Yesterday I had the joy of having friends over for a tree making party.

My railroad, the Redwoods and Pacific, needs lots of trees so over the years I’ve had many tree making parties with many friends.

This time we tried a new technique using coconut basket fiber and BBW skewers to create the basic skeleton of the tree.

The skeleton is spray-painted brown and then flocked with Woodland Scenics coarse foam. I like to add a thick trunk using branches that I harvested from the backyard.

The trees look absolutely fabulous on my railroad’s terrain. Usually I add the trees directly to the layout, but here I was working on a liftout piece.

The reason is that this particular slope is fairly inaccessible and there was no way I could work on it. When I designed the terrain I planned ahead and made this section detachable. I have about 2/3rds of the trees installed. Once I get them all installed the section will be attached to the layout with all the trees in place.

I think pine trees in particular give a really nice forest effect. I can’t wait to see this in place on the layout.