| alan L | 01 Mar 2014 10:29 a.m. PST |
I have a couple of hundred N-gauge railway scenery trees bought from China on e-bay to make up a suitable jungle for Vietnam. As you may know, the trees come with a straight trunk with no base. My dilemma is how to best mount these in some way which gives a good overall impression of jungle but does not interfere with actual play. I think it will be necessary to be able to move the trees about on the table to allow movement through them as the figures of course will be based in stands, rather then individually. I was thinking of groups of trees based on old CDs but there is the difficulty of actually gluing them to the CD: perhaps a glue gun might work? Another thought would be to cut asymmetrical shapes of MDF board and drill holes into them for each tree which could be glued into position. Any suggestions? Alan |
| haywire | 01 Mar 2014 11:31 a.m. PST |
Options include but are not limited to: Cut the bottom so that its flat and try to glue it to the base (I usually have no success with this) Thumbtack in base, use as a pin for the tree. (some success, but tree still pops off and if inserted at wrong angle, comes out of tree. plaster on disc (tried this, but you get a mound effect that doesn't look so good) Cast bases from other tree sets Sculpting roots in AVES or air dry putty with hole for tree. Cover with flock/sand to hide imperfections and make neater. (my preferred) |
| Mako11 | 01 Mar 2014 11:41 a.m. PST |
I've heard the hot, hotglue guns actually work quite well. |
| Viper911 | 01 Mar 2014 2:13 p.m. PST |
Hi Alan I finished basing a bunch of trees from
China I drilled holes in plastic bases and super
Glued them takes awhile but it works. Could send pics if you
Like. Thanks Rick |
 Extra Crispy  | 01 Mar 2014 3:09 p.m. PST |
I have the same project coming up this spring. I'm going to try inserting T-pins through some cloth, then back it all with styrene. Then just push the tree down on the pin.
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| Borathan | 01 Mar 2014 4:39 p.m. PST |
With CDs, make sure you scrape up and slash up the side, it tends to make things stick easier. Hot glue works well if you're quick, and if you do, take a piece of heavy wire or a partially unfolded paperclip as a sculpting tool to make things look like something other than just globs of glue, you can make some rather interesting root systems with it. If you aren't that fast, some of the cheaper caulk tubes work pretty much as well, though are a bit more expensive. |
| GROSSMAN | 01 Mar 2014 7:09 p.m. PST |
I used the air dry clay rolled balls out and smashed them they come out perfectly round then stick the tree in the clay to make a hole drop of glue then put the tree back in. you can see one in the top right hand corner of this photo. I put three to four on most of mine- for scale the grey hexes are 3" and this is a micro armor game. link |
| Some Chicken | 02 Mar 2014 12:41 a.m. PST |
Assuming the trunks are made of plastic, how about melting the end over a low flame (say a candle) and then pressing it down on a piece of scrap mdf to give a wider surface? This is supposed to make gluing a lot easier, but does result in a slightly shorter tree! I have been meaning to try this technique myself for some time, but as of yet my Burmese/Vietnamese jungle hasn't got beyond the 'buy the stuff' phase. |
| alan L | 02 Mar 2014 3:15 a.m. PST |
Many thanks for all the tips: much appreciated. Alan |
| Lion in the Stars | 02 Mar 2014 10:44 p.m. PST |
I'd actually suggest a trick from the model railroaders: You attach the trees to some window screen or similar, very dense "planting" so you can't see the screen. The tree bases have about 3 rows of "tree trunks" around the outside of the area, but the center is empty. You just flop the foliage over the top and rest it on the bare trunks around the edge of the forest area. |
| Smokey Roan | 03 Mar 2014 5:22 p.m. PST |
Some Chicken has a great system, I've used it a lot. Use foam terrain boards, and stick them in holes, so they can be removed and re-inserted as well. |
BCamaro  | 04 Mar 2014 9:50 a.m. PST |
I'm doing the same scale and location for the upcoming Huzzah con. My plan is to set the terrain mat on 1" foam from Joann Fabric. Then wrap a T-Pin's "T" end around the base of each tree leaving the sharp end pointing down. That way the trees can be pinned into the scene and pulled up if necessary. You'd need to paint and maybe flock the top of the pin but at that scale and with some ground cover it could look good. B. |
| BCamaro | 05 Mar 2014 7:30 p.m. PST |
I did some work on my trees and I'm pretty happy with the results.
I put a spot of white glue over the part of the pin that will be visible and then flocked the glue. Now the connection is stronger and looks better too. Once you get into the groove you can whip off a lot of trees in a short time. |
