Making Trees For Model Train Layouts

October 31, 2005

A plant know as “Sea Foam” has great potential to make delicate, realistic looking trees. Depending on where you live it could be sold under a variety of different names. I’ve even heard it called ‘forest in a box’. Ask at model railroad shops and hobby suppliers.

Sea Foam on its own looks like small scale trees, but looks a little artificial and boring without some work. It tends to come slightly curved, so some manipulation will be required to get a proper tree shape. Try assembling a tree from various sprigs of Sea Foam rather than using just one piece. Use a larger piece as the main trunk and to which you will add sprigs for branches.

When joining pieces of Sea Foam together, you may need to strengthen the joints with fine brass wire. To add a greater girth to the bottom of the trunk wind a few pieces of irregularly torn masking tape around the trunk and seal it in with a mixture of wall filler and white glue.

When you’ve finished creating the basic tree skeleton, give it a quick spray with a dark greeny-grey/brown color aerosol paint. When the paint has completely dried, the foliage can be added by spraying the skeleton with spray adhesive or hairspray. The skeleton can then be dipped into fine ground scenic foam of the color of your choice. Alternatively you can apply foliage matting (like from Woodland Scenics) to the tree skeleton.

Another low cost idea is to use dried kitchen herbs for creating scale leaves. Different herbs and combinations of herbs create different effects. Dried herbs like Oregano, Thyme, and Parsley can be easily glued to the Sea Foam branches with spray adhesive. Put some old newspapers under the branches when you sprinkle the herbs over the tree foam. This way you can catch any herbs that don’t stick and reuse them on other branches.

After giving the tree skeletons a thorough coating of the herbs give them a coat of matt Varnish. The matt varnish will help seal the herbs and remove the stickiness of the spray adhesive. The trees can then be left overnight to dry.

After the trees are fully dry, some modelers then like to apply a coating of a white PVA wood glue/water mix by using a spray bottle. This can be done by hanging the trees upside down on some string and again left to dry over night.

If possible, plant the trees on the layout permanently. A couple of suggestions:

1.Use a small length of brass rod (1mm would do) which is glued into the base of the trunk and a small hole pre-drilled in the ground.

2. Or you could simply drill a small hole in the baseboard and then fill it with glue. The trees can then be inserted and the glue left to dry.

Note: Although Sea Foam is reasonably delicate, it is strengthened by the various coatings that are applied. The trees should be sufficiently flexible to withstand the odd brush with a careless hand or wrist. Also note, that some dried herbs can go brown over time, so you may want to add some green paint to the trees.