

Hi Lee.

Look for trees, then ready made trees, and scroll down to conifers. Conifers have upward branches and are extremely populace in the South Park area. The prices are for each tree. Today I ordered six more, 3 8", 2 10", and 1 12". And three packs of Buffalo Grass.

Go Buffs!

[Keith Hayes]

Mike, I guess we are both on a tear!

[Lee Gustafson]

Mike,

Found them! Thanks. ;-)

Lee Gustafson

[Mike Trent]

Way to go, Keith and Lee! This stuff is great.

[Todd A Ferguson]

Looking great guys!!!

I have made my own grass tufts using a static grass applicator I made a few years ago for about 20 dollars.  They are easy to make and cost next to nothing compared to buying them.  Of course you can also use the applicator for applying areas of grass that are larger. You can also use it to apply needles to pine trees in larger scales if you want to model long needle pine trees.

I have also built both pine tree and aspen trees using the bottle brush technique of twisted wire for the trunk and natural rope fibers for the structure.  The McKenzie brothers have offered tree making machines to speed this process but I have not got around to buying one of their machines.  I did it using a vice and my battery drill.  It is a little slower but works with a bit of practice. The trunks are then covered in hot melt glue to make them look more like trees rather than twisted wire.  

I will try to post some photos later in the week if people are interested.  If you need a lot of trees and are not a millionaire I suggest you check out the McKenzie Tree Machine...

Best,
Todd Ferguson

[Will Cheshire]

I am a new member and this is my first attempt to rely to a message and post a picture.  The picture I have included are fir trees and aspens that I have made.  Plus there is a bit of under story and a few tufts that I have made using static grass from Scenic Express and a Grass Tech II static grass applicator.

Will

[Mike Trent]

Will, welcome to this board, and thanks for the picture!

Those are beautiful, please post more.

[Todd A Ferguson]

Will,

Very Nice!!!  Welcome Aboard!!!

Todd Ferguson

On Jul 22, 2017, at 9:07 PM, Will Cheshire [via C&Sng Discussion Forum] <[hidden email]> wrote:

I am a new member and this is my first attempt to rely to a message and post a picture.  The picture I have included are fir trees and aspens that I have made.  Plus there is a bit of under story and a few tufts that I have made using static grass from Scenic Express and a Grass Tech II static grass applicator.

Will

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[Mike Trent]

Full disclosure, Will is a friend of mine and has offered his handmade trees for sale in the past, and plans to continue in the future around  time away from his current projects. For those who may not remember, Will's spectacular hand built On3 Telluride Depot won 1st Place in Structures and Best of Show at the Colorado Springs 1998 Narrow Gauge Convention. He is an excellent modeler, and can offer much to this board.

One of the "signature" specialties in Will's trees are visible in the above picture he posted, which are double trunk trees, and perfect major forks. As one who is well aware if his limitations in such doings, I am very much interested in getting on Will's list for a few of his wonderful Aspens and maybe just a couple (just a few, Darel, I know I can't get carried away in Dickey!) others for my now slightly less than barren future lakebottom scene here.

Actually, I've decided that I will have to force myself to go back and research Jeff's excellent technique for modeling willow bushes, as that's probably exactly what I need at the bottom of my backdrop looking East toward the mighty Blue, between the engine house and the section house. So I'll be wandering through uncharted territory pretty soon with that.

Will, if you'd be good enough, please post a picture or two of your double trunk trees, as well as a few others. They are very inspiring.    

[John Greenly]

Will,
your trees are absolutely wonderful!  The firs are especially catching my eye, I've never seen such realistic ones. Any chance of a tutorial on your techniques?

Welcome to the group!

Cheers,
John Greenly

[Will Cheshire]

John I am working on a tutorial on the full scope of making fir, spruce and ponderosa pines.  It will include the material used, the preservation of the material with glycerin and a pictorial / narrative step by step construction of  these trees.  However it will be late in the year before I can finish this.  

Will

[John Greenly]

Will,

That's great!   Sign me up as a customer for a copy when it's ready!!

thanks,
John

[Will Cheshire]

More trees.  Below are two picture of a double trunk pine that I made for Joe Crea two years ago.  The tree is about 26" tall.





Will

[Jeff Young]

Wow, great looking trees, Will!

[South Park]

  Will,

  I am a forester as part of my work (do all my work in full scale, and live).
Those are the most realistic models I have ever seen !  While many people
think upturned bottle brushes painted green is "close enough", I have always
admired those who master really realistic trees.  Outstanding work, Sir.  Cut
yerself another slice of raisin pie, Amigo !  

[Will Cheshire]

Thank you Jeff and South Park for the very nice comments.  

For those attending the 2017 Narrow Gauge Convention I will have a tree display in the vendor room.  As mentioned in an earlier post
I am putting together a step by step pictorial narrative on how I build these trees.  At the convention I will be very happy to discuss my methodology in building trees.  I started my learning process by watching Paul Scoles first video on his scenery techniques in which he discussed his method of building different types of trees.

Will