Construction Update #16 - State Line, Kentucky Part 3 - Ballasting & Super Trees

Ballasting

 

In this area, I used a mix of  Highball Cinders (2/3) and Dark Gray (1/3)  I spread the ballast with a 2" wide soft bristle brush trying to avoid ballast on the top of the ties or on the side of the rail.  Working on about a foot at a time, I mist on a layer of wet water (alcohol & water) followed by diluted matte medium applied with a pipette.  I finish up by wiping off the top of the rails with a paper towel.

 

 

 

After the ballast sets up, I normally go back and touch up a few places.  At some point, I will come back and paint the rail with Floquil's rail brown darkened up a bit with roof brown followed by a dusting of Bragdon's powdered pigments.  But for now, it looks pretty good

SuperTrees

 

On my Sn3 layout I begged for, bought, and even made well over 500 trees. For this layout I will need a lot more so I spent some time trying to figure out a quick and easy way to cover my hillsides with deciduous trees.  A lot of eastern modelers use "puff ball" style trees for this purpose but I find the best of them awful. Regardless of what I looked at, I kept coming back to SuperTrees by Scenic Express.  Unfortunately you can't knock them out by the hundreds in a day or two, but you can''t argue with the results.  Here is a sample of my first attempt at making SuperTrees.

There are several good SuperTree tutorials on YouTube so I'm not going repeat all that info here.  But, I did try several of the variations described on YouTube so I will tell you what worked and didn't work for me.  First, make sure you paint the stalks.  They come a yellow/tan color which is not at all realistic.  I used rattle cans to paint the trunks gray and the rest of the tree a dark brown.  Note the color of actual tree trunks in the background.

Use 3M Super 77 spray adhesive to hold on the foliage.  It is quick, easy, clear and holds forever.  Apply sparingly and sprinkle on the foliage material form above.  Don't roll the tree around in a bucket of foliage material if you want a lacy looking tree.  Use Scenic Express Super Leaf.  You can also use various shades of course ground foam but the end result can't compare, in my opinion, to the Super Leaf.  Super Leaf comes in a variety of colors.  I used three shades of green.  Use a clear flat lacquer to seal the tree.  Some people use extra hold hair spray because it is cheap.  It works but remains sticky for ever.

 Here's another photo.  The backdrop is about 3" from the track on the left and about 20" from the track on the right. 

Here is a photo of progress to date.  The area beneath the pile trestle is supposed to be marshland.  Not sure how I am going to accomplish that!  I've used about 40 trees to this point.