model woodsy spots

[Bill Gill]

Here are a few wooded areas on my C&V RR

[Bill Gill]

another scene

[lab-dad]

Nice scenes!
More please!
-Marty

[Bill Gill]

Thanks, Marty. Those shots cover pretty much the few areas finished enough to photograph right now. One of the things I need to do more scenes is a way to make a bazillion bare trees for one whole side of the layout. Unfortunately that side gets a lot of sun in the winter, so I want trees that won't get brittle and crumble like a lot of thin real weed armatures will. I like twisted wire trees, but the number needed makes that impractical.

[finescalerr]

Adequate and enjoyable. -- Russ

[Ray Dunakin]

Beautiful!

I wonder if spraying the weed-armatures with Krylon UV-resistant clear coat would help?

[Chuck Doan]

Very nice work Bill! How do you combat dust?

[Bill Gill]

Thanks, Russ.

Ray, I've tried Krylon U-V on weedy stuff (St John's Wort, Goldenrod and a mix of other local weeds I've found).  I also experimented with a combination of painting some of those weeds with spray paint and then some with craft acrylics and then some of those also got the Krylon as a final top coat, but over time they all got brittle making them very fragile.

Chuck, because my layout is so small, I have a plan to make a dust cover out of a bed sheet and a few removable hoops made out of PVC electrical conduit, sort like a covered wagon. In the meantime, I try to stay ahead of the dust with a stiff 3/4" flat natural bristle artist's oil painting brush and a small vacuum with a piece of stocking over the end of the nozzle. I use both at the same time, gently loosening the dust and spiderwebs with the brush in one hand while vacuuming it up with the other so the dust doesn't just settle someplace else. That's how I know the bare trees I mentioned above to Ray get brittle fairly quickly. I found, for me, contrary to what i thought, a stiff brush works better than a soft one. I sort of carefully "stipple" the trees to loosen the dust. The soft brush either seemed to smear the dust deeper into the foliage, or to get snagged on the trees.