Christmas Tree Lot

Can't wait to see the finished product!

And if you goto Michaels A.S.A.P, they have various Led packes- some battery operated to light up your yard! [like we've seen on that movie "A Christmas Story"]

Thanks RickO.

prrhorseshoecurve thanks for the lighting suggestion. I'm already squared away with the led lighting from Evan Designs.

Finished making the tree racks. Had room for just two of them on the small lot space I'm limiting this to. Painted them a flat brown. Will "frost" them later with some white airbrushing to mimic snow. Here they are placed on the now white painted base. Also, found a larger 3" size pine tree I already had, which will make a good 12 scale foot advertising tree to put by the lot entrance. Fitted it with a 12-light led string from Evan Designs.

Started on the steel drums that'll be used to burn the tree scraps, the shovels and the figure that came with the barrel shed kit. The shovels are painted with Testors flat steel, with flat brown handles. The barrel shed figure came with a typical railroader hat, so I filed that down to look more like a generic cloth hat, then painted him. Since the barrels are going to be lit from the inside with flickering leds, I had to give them several coats of flat black paint to prevent the light bleeding through the barrels. Started dry-brushing some black, rust and soot paints on the barrels to weather them.

Picked up some of these red flickering leds from Evan Designs. These are to create the red fire glow inside the barrels. Here they are by themselves.

Drilled small holes in the base of the barrels and fitted these leds into them. Here they are in operation. I have some leftover Halloween spider web wool that I'll airbrush red and insert into the barrels to mask the direct view of the leds somewhat.

Still more to come.

Tom

Tom~

Awesome project! You have some great ideas there. The wrapped trees are genius!

I did a tree lot many years ago and always wanted to work on it a bit more. Possibly add a small camper trailer or shed. To both add to the scene and cover battery boxes. Make the truck lights operable.

can't wait to see more posts

~Bill

Looking like the Christmas Tree lots that I grew up with!

Bill, very nice tree lot there. That's what I'm aiming for. I also have some electrical wiring I need to hide and got started on that.

Sean, that's the goal.

Started on the workers shed, painting the walls and base and then weathering it with some light dust / dirt around the bottom of the walls. I already had on hand some Com-Art dark rust airbrush paint that I'd try out. Here's the as-molded part color and a painted test piece. It looks fairly red in this picture, but it was just sprayed and the booth led lighting really enhances the color.

Here are all the walls after airbrushing with the dark rust, and then hitting them with Dullcoat to seal in the paint and take off any sheen.

Airbrushed the shed base with Com-Art smoke color as I'm going to place one of the burning trash barrels on the deck and ash and soot would be tracked all over that area by the workers. I realize anybody with two brain cells would not likely put a hot, burning trash barrel on a wooden deck, but... I need to hide the wiring.

Detailed the window trim with flat white paint. Also painted the window frames with Testors drab olive. The Lionel kit does not come with window glazing so I glued on to the frames some scrap window glazing I had leftover from another kit. Since I'm going to light the interior of the shed, all the wiring I'm going to cram in there would be visible. So to obscure the wiring I rubbed the glazed windows with 220 grit sandpaper to make them opaque and give them a cold, frosted look as well.

Lightly airbrushed the lower portions of the walls with Com-Art soft dirt color, as this shed is in an unpaved empty lot.

Assembled the shed. Hit it again in some spots with the soft dirt paint to blend in the walls and base better. Left the area around the trash drum colored with smoke. Just visible in this photo, I've lightly touched up the roof with white for snow and frost.

Getting to the electrical stage now.

All these led lights are from Evan Designs. Epoxyed a warm white Mega chip to the shed's ceiling. Inserted the flickering red led mentioned previously through a hole I drilled in the shed's base and placed one of the 55 gallon drums over it. To get all the wiring into the shed, I needed to cut a hole in the base inside the shed. This Lionel kit has a non-functioning light for the shed, so I replaced that with a gooseneck led light, painting the shade a flat forest green color. The gooseneck light mounting tube is fairly long and would have hit the sloped roof of the shed. So before installing it, I very gently bent it downward to avoid hitting the roof. Once I had clearance, I epoxyed it in place.

So here's where I'm at. Testing the led gooseneck light.

Now with the burning tree trimming drum. Placed an Arttista figure a bought, #1398, Man Ice Fishing, next to that burning drum to get warm. It comes already painted and works perfect there in that setting. That figure comes with a thin wire fishing pole that I did not use for obvious reasons. Placed one of the bound trees and the other worker by the shed to see if this collection of stuff comes together scale wise. Looks appropriate I think.

Next, on to the tree lot base.

Tom

A-PLUS workmanship!...i like everything about this project...

any chance you could post a link to the source for the trees?...

howard...

www.littleglitterhouses.com

www.cardboardchristmas.com/forums/

Now that is awesome. Excellent work.

Thanks Howard, appreciate the comment.

