Figure 3
Bamboo Skewer and furnace filter conifer trees ... – by Charlie Comstock
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F
urnace filter has long been used to model conifer trees. I wanted a quick way to make medium height conifers, about 5” tall with foliage from top to bottom to hide their lack of trunk detail.
Bamboo skewers (shish-kabobs anyone?) are a great source of inexpensive trunks (Figure 2).
don’t dive through the material, instead staying at a nearly constant depth.
I found Cut-N-Fit furnace filter material at my local big box store. This filter is an unnatural blue color – we’ll be painting it though (Figure 3). One side of it has a rectangular mesh to support it (Figure 4). Figure 5 shows the ‘working’ side of the filter. All those little, random, fibers that do a good job of pulling dust out of the air are also good at mimicking branch structure.
Start a new tree by cutting a skewer about 1” longer than the height of the new tree. Tear the rectangular mesh from the side of the filter batt (Figure 7), trees don’t have rectangular branches! I cut the filter batt into small pieces, for a 5” tree they’ll range from 1 1/2” down to 1/2”. I tear each piece into multiple foliage layers. You can usually get about three layers of foliage from each piece (Figures 8 and 9).
Figure 6 shows the end grain of the filter – roughly 3/4” thick and comprised of many layers of fibers. Note the fibers
Stick the skewer trunk in a piece of pink foam, then use a toothpick to daub the trunk with yellow-glue before sliding
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 1 Page 30 • Issue 11-05 • May 2011 • The Scenery Scene - Bamboo Skewer Trees, page 1
Figure 2
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Figure 7
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