Making pine trees

Not too long ago I said I would post the process I use for making pine trees when I got back to that process. Well today was the day I started back to making pine trees. The series of pictures below show the major steps to this process. I must give credit to Fugate for this process which I learned from his scenery DVDs. While it does have quite a few steps and only makes trees acceptable for use as background trees it is simpler than any other process I am aware of.


The first step is to cut some 17 gauge electrical fence wire three times the length of the desired tree. I cut all of mine around 18 to 21 inches and adjust the size of the tree during trimming. I find the longer lengths are easier to work with.

After cutting 25 pieces to length I then folded them in half and bent an "L" in the open end.

Next comes the branches. These are made from whisk broom straw which is cut around 1/3 the length of the tree and less in this case about 6 inches. I find making all of them the same length and then cutting them later works just as well. This time I made two bunches one 6 inches and one about 3 inches.

After you have a supply of branches you need to lay them out and tape them together. The final length should be about an inch longer than the tree length. The tape is applied to both sides with one side longer than the other to expose some of the glue to hold this assembly to the wire assembly. This assembly goes inside the fold of the wire assembly.

Now it is time to turn the two pieces into a tree armature by twisting the electric fence wire. The "L" goes in the jig clamped to the work surface and the drill with an "L" bit goes in the loop.

After twisting the pieces into a tree armature you cut off the "L" and the loop.

I now have 13 things that are starting to look like trees.

Here is a closer look at the tree to this point.

From here we will apply some sisal twine. Then paint the armature and apply flocking. A little more painting and we will be done.