Trees are a great addition to any model railroad and the more you have the better it looks.
However, if you had to go and buy these trees from a hobby shop it would cost you a lot of money.
Here are 2 simple ways to make your own model railroad trees: 1) Find them in your back yard or go for a walk and find them.
Small twigs have a similar structure to the branch structure of large trees.
So, go for a walk and look for the twigs that look like trees.
In an hour you will find enough twigs to create hundreds of trees.
Look for the dried twigs as this will avoid problems later on.
Plants with small leaves can also work very well.
The best time to look for these is in Autumn as the leaves will have dried out.
Your twigs can then be trimmed to the size you want.
You can buy tree foliage from your local hobby shop or you can make it by using old sponges.
The sponges should be dried in the oven and then torn apart.
The foliage can be attached to the twigs by coating the twig ends in PVA glue.
Wait for a few minutes until the glue goes sticky and then dip the twig end into the pieces of dried sponge.
With a few coats of spray paint you will end up with some great looking trees for your model railroad.
The 2nd way is: 2) Make them from wire and electrical cable.
Multi-strand copper electrical cable is the best to use for these trees.
The copper wire is easy to manipulate and allows you to get exactly the she right shape of tree that you want.
The pvc on the electrical cable acts as the trunk and where you want the branches to start you would remove the PVC and manipulate the inner cores of the cable to the shape you want.
As with the twigs apply PVA and your dried sponge as the foliage.