Making some SuperTrees
Was excited when my friend Jim picked up the SuperTrees from George's Trains and have finally got some time to experiment. I had seen a few youtube videos and reviews and was anxious to give it a try as I am planning to build 100's of them for the 8Paws_RailLine.
Even the minions were excited.
Opening the box you need to be careful when separating and sorting the 'trees'. They are fragile and can break easily.
After sorting, I soaked them in a mixture of Matte Medium and warm water (like for 10min) to provide some stiffness after they are dry. It was also a good way to straighten those that were a bit bent (and there will be many).
For those that were bent, I hung them upside down and used a clamp to weight them down enough to allow to dry.
The others went in a simple jig right away that would be used for painting of the trunks and holding them when needing to dry, and painted with Tamia flat brown.
After the paint was dry, I used Aleene's Tacky Spray carried at Wal-Mart to coat the trees and then sprinkle on the foliage supplied in the package. Other colors of foliage are available from UDISO in Montreal (go there!). The jig comes in handy again to allow them to stand while drying overnight. Tweezers are good to handle the now sticky trees with.
The Tacky Spray needs to be used in a well ventilated area. This product is VERY sticky. Soap and water are almost useless for cleanup. Likely a very bad thing to use to clean your fingers off and any tweezers, but works like a charm, is a bit of WD40 on a rag.....
Here are the results before a final sealing of the trees with a spray of diluted Matte Medium (or Dull Cote works great too).
Now onto making more trees!
