Freshly picked lichen is cleaned and trimmed by cutting away the dirt from the bottom (above) and picking out the needles and other unwanted materials while the lichen is still wet. The cleaned lichen (below) is ready for drying on a screen (bottom). Once this stage has been reached, the lichen can be stored indefinitely or immediately processed with glycerin solution.
it is dry, the lichen can be carefully stacked dry in a box and stored for years before further processing. You do not want an airtight seal at this stage, so don’t put it in a plastic bag. A few small holes in the box won’t hurt. I have kept lichen in this state for five years, and it did not affect the final product. It is this drying stage that most mod- el railroad articles have omitted. When you process the lichen you are replacing the original water in it with glycerin. If you do the processing before it is com- pletely dry in a few years the lichen will dry out the rest of the way and fall apart. All of the water needs to be gone before the glycerin solution can go in. What is the proper solution for pro- cessing? Most manuals will give you a ratio of 1 part glycerin to 3 parts water. This tends to make the final product a little greasy, so I always use 3.5 parts water to 1 part glycerin. If you want to dye the lichen, which I usually do, now is the time to add the dye. I add one half of a pack of Rit®
pow-
dered dye per two gallons of solution. I use gray but have done everything from tan to dark brown. The darker the color, the less dye you want to use. I even do some with no dye at all. Put the water-glycerin solution and dye in some type of pot for cooking. I use an old metal bucket that has a handle for moving it. Put the solution on the stove and bring it to a very low simmer, then throw in the dry lichen a piece at a time. It will quickly soak up the solution. Keep adding lichen until you can add no more. Don’t try to force it in. Five min- utes simmering is generally enough. Remove the pot from the heat and al- low it to cool until you can handle the lichen. I use a pair of dishwashing gloves for this step. When cool enough, grab the lichen, squeeze the excess solu- tion back into the bucket, and place the
quality lichen and stay away from the lichen that has moss growing up through it. Tie up the bag to keep the moisture in. At this point you have about three or four days to do the next step.
Processing lichen Remove the lichen from the bag. Make sure it is damp and soft. If not, spray it with some water, since this step requires the lichen to be soft and pliable. Now pick out all the leaf parts, twigs and pine needles. I use an old pair of scissors to cut off the bottom area that contains the wet dirt. You will still have plenty without it. Once you have removed all the trash from the lichen, place it on an old screen to completely dry out. If you don’t have an old screen, newspapers will do. When
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN 73
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