One of the biggest cost sinks in model railroading...beyond engines and rollingstock can be scenery supplies. Trees for sure are expensive, but even Woodland Scenics ground foam is pricey when you consider it by the pound. And as new techniques like Rayon Static grass come around, the price goes up. I'm already adept at making my own conifer trees having gone through the home made bottle brush, Furnace Filter and Capsia styles. At this point, I'm pondering how to modify these styles to add variety to my conifer canopies. I've played around with my own deciduous trees and have seen a number of ideas. I reject supertrees, because you can grow your own or go collect them. or use much cheaper products from Michaels or the florist. Yet, the big price sink for making your own trees is still ground foam. It cannot be avoided. you have to use it for the leaves...or go to an even more expensive product. Or can it? I have to admit I noted a thread on this over at model-railroad-hobbyist.com on this topic and did some more research. Those guys on that board seem to be the DIY masters. Willing to do anything to not overpay for something. It turns out making your own groundfoam is one of the easier processes. At least based on the directions. Here are said directions http://dansresincasting.com/Ground foam.htm Imagine, instead of paying $10 a jar for a limited set of colors, you have literally any color you can conceive of or at least every color in the craft paint aisle. I've also read that you can use carpet pad as the foam. Scrap pad should be available for free and if you're willing to boil it prior to use, (I haven't decided on this) you could even recycle used pad. Anyway, I haven't tried this yet. I will be on the hunt at the local goodwills for a suitable blender or food processor as we don't currently have a spare. Anyway, has anyone on trainboard ever tried to make your own ground foam? What about other DIY techniques? I've used real material for forest floor and dirt (and sand) but are there any other materials that are easy to DIY? I've also heard of fake fur to model tall grass, but the description I've seen of doing it is very very complex, involves rit dye and an iron.
Seems like the "labor" and the materials cost to do all this might just cancel out any savings gained???---just sayin'. I've been building layouts for about 20 years, and I've still got left-over scenery stuff from some of the first ones. The stuff really seems to last longer than you think it would. I agree it's pricey, but "do it yourself", to me, would be messy, with unknown results, and a hassle in my view. One thing I've always wanted to find a source for for deciduous trees is sagebrush, now THAT I would love to do.........because the price of nice trees is OBSCENE!!!! Not meaning to put down your idea for "D.I.Y.", as I've thought of some of the same things, but decided against it for me.
I guess it "depends." Partly on how much stuff you need to cover with foam. I made my own bottle-brush trees when I was doing the Piney Woods of East Texas... For that, I could have used some help with bthe foam. Or if you were doing a large Appalachian scene with gobs of tree-lined hills. My layout now under construction is a semitropical urban island seaport, with not much trees except palms and oleanders. I have enough foam on hand for "forever" I think. I think I need something my dad had back in the 1950s for oleanders. I think it was called licopodium or something like that.
I have orders of magnitude more time than I do Money and I'm still working. Based on the comments I've read, If you exclude the drying time (which is fair since you don't have to stand there an watch the paint dry) and removing the time taken to acquire the materials which can be amortized across other shopping (if you live near a michaels or similar). I could probably make multiple jars worth of ground foam in the time it would take for me to drive to the LHS (which is very local) to buy some. I agree with it not being for everyone, but the directions are basically. Cut foam, put in blender, add wet water and paint, blend, dry. That's dead simple. As for Sagebrush, I suppose it depends on where you live. You could go collect it yourself.
This is my problem. If you're modelling somewhere with forests. You will burn through ground foam at a huge rate.
I made tons of the stuff (using those exact directions, by the way) and am very satisfied with the results. I used acrylic paint and have made many different colors, including some fall foliage colors. I already had the foam (leftover from a foam matress pad that I used part of for a DIY video equipment case) and an old blender (sharpened the blades first, though), and tons of paint (use it for the kids' projects, etc.). I dry mine quickly by wringing it out well, then putting it into a screen colander and sitting it on top of the AC/Heat vent. I've got it down to basically coarse and some medium coarse stuff, but I haven't gotten it down to the fine stuff I really need (for grass, groundcover, etc.). I'll post some pics shortly.
Here's two of the trees on a diorama I'm building: I used some Cat-5 wire for the trunk and branches on one (removed the outer shield and spread out the wires, then painted it all a dark brown color), and used a small piece of wood from a shrub outside for the other one. I used the paint along with some 3M spray mount glue to adhere the foam to the branches. Here it is again from on top: And here again from a street-level perspective. The left two trees are made with a small clipping from a fake Christmas tree wreath, spread out and glued to the foam. Back lighting outside shows the "square" branches more than you actually see them in person. All in all, I'm very happy with the results.
wait a second! According to MR, we're supposed to build a base with WS roadbed system, place roads using WS road system, then apply WS ground foam products to be attached with WS Scenic cement, then finish up with WS pre-weathered buildings..:tb-tongue: What's all this talk about actually MAKING the stuff? :tb-biggrin:
Thanks! I think they make great tree and shrub material, I just wish I could find a way to get it down to the fine ground foam for groundcover. I've been experimenting with ground up parsley leaves (dried) for this little diorama, but I don't think that's the way to go for my main layout when I get to it. Anyone else have any ideas for grinding this stuff finer?
