Cypress Trees

[Nilmadic]

I only have one mock up of the cement plant as it will sit on my module. I am focusing on the sawmill first. The sawmill is a loosely based on a Georgia Pacific prototype from oregon. It will be sitting in the location of big creek lumber on a map, just north of davenport cement. Big Creek Lumber may have been served by the Ocean Shore Railroad way back in the day, but not anymore. It is a redwood sawmill. My model will not be a redwood sawmill. In any case here is the overall of the plant with super roughed in buildings.

[JoeD]

Way to pay attention to the roof detail!   Nice.  I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with.  I laser cut a model of the Monterey Station that came out really nice.  At the time I wanted to anchor the layout from there to the cement plant with some street/beach action along the way.  Then I got distracted by CGW for a time, built a sugar beat loader and wandered off into the weeds.     Now I am thinking heading south and start at Surf and move north and while Monterey is not on a direct line, it would be nice to have that someplace on a layout.

keep us posted

Cheers

Joe

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Very excited to have all those long sidings and industries for the SVFMN meets!
To keep this thread on Cypress Trees, Nils you should start a "Davenport Cement Free-moN Module" construction thread over on the Layout Engineering Reports forum.
Then keep posting picts of yr fab work!

[peteski]

IIRC, Woodland Scenics makes really nice cypress trees but as their top of the line trees, they are rather pricey. But maybe buying a package would give a reference on how to make them yourself.

I'm also not a big fan of steel wool *ANYWHERE* near my trains or layout.  That stuff is nasty when it strays into locomotive mechanisms.  I imagine that poly-fiber would be a viable substitute for steel wool (and it should be available in a dark color).  Poly-fiber is used for the canopies on many of the top of the line ready-made trees.

[Philip H]

JTT (part of the MRC empire) has cypress trees in their Pro Elite line:

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[Nilmadic]

JTT (part of the MRC empire) has cypress trees in their Pro Elite line:

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Yes they make cypress trees, but they are the type you may find in the bayou of louisiana. I need windswept pacific coast cypress. Not a tree expert so I don't know the specific dichotomy of the cypress family, but i THINK they are different than those cypress. maybe climactic conditions just cause them to grow differently?

This is the iconic "lone cypress" on the 17 mile drive in carmel. This is what I am looking/going for.

[Denver Road Doug]

Honestly, to me that looks like the "furnace filter" trees except instead of tapering clumps up the height of the tree, it's just one wider clump at the top.  Maybe I'm not explaining that well, but anyway seems like it might work if you can build the trunk.

[Nilmadic]

maybe that was a poor example on my part. Most of them look more like the one in the background. Here is another pic I found. With a little more research...these are Monterey Cypress.

[jimmo]

There's an article in the latest issue of Model Railroader (April 2013) about making wind-swept trees. Even though they're not, the trees in the article look a lot like coastal cypress trees. The methods might be helpful in the making of your own trees.

[Philip H]

There's an article in the latest issue of Model Railroader (April 2013) about making wind-swept trees. Even though they're not, the trees in the article look a lot like coastal cypress trees. The methods might be helpful in the making of your own trees.

Having finally read the article last night - I tend to agree with Jimmo that it's a technique that would work if you can find the N scale twigs that match what the author uses.  It would take time and be a tad bit roundy round, but I bet if you contacted MR to get in touch with him you could get him to get you some N scale versions of his twigs.

Now back to my regularly scheduled search for Bald cypress.

[mmagliaro]

I think if you go look at Sweetwater Scenery's tree kits, you will find bags of wooden twigs that will be perfect
for this.  They are actually sagebrush.

Unfortunately, I just went to their website, and it is a beautiful, revamped, front page, with no other information.
They used to have full product listings and you could buy everything right there.  Perhaps they are right in the middle
of a website upgrade.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I think this is one of the few trees that can be modeled with sagebrush twigs, which are usually too craggy to model trees correctly. I would try building the leaf branches by gluing short batches of horsehair, or very stretched out floor cleaning pads then using medium ground foam.

[mmagliaro]

I think this is one of the few trees that can be modeled with sagebrush twigs, which are usually too craggy to model trees correctly. I would try building the leaf branches by gluing short batches of horsehair, or very stretched out floor cleaning pads then using medium ground foam.

I agree.  I used to use them, thinking they looked really "cool", but now they look too "gnarled" to me, except for
perhaps a special scenic tree element like a great big gnarled oak on a front lawn or something.  But they sure look like those cypress trees to me.