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The Scenery Clinic: Pt. XX: Winter trees and details on a siding


Small pieces of Super Tree material were used for the dormant shrubs, above left. Industrial sidings usually have pieces of pack- ing and all sorts of trash around them (above right and below). The


cutters before I get started. At this point I add a piano wire peg to the bot- tom of the sagebrush for mounting the tree in the scenery base. Also, I use Aleene’s Super Thick Tacky Glue®


scrap paper, bits of wood, ground up leaves and the like were se- cured to the diorama with diluted glue. The pallets are a commer- cial detail item. Note the dead weeds along the chain link fence.


,


which I buy at Michael’s, a national craft store chain. The first in-progress photo shows the basic materials used, along with tweezers and a small pair of scissors. It might be helpful to pull out the May, 2011, issue of RMC and read about the “adventures of Paul and Walt” as we make about a dozen of these trees. However, for that project we added ground foam to fill out sum- mertime trees. Here we are making winter trees, devoid of their leaves. It is the same basic technique, but with very different results.


I snip off small branches of Super


Tree material, and, using the Aleene’s glue, attach them to the sagebrush branches. Starting at the top of the tree is the easiest method, by the way. The Aleene’s grabs hold rather quickly, making this task go relatively fast. When the glue is dry (it will be clear), I use an airbrush to paint the Super Tree branches using Floquil S.P. Lettering Gray paint. I try to avoid painting the sagebrush armatures, as I like their natural color. The second photo shows a finished and painted tree on the left, and an unpainted tree on the right. The third in-progress photo is a close up of a finished winter tree. It’s not bad for a tree that took perhaps 20 minutes to finish, including painting. Walt and I made nine of these trees in one easy af- ternoon of modeling and friendly con- versation in my workshop, a nice way to spend time with a friend and still be productive. The next picture is of a clus- ter of these trees deployed on a hill be- hind the factory. The dormant, low ly- ing bushes are simply pieces of Super Tree airbrushed with the gray paint. I also added some patches of snow to this


58 FEBRUARY 2012


scene. Note the litter of dead or dor- mant plants and leaves on the ground. Industrial areas often have a bit of scrap material and trash lying around. This is easy to model. Some debris was added by the end of the siding that serves 5 Star Manufacturing; the siding and adjacent areas are shown with and without the factory in place from oppo- site angles. Broken wood pallets from King Mill, cardboard and paper debris, and broken pieces of wood used to secure loads are all discarded along the siding. Other than the pallets, everything was free, either from my scrap box or trash can. Sometimes free stuff pays big divi- dends.


I placed the debris over wet dirt, sprayed everything with water, and


glued it all down with diluted white glue in an eyedropper. Detailing an industri- al siding with such trash and debris is often missing from otherwise well done model railroads. Environmental regula- tions and city ordinances may dictate cleaning up such refuse today, but in the 1950’s that wasn’t the case. As a teenag- er I recall seeing workers routinely pour solvents and paint into storm drains, throw trash into drainage ditches, and so forth. If we model that period we should model what was actually there, including the litter and pollution. In coming installments we will study more of the details that have been added to this diorama. I hope you will join us. In the meantime, you can contact me at: www.paulscoles.com.


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