Gone before being finished

 Some things have to come to an end. Plans are afoot to extend the garage by almost three meters, as my son need extra space, so he can works on the cars without been in the rain or sunshine. Therefore, the station area has to go. This will be dismantled and the buildings put into storage, and as much reclaiming of track as possible.

Not is all lost, the river scene will remain and a single track will run around the new rear wall of the expanded garage, into a smaller shed to be built along one of the side walls. Here I will build a new grain silo station area.

The other grain silo area will possibly remain, but would have to loop into the new shed at the side, as a branch. This would also have to be lifted, as the main line behind would also go. Though my wife's new cat controller may not be happy.

Lets talk gum trees

It has been a while, in time of having more time a home, it was time to add more trees to the layout. (has been neglected for a while) One of my hates is a well crafted layout with gums trees the sized too small. A tree 100m tall in our HO scale world, only measures out under 30ft.
The most common eucalyptus tree in south eastern Australia, is the the Manna gum, or Eucalyptus viminalis. These typically grow to a mature height . so of 50m  (160ft), sometimes up to 90m (300ft). Scaling this out, we are looking at trees in our HO scale world of 160 x 3.5 which equals 560mm.

A few years ago, when I visited the Warley exhibition in the UK, a lady asked a tree maker for a particular type of tree she wanted. Can not remember what it was, but the guy asked whether she wanted in scale or not. She said yes, and when he said it was going to be over 300mm in height she decided not. That is say, while we might reduce the scale of our trees, there is no point of making an old mature gum that is only around 30ft in real height.
Lets increase the size of of our trees. It is not hard to produce trees to 200 or 250mm in height. lets take a look at some photos of Stawell in Victoria. https://www.victorianrailways.net/photogallery/westsou/stawell/stawell.html. There are some magnificent examples. Would we models these with tree scale out at 30ft in height?

When making tall trees, the twisted wire method is the best. I use 0.7mm wire, available at hardware stores, or can use florist wire, which is plastic coated, but more expensive. Cut lengths at over 200mm and keep cutting till you think you might have enough. The initial twists are the hardest, then comes easier.

This one is actually going to be a Peppercorn tree, but shows the tree made from florist wire. I usually find that even with a tree shape in mind, the twisting often makes it own shape. Get out and look a trees.

The next stage is to use modelling clay. This method came from a Youtube video from the UK and the modeller used Milliput. Milliput is quite expensive and is a two pack mix, so I decided on air dry modelling clay. You use the clay to beef up the truck and major limbs. When dry it is time to paint. Start off with a primer. (I used a spray primer grey from Repco).

The foliage is Heki Flor. Just pull off clumps and glue to the left areas. Looking at the above tree, I just end the twists in a curl, where to attach the foliage.

Added a mature gum to my paddock scene.