Palm Trees

Hi,
Does anyone have a source or a construction method for realistic Date Palms? I'm looking at planting 6-10 on my layout. They'll be foreground trees so they need to look realistic, or at least more so thank the plastic trees I've found so far.
Perhaps Loren has a trick for Palms?

Mark

Sam Trees of Taiwan has almost ANY try you want. Very low cost etched brass (flat) trunks for backgrounds or nomina cost painter twisted wire frames. A LOT of color choices too. Only problem is $50 minimum order, $16+ dollar shipping and about 2 weeks or more.

www.samtrees.com/cchanpin.asp?a_xiaolei=Plastic%20Trees

Click the Palm link on the left. As small as 1:1500 scale.

Jeff M
SF Bay Area Z
a.k.a. The BAZ BoyZ
Module Coordinator for NTS 2011 in Sacramento

Mark,
I have to concur with Jeff. These are the best palms available. Too bad there is a minimum. Let me ask Karin if she needs some and maybe we could split a package?

Loren

Thanks for the Sam Trees link. They have exactly what I'm looking for: the California & Date Palms. I was expecting to spend months to find appropriate trees (I'm just finishing the bench work). The only issue is that I haven't been able figure out how to order or get a price on the them.

Mark

Needtrains.com is bringing these trees in .. they will be here as soon as they can get them here .. Just let them know how many you would like .. Needtrains' pricing is a little better .. Needtrains.com

Are you saying your prices will be better or you can order less then the $50.00 minimum?

John,
Thanks for the link to the Sam Trees price list. Now I can understand why its hard to met their minimum order size: even at $2.00 per tree I'd have to buy half a forest.
The needtrauns.com solution sounds good. They are offering 12% discount on their web page. I'm not sure how they would be handling the Palm Trees since most of them are listed as custom build...but that would be an issue for me to take up with the needytrains people.

Mark

SAM trees have a lot of stock colors but they will make any qty (well, they used to) of any tree in any color. I bought dozens of several but had them vary colors in the 3-5 pc range so they would not be the same. "no promlem". Just a 3-7 day delay.

Jeff,
Yes, its interesting all the options they provide, although not so much so with the palms. If everything else is good with the trees, I figure I can adjust the color. The problem for me was getting the right texture. Most of the other trees I looked at looked like they belonged with a Playskool train and not particularly fixable. Since I'll be planting them at a density of one per SP station in the foreground, I figure I should start with the best trees I can find. Its just unfortunate that Loren didn't some sort of tissue-paper-hairspray oragami technique.

Mark

John,
At this time I do not have any ideas how to produce Mark's trees, but I suppose it could be done if given enough thought. Not a good time for me to even ponder the idea though as I'm behind on several projects and time is fleeting.

I still say Mark can get the palms he needs from Sam Trees. Since he only needs a few, he should be able to find what he needs.

For the palms on my Gilligan Island diorama, I sanded down toothpicks with in a dremel tool, cut some texture, used the old thinned indian ink trick and for fronds I used HO scale ferns from MEZ (80025) They are laser cut out of green paper like material. I also used some grass/foliage material where fronds meet the trees.
www.zcentralstation.com/index.php?view=detail&id=1461&option=com_joomgallery&Itemid=178

Kelley,
Thanks for the hints, particularly the HO ferns. Also I appreciate the link to the image. I'm somewhat new to the forum and never thought of checking the gallery for examples. At this time I think I'll order some of the Sam Trees and try my hand at a couple of trees like yours and see which I like the best.
Mark

I also took some fronds from those store bought palms and thinned them out and again used toothpicks shaved down to make those tall skinny California looking palms..if you are carefull you can try to bend them just a bit. Those are the ones I used to make the "Big W"