Hehe, I bet they'll freak when they find out I cheated with PlayDoh for the roads and ground surfaces (even the ballast is PlayDoh!). :tb-tongue:
I don't mind that they use all premade materials, but what kills me is there are almost no articles on stuff like Static Grass. You know, the stuff that makes a layout go from good to great. Don't get me wrong, I like Woodland Scenics. Heck, I even use their realistic water product, because for the streams and rivers I've done it's been worth the slight premium. Of course, I used gloss medium for the stippling and I used clear caulk instead of their material for the running water areas. I make a time versus money evaluation on every single hobby purchase. Heck, at my old club up in Portland Or, they had collected so much WS ground foam over the years as someone would buy a bag here or there or not realize they had any etc etc etc that when I came through and organized, I found pounds of the stuff. They may never need to buy any.
And don't get me wrong, either. I think the WS stuff is excellent. I'm just dirt poor right now, and probably will be for the foreseeable future. I do have equipment, talents, and raw materials though. And good ol' Mother Necessity drives my resourcefulness, so I'll get by however I can. Plus, I love a challenge.
I think I may give this a try with the carpet pad approach. I just tore out 2 bedrooms worth of padding (unfortunately, I threw it to the curb with everything else), but I still have one smaller bedroom, the hallway, and possibly the stairs worth of padding left. I should be able to model the entire universe with that much foam if this works out. The Problem: My wife was reading this too, since she has a dollhouse and likes making trees, and before I could speak, I was forbidden to use the nice KitchenAid blender that we got a bit ago. "You spend all day at home by yourself, and I know that went through your mind, so forget about it!". May hit up the goodwill/salvation army today to check on a used one there.
Yeah, very easy and cheap to get a thrift-store blender, but either way I highly recommend spending a minute or two sharpening the blades. Makes a big difference. Which type of carpet padding do you have? Sometimes carpet padding has a plastic layer on one side and I'm not sure how well that'll work for stuff like this. Also, the multi-colored padding may cause some coloring problems (or, if the colors are right, it might make it even better). Your mileage may vary. As for me, I've got a whole bunch of padding from a couch I discarded, and as soon as I can find a replacement, I've got another couch full.
Ground foam is colored foam. C'mon guys start searching the web. It must be a material that can be bought cheap. Maybe a company that makes colored sponges has it. Wonder where the scrap goes? There was an article in the railroad press years ago where guys were making their own colored ground foam. They actually had the colored stuff. I agree about the static grass materials. Where can one find those fibers. I really doubt that Woodland scenics and other companies make it. They must buy it somewhere. I was at the dollar store the other day and they had some items of interest. A bag of stuff called something like woodland moss, yep it's lichen. It was ground up and not dyed, but it would make a nice addition to the arsenal of ground cover for only a dollar. They also had cheap scrubber pads. Ground up those would make good ground cover. This guy is using scrubby pads on his layout. The layout is huge so this is a cheap solution. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGcWBB3ujtw&feature=player_embedded I don't think it's the perfect scenery but as a background scenery it's pretty good. You could also grind them up and mix the colors to get variation in the hue.
The foam itself can be found all over. I've been using cheap mattress pads (available at big-box stores, k-mart, etc.) but I've also got a supply of foam ripped from a couch that was being trashed. And yes, it's CHEAP. Check the earlier posts on this thread for the how-to link. This is what my containers of homemade ground foam look like: I use those plastic covered containers that Chinese food comes in for both storage and in the coloring process (just grind up the foam, put it in the container, add paint and start squishing!). Much of what you see here needs additional time in the blender as well as possibly some more color before use. And ignore the blue hue, that's the light from outside the window. Again, all of this was made for the cost of the foam (already had plenty of it, got plenty more where that came from), blender (had it), and acrylic paints (had most of it, approx. 50 cents a bottle for more). So I may end up buying (or trading for) some fine ground foam for the groundcover stuff, but trees and shrubs are taken care of. Thanks for the dollar store lichen tip. I'll check that out. As for the grass fibers, I'd love to know as well.
That tree in the first photo is amazing. Great job! As for the rest... yes, WS has made a profitable business by repackaging large amounts of things into smaller bags and bottles. Anybody with some spare window screen or filter screen can sift dirt and get "ballast". Of course, some people have more time than money, and others have the opposite (worse) problem. You can save money, but you can only spend time. I use chemicals to darken/antique brass and nickle for my work. A quart costs me about $19.95. I've seen the same chemicals repackaged into 4-ounce bottles for "track weathering" for $9.95. The mark-up goes to buying the small bottle and the funnel, I guess.
The multicolor pad is typically recycled materials and from some of the research I've done it should work. (heck it might make for even better foam). The plastic backing would probably be a problem though it is removable. My club uses that same recylced carpet pad as track cleaning pad. So I have a regular source.
