Not your usual Christmas tree

(Workshop member Jim Martin has been quiet lately. We catch up with him, haunting the aisles at the dollar store...)

(Jim turns a gaudy bauble into a credible bit of scenery)

It’s been quite a while since I last checked in. I’ve been distracted away from 1:64 over the past several months with a side project: I am constructing a 7mm British O scale switching layout (or shunting layout in UK parlance) for exhibit at the Great British Train Show in Brampton, Ontario in April. Perhaps I’ll tell you about that on a future post, but the track is down and the juice flows so I’ve been playing with a bit of scenery.

Captain Cheap here is always casting his eye for unlikely scenery materials and I’ve found the latest among the dollar store Christmas decorations. Why twist wire in the workhouse when instead, your bleeding fingers can pull tree armatures off the peg at Dollarama?

Check out the gaudy offering on the left side of the photo. You can get two for a buck and a half at the dollar store. Looking through the red glitter, I thought a tree might be hiding inside. Open up the wire branches, trim, and hit with a couple of coats of rattle can primer to seal the glitter. Things now look more promising (centre). Finally dress the armature with your favourite tree netting and leaf material and there you have it.

(The dollar store tree as purchased, as primed, and as finished)

These little guys scale out to just under 20 feet tall in O scale or 25 feet in S*.

Till next time...

- Jim

(*required S scale content)