"Woodland scenic ready made trees - spray varnish them ?" Topic

I have just bought i couple of large value packs of their smaller trees to replace my 6mm/10mm scale metal ones :

link

They are great looking trees that just need to be fixed to a larger base for stability and to use on forest mats.

But… can anyone who has these or similar give me some advice ? i am unsure wether it is a good idea to give them a quick acrylic varnish spray. Will this help protect them or cause a problem with the materials used ?

Any advice much appreciated.

I have not encountered a problem with using matte spray on these trees---got quite a few myself.

Mike

You should be all right. I no longer paint them by hand. I actually found an aerosol paint designed to simulate granite or other stone. It comes in several colors. I shape the armature, then spray it. Let it dry. I was amazed at the results. It provides a mottled gray, very realistic IMO.

Point being, both products are aerosol. I have done over one hundred Woodland scenics this way.

I spray them with hairspray (the non-perfumed, strong fixation kind) to fix the foliage in place. Works like charm and it's very cheap.

I used Woodland Scenic's Scenic Cement (basically very dilute PVA) through their own brand spray bottle.

A word of warning though: Make sure you've left the tree to dry THOROUGHLY (overnight?) or Autumn will come very early as you watch all the foliage drop off the armatures as the Hobby- Tac glue you used to fix it on disolves…

Your link goes to the top of the EC Scenics site; it's not you (I generated the same link), it's how their site works. So from there, scroll down on the left to select "Trees", then on the right click "Ready Made Trees – Value Packs".

Anyway, on your question, definitely use a fixative. I free-based a bag of these for wargaming years ago and for ages was picking fallen bits of foam up every time. The good news is the tree armatures look pretty good so even with lost foliage, the trees still look okay.

What I finally did was mix up a jar of thinned white household glue (PVA). I think I used 50:50 water:glue. Then I dunked the trees in this, letting it soak in, and stood them up on wax paper to dry, which took days. An intermediate step hung upside down with clothespins and a catchbasin underneath to drip dry would have been smart, but I didn't do that at the time. The foam foliage is basically sponge, so I kept having to replenish the glue, and it used up a lot of it.

Once the trees were finally dry, they were rock-hard and very durable and have not dropped much foam foliage since.