“I talk to the trees, that’s why they put me away” – Eccles, “The Goon Show”
August 11, 2011
This final experimental batch of trees made from armatures are done. Here they are, immediately after a good spraying with Dullcote to seal them: 
. Covering the bases with lots of glue to try to reduce the sharp and unnatural angles/contours of the film cannister lids did not quite work: 
but at least the coarse turf does soften those angles/contours a bit: 
. So, it seems to me that I’ve worked out the best techniques for preparing plastic tree armatures to become wargaming trees – simple PVA glue to affix lichen; a good spraying with watered-down PVA glue a couple of days later and then careful application of covering flock or turf is all that’s really required. Forget Hob-e-tac! Forget Clump Foliage! Trees made with those don’t survive regular handling and accidental knocking over. So, experiment and project complete.
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I bought some more Heki apple trees yesterday. I already have 6, but on the table they make a small orchard and I wanted to have either a big orchard or two small ones. I have also decided to refurbish the trees I have with very warped bases, so I’m going to do them all these trees in one big batch: 
. However, I have finally finished all the fiddly gluing and preparatory painting for my Panzer IIIs and Krupp Boxers, so they will be getting full priority from now on: 
.
Eastern Funker's 'Panzerfaust: Armoured Fist' blog 
Those look absolutely terrific! But as much as I like them, I simply don’t have the patience to make my own trees.
This whole year I’ve been trying different techniques and products with these plastic tree armatures. This last method is actually the easiest and cheapest!
I’m not in a hurry to make more using these armatures…I want to try my bottle-brush tree-making techniques again – but I’d say give it a try, the results are very satisfying.
wicked detail, best looking trees around mate
You are a sucker for punishment EF, good to see you staying the course.
I have a Woodland Scenics tree kit with 20 so-called trees sitting on my work desk. Now I’m intimidated by them, after reading the tree saga.
Don’t be. You may have a very different experience to me. But I wouldn’t advise doing them all in one sitting – that would be my piece
of advice to you. Try making single trees until you feel you have the techniques and procedures completely under your belt. I rushed ahead and did mine in clutches of 6 and then was disappointed in multiples. I also get the glue many months after it’s made – you live in the same country where it’s made, the glue may work better for you.
I will buy more of those armatures in the future if I need more trees – but I’ll do them with lichen and simple PVA/white glue/wood glue (whatever you prefer to call the stuff) like you see at the end of the saga, as I’m happy with those.
Ultimately, it’s what you are happy with.
Your blog shows promising upcoming topics – I’ll add it to my list. Thanks for reading mine!
I think I need to pick up some of the official Woodland Scenics glue. I’ve tried PVA once, but it didn’t seem to have enough tackiness to get the job done. Perhaps I didn’t apply it thickly enough or tried to soon, or something.
I’m almost to the point that doing trees and bocage is all that is holding me back on my current project, so I’ll have to face my ‘fears’ sooner than later.
Thanks for the blog add-I’ll try to keep it mildly interesting.
Tim
P.S. Sorry about the delayed reply-I just discovered the ‘Comments I’ve Posted’ section of the control panel.
Oh yes, you’ve got to use their specific glue – Hob-e-tac – for those tree kits of thiers. I did until middle of this year, when, after all those experiments you read about in this blog, I decided that I wasn’t happy with the hardiness of the finished product and just decided to use normal PVA, the tree armatures and lichen to make trees with. I’ll be interested to see what your thoughts are.