I figured the background of Landswood Park would benefit from the enhancement given by a tree, and it would add to the rural theme. Given the model consists mainly of brick buildings and cobbles, it needs all possible help on that front!
Construction is by the traditional method of twisted wire, a job I find is much easier than it sounds, and quite therapeutic, although if you were making a forest a faster method may be required! The wire was sold as a bundle for tree making for about 50p, and should make about three trees of this size.
The long trunk is for mounting into a pocket on the back of the boxfile, as shown below. Once twisted to a suitable shape the whole lot is soldered, to stiffen it and to smooth the trunk a little. A blow torch would probably be useful for this, but my 25W iron did the job!
At the moment the tree is fixed behind the building and will slot in once the layout is set up. I'm now not sure if that looks too much like it is growing out of the building, so may move it along to the gap between the buildings, with the trunk behind a fence.
This photo shows preparation for the ground cover, which will be cobbles scribed into clay. However putting clay around the moving parts of the pointwork is asking for trouble, so instead I thought I'd cover them up with chequer plate. It is in fact Slaters plasticard, 4mm scale but looks fine to me, cut to fit and mounted just below rail height. Once the clay is in place it will be flush with the ground, but of course could easily be prised up should a point need attention, which the clay could not! The insides of the buildings have received a card floor - I was going to use plasticard, but thought the texture of card looked more like concrete.
I might be the only person in the world who can't do this. Every time I try I end up with something that looks like a bad hair dau rather than a tree.
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