Here's one link for the pine trees; 50pcs Model Pine Trees 5cm. These can be found on several sites, by searching for 50 pieces of 5cm size pine tree. Prices are typically $14-$15 for this bag, which is a pretty good deal.

Tom

Excellent job,  I remember the same type of tree lots in Chicago when I was a kid.

Great work!

Peter

Dave, Bill & Peter, thank you.

Started on the tree lot base, which I had already painted flat white for a general snow cover. Since this space is supposed to be an empty lot, covered by dirt, grass, gravel, etc., it'll get pretty slushy and muddy where all the people are walking in and around the tree racks to buy their tree. Positioned on the base where I wanted the two tree racks, the shed and a small tree display stand I made up that the sellers commonly do so the frozen, bound trees can be opened up and the buyers can see what they look like.

Started airbrushing with soft dirt color a general path around these items where people would be walking. Concentrated a little more where I plan to make the entrance to the lot. Hit this path again in several spots with a darker fertile soil color where the foot traffic will be especially heavy, like the lot entrance, by the shed door and onto the shed's platform leading to the door.

Added in the other burning tree scrap drum with the red flickering led to the base. Positioned this one near the lot's entrance where the workers would trim off the tree trunks for the buyers, and toss the scraps into the drum. Drilled a hole in the base where I wanted it and fed the led up from the bottom.

Placed the drum over the led, after drilling a hole in the bottom. Painted a small amount of spider web wool with dark rust color that will obscure the the bright led somewhat when lit. Did this for both barrels.

For that entrance area by the burning drum, needed to make a tree trimming platform where they'd cut the trunks. Used some 1/4" wide balsawood strip that made a platform about the right height. Painted it flat dark brown and then glued on one of the bound trees using basic Elmer's white glue.

Will move on to adding the lot's string light poles and coloring the base more with soot around the burning barrels and tree needles everywhere.

Tom

Looks great...really am enjoying this thread and can’t wait to see the finished project.

Really enjoying your detailed progress of your talent. Great work!

Nice job so far! Great idea and great execution.

Rich

Wow.  What a great idea!  I remember seeing a few like this in the Detroit area.

I really like how you walked through the process with your descriptive writing and the excellent pictures.  This could be a magazine article!  Well done.

Rich, John, richabr and NeophyteMRR, thanks for your replies and really glad you guys like following along this project.

Worked more on the lot base, mostly airbrushing on various layers of colors, soot, tree needles, snow and Dullcoat trying to make it look what an open Christmas tree lot in December in a northern city would look like. I've watched / read how great modelers on this forum (SIRT/Steve, Rich Battista, Neal Schorr, Norm Charbonneau and many, many others) do a seamless job of blending in colors and shades on their projects. I'm still on the airbrushing learning curve and had to re-do a few spots when it just didn't look right when the structures were put back on the base temporarily. Like snow / frost would not be near the hot burning drums.

First needed to locate where the light poles, the large, front display tree and the bound tree storage area by the shed would be to refine the foot traffic paths. As mentioned above, the light poles were made from 1/8" dowel rod cut to 3.25" inches to make a 13 scale foot pole. Painted them flat dark brown. Since I'm going to use the 26 led light string from Evan Designs for the lot, I had to move around the pole locations a few times so a light on the string did not line up on top of a pole (measure twice-cut once). Once that was settled, drilled 1/8" holes in the base for the poles. Also drilled a hole to feed through the 12 led light string that'll be for the front display tree - shown below on the right.

As a tree lot would have pine needles all over the place, especially under the tree racks and by the trunk trimming platform, I poured out of the tree bag some of the residue that flaked off the trees. This will be sprinkled on the base where appropriate and sealed on with Dullcoat.

Here are a couple photos of the progress painting soot around the burning drums, light and dark soil colors where walking would be concentrated, and began sprinkling some tree needles around the lot. On top of all that, started hitting some areas with white where snow would not be disturbed very much.

Realized I needed to frost up the worker's shed some too, which would have snow and slush on it around the base to blend into the ground surface. Also, as the workers would be walking into the shed from the snow covered lot, snowy boot tracks were needed leading to the door. Did this by dry-brushing some flat white on the wood deck.

Wrapping up the shed, I glued the burning drum into place (the red flickering led is inside it), one of the two shovels, some of the tree needles around the drum and added a few pieces of real wood trimmings from an outside bush, cut to look like tree scraps and branches. Added some more snow foot prints over to the drum and glued on the Arttista figure mentioned above, who's warming up by the burning trash drum.

Next steps are to finish painting the lot base and then start adding on all the other parts; light poles, tree racks, other burning drum, etc.

Tom

Maybe you need a hand painted sign with prices on it?

Tom, I just saw this topic.  You are doing a great job on the tree lot.  I agree it looks much like what I have seen over the years in rural Western Pennsylvania.  The burn barrels are great!  As you go along, I can see more and more details that remind us of life way back when and even in some places today..