# Help with bottle-brush pine trees



## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

I started making up some more trees today, but I'm having an odd problem. My technique is the regular twisting up wire to trap natural rope fibers, hitting them with a dark flat spray paint, then using cheap hairspray as a glue for the ground foam...

The problem is that I don't seem to be getting good 'stickage' towards the outside of the bottom branches. I try going back over them a few times, pouring on a heavy amount of the foam, waiting a minute and then tapping off the excess. It just keeps building up in the center but leaving bare branches on the outside. Even if this was fairly consistent, it would look pretty good, but as you can see below I don't really have a problem with coverage towards the top, it's mostly down at the bottom.










I guess it doesn't show that well in the photo, but you can see the effect best in the tree on the right (although I got a bad angle on that shot, most of the branches are actually cut in a standard triangular shape), how the foam gives it more of a teardrop shape rather than a triangular shape. If I can figure this out I'd be really happy with how these are turning out.

By the way, for anyone who thinks they can't make their own trees... these are my first three trees, in order from left to right. I've never even tried making trees from a kit before, I just saw someone making these at a show in December and thought to myself "hey I can do that!".


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

I haven't tried it myself, but some people use diluted Aileens' tacky glue, maybe 1/2 inch in a pan and roll the tree in there, shake it off a bit, and then roll in ground foam, ..
those look pretty good ..


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Thanks, I'm pretty happy with, as I mentioned, my first try at making trees. I kinda figured there was a problem with the hairspray not being sticky enough, but it worked so well for the guy who was doing the demo (and I'm using exactly the same stuff), so I can only assume it is my technique that is failing.


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