"Review: Woodland Scenics Tree Kits" Topic

I did a review of some Woodland Scenics foliage products here, and tried to make my own 15mm trees.

link

Overall, very good experience.
Anybody else tried them and has to add some comments?

Lanfrancus,

the trees are great, shape well and affordable. Like you, I ran into problems gluing the foliage onto the trees. Wound up using chunks of lichen rather than the foliage. Still, it always winds up a repair job after game usage.

Any of you other members have a glue recommedation?

thanks as always and happy gaming

Sam

I had good results with contact cement, has lasted about 20 years so far, some shedding but its largely intact. Only problem I had was a friend stored some flexible resin roads on top of one tree and the tree basically melted.

I used plastic model cement to glue clump foliage to the armature. Worked great.

thank you brslee and James.

can you men recommend a couple of brands to buy for both the contact cement as well as the model cement!

really appreciate the help!

Sam

Woodland Scenics makes a contact glue especially for their trees. You should be able to get it where you got the trees or any model railroad shop.

To minimize the shedding I spray my completed trees with a heavy coat of clear spray acrylic from a rattle-can. The foam absorbs the overcoat and will not come off under normal handling conditions.

I have found that with all wargame trees, it is best to spray a significant amount of diluted matte medium on the trees to make them tough and long lasting.

Woodland scenic does make a ready to use product called scenic cement, but watered down matte medium at 4 parts of water to one part of the medium, plus a touch of dish washing liquid work well in a sprayer bottle. We manufacture hundreds of trees each year and have learned to spray all trees (including any ready made trees we use).

Mmmmm…haven'heard about painting over the finished tree before; gotta give that a try.

I use a hot glue gun to secure my foliage to the tree trunks, works great!

P.

Thanks everybody for the tips!

I also have the problem of maintenance, the leaves tend to fall of the trunks after handling a bit.

Did anybody try the Woodland Scenics Hob-e-Tac?
I'd be also interested to get some brand/product suggestions on glues, so far I mostly use Loctite Super Glue, which is durable but impossible to spread over wide areas, so I just put it here and there on the tree trunk.
BTC Terrainman, doesn't matte medium make the leaves look glossy or shiny?

From personal experience the Hob-e-tac is hob-e-crap…seems it nevers really drys…which leads to other issues.

P.

Hob-e-tac actually works very good (we use if for some of our products including some trees). The key is brush it on and wait 10-15 minutes until it gets clear and tacky. Then you can add what ever type of foliage or material you are trying to add. Let it dry overnight, and then seal with a Matte Medium (like the woodland scenic scenic cement). The matte medium spray will lock together the bits of foliage, keep leaves and other stuff stuck to the tree (prevents/reduces shedding), and it gets rid of any residual "sticky-ness" that someone else mentioned.

Lanfrancus, if you use the scenic cement or your own properly watered down matte medium, it will not leave it glossy at all. Just remember to mix it well, and then spray it on very heavy (I actually spray my trees hanging from a clothes line outside before I base them). You will be surprised that a heavy "soaking" of spray will work very well on many types of trees. Try it out on the trees you are using. If they still seam to want to shed, after dry, you did not spray enough.

I've also had good luck on with Hob-e-tac over the years.

Thanks BTCTerrainman. If I used the WS Scenic Cement would I still need to water it down 50%, or should I use it as it is, with the sprayer straight from the original bottle?

Lanfrancus, Use Modge Podge Matte Medium instead of the WS Scenic Cement. Ue a Michaels coupon and it's much, much cheaper. I find that it's better, too.

Too late, I already bought Scenic Cement and I must say it works pretty well! Thanks again everybody for the tips.