One of my gaming buddies has been making large trees for a number of years. I have a number of his trees in my collection and use them in my 25mm skirmish based games. I like them, as they look good and have a good amount of height. I had been filling out my tables with some woodland scenics trees, but really wanted a few more of my buddy’s trees to fill out my collection.
Well, I went to visit him a month ago and he agreed to make more trees for me and another buddy of mine. However, I would have to help him out! Well, this is not really my hobby point of interest, but what the heck. At worst, I would see how he did them and be able to post them on this blog for everyone else to see!
So, we headed to the local hobby shop and hardware store to get the materials. With that, we got to work!
List of Materials
- Hemp or sisal rope usually 1/2 think or better. Cut into 4, 3, 2 inch pieces. Roughly about 1 foot of rope will make 3 trees depending on height of course.
- 3/16 fiberboard cut into an irregular shape
- Wire .030 or 20 gauge or thicker. Floral wire will not work as it is too flexible. Needs to be stiffer. Decide what height you want double it then add 4 inches. Fold wire in half. Pinch tip. This will give you a tree about the size you want plus 2 inches to make the base.
- Dark brown spray paint
- White glue
- Liquid nails to bond the tree to the base.
- Locking pliers. 2 pair. Vice grips work well too. But safety wire pliers work best. They are available from Harbor Frieght.
- Woodland scenics static grass.
- Spray bottle for glue. Dilute about 50/50 to spray trees after the static grass is dry.
- Paint brush to apply glue the first time. You must water down the glue before applying to the bare branches or the glue it to sticky and the branches will stick together. About 25% water to 75% glue.
- Colored chaulk. For tree trunk.
- Black wash for tree trunk.
- Scissors to trim tree to shape. I usually do this after I spin the tree and it is dried to the base. Before I spray them brown. You can also trim them up after they are completely done.
Steps
- Cut bases out of mdf board with coping saw.
- Sand and bevel edges of board with rasp and/or hand sander.
- Cut wire various sizes, based on tree height.
- Cut rope into 2/3/4 inch sections.
- untwist rope into fibre.
- Loop wire in half.
- Insert rope fiber between wire. Start with smaller sections at top and then stack larger sizes going down.
- Twist wire with locking pliers by holding both ends of the tree wire and twisting until tight.
- Shape and trim rope fiber with scissors.
- Bend base of wire into shapes to allow for free standing.
- Add caulk to wood base and insert base of tree wire, coving any exposed wire with the same caulk. Set tree aside and wait a day for the could to dry.
- Add more calk to the exposed tree trunk at bottom and shape it with a paint brush.
- Spray the bottom of the tree with brown (to give some dead branch effect and cover the base).
- Spray the rest of the tree with a shade of green. Weight a day for the paint to dry.
- Spray the tree rope with white glue and water. Sprinkle the brown static grass on the bottom of the tree branches.
- Sprinkle green static grass on the majority of the tree.
- Spray the tree again with the white glue and water mix and let it dry.
- Apply putty, caulk of ballast to the base to simulate the ground.
- Paint/drybrush base and add flocking.
- Spray the entire model with Dull coat to lock everything in.
With that, you have some trees on the cheap!
- Manteuffel