Turbotrees - tree maker

[cteno4]

ok so you are tired of flocking your own tree armatures by sprinkling or the paper bag shake-n-bake methods, then you might try the turbotree machine!

 

http://www.atlanticscalemodelers.com

 

its a jar with a small 12v computer fan in the bottom that swirls the foliage around your tree armature with glue on it. you clip your tree frame onto the inside of the lid, dump in your flocking material of choice, put the lid on and turn on the fan mounted in the bottom of the jar and with a big swirl or flocking material to cover your tree armature. looks like you would get a better dusting all over the glue areas than trying to sprinkle and not the physical bashing and clumping of dipping the tree into the foliage or doing the paper bag shake.

 

other post on it

 

http://www.kitforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1531

 

basically appears to be a $3 plastic jar with a $3 12v computer fan, $4 12v power supply, and an alligator clip but is listing for $116...  im sure he has a big investment into experimentation to find the right combo of trees and height off the bottom of the jug, jug size/shape, etc to make it work well, so part of the cost is his r&d payoff, fair, but maybe out of the price range for some folks, but an idea that looks like fun to play with and all the components are probably laying around most train rooms to experiment with!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[qwertyaardvark]

interesting... but ultimately still too expensive  Granted, I've never made a tree before (but will in the coming months) that price doesnt seem to justify what appears to me to be a simple process with little or no mess. If he could take what knowledge he has in R&D now and just apply to a grander scale, like 16 or 25 trees at once, I might give it a second glance. At this point, I'm looking into just making it myself in much grander scale. One other concern I have is that the typical computer cooling fan motor area isnt completely concealed, so I wonder if small foliage might end up gunking up the motor area.

[cteno4]

there are scads and scads of fans like this out there. just need one with sealed bearings and motor. i use these lots in different sizes for cooling exhibit equipment, they are cheap and plentiful. the usual problem is just getting quiet, very long lasting ones. i expect they will last for a bit of abuse!

 

if you need to do lots then set up a few of these chambers at once. cant think of something to do more at once other than the old shake and bake or dribble methods and those do give some heavy clumping. this looks to give a nice fine coverage and i expect would be fast, about the time you have the glue on one the foliage would be on the one in the can, switch and repeat...

 

applying glue well is your limiting step i think, unless you are using hair spray on polyfiber, but then putting the polyfiber on may be your limiting step.

 

if you are doing a forest usually folks just do nice trees along the edge then a polyfiber mat behind for the canopy on some simpler pegs.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[qwertyaardvark]

if you need to do lots then set up a few of these chambers at once. cant think of something to do more at once other than the old shake and bake or dribble methods and those do give some heavy clumping. this looks to give a nice fine coverage and i expect would be fast, about the time you have the glue on one the foliage would be on the one in the can, switch and repeat...

 

applying glue well is your limiting step i think, unless you are using hair spray on polyfiber, but then putting the polyfiber on may be your limiting step.

 

Ah... I see making trees is a little more complex than i previously thought. Sorry if i sounded like an ignorant n00b. ^^;; I'll have to see for myself what results i get from traditional tree making methods when I begin making trees for my layout. I take it the material swirling inside is far finer than WS clump foliage? And considering the "switch and repeat" process, perhaps just one or two machines ought to be enough. Definitely though would still try to make the machine myself.

[cteno4]

No worries, there are lots of ways to skin a cat so to speak. foliage application is something personal, folks always have their own way the prefer the best or think is the easiest way or gives the result they want!

 

i think the advantage of the fan swirl method like this looks to be that you get the foliage applied very finely if you want to do smaller trees or with finer foliage material for finer leaf detail. you can spend a huge amount of time on trees, thats for sure!

 

definitely is something you will need to play with if you are going to do a lot of trees as getting that assembly line down will be important.

 

keep us posted with your experiments, always great to see what folks learn! i want to try making one of these machines, but wont have the time till spring to get into one...

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Bernard]

Jeff - What a neat idea you found. I've tried the WS glue/clump method and I stink at it. What tree armatures can you use, do they have to be the plastic ones? At my LHS Bachmann came out with a new product that is twisted wire with flocking on it. You get about 60 trees in a box, they vary in size but are really all small. What I like about the wire is that it is easy to shape.

Here is a photo of one tree and this is about the size of most of them in a package:

But this worth a trip to Radio Shack! How big do you think the jar would have to be?

[Guest ___]

I never liked doing trees. We had a guy in my club (HO) that was obsessed with making trees. He made them for everyone. Of course we had a guy who was also big in to painting figures for the layout, and that was all he use to do. But  getting back to the trees, I'm not sure Art would have approved of using a computer fan in a jar to make trees.

[Bernard]

I never liked doing trees. We had a guy in my club (HO) that was obsessed with making trees. He made them for everyone. Of course we had a guy who was also big in to painting figures for the layout, and that was all he use to do. But  getting back to the trees, I'm not sure Art would have approved of using a computer fan in a jar to make trees.

Okay....fair enough, then I'll take Art instead! Tell him I need about 200 trees. (I don't like doing trees either) 

[Guest ___]

I never liked doing trees. We had a guy in my club (HO) that was obsessed with making trees. He made them for everyone. Of course we had a guy who was also big in to painting figures for the layout, and that was all he use to do. But  getting back to the trees, I'm not sure Art would have approved of using a computer fan in a jar to make trees.

Okay....fair enough, then I'll take Art instead! Tell him I need about 200 trees. (I don't like doing trees either) 

 

Art sorta passed away a few years ago. My best mate, does the trees for me now, but he charges me a bit in sushi. then again he springs for the Guinness so it all balances out.