Ferguson tractor outside barn

[Svedberg]

Some time ago I built a Ferguson TE20, from a Heller kit, as shown in this thread:

I have now built a diorama as a place to show off the Fergie. The scene is a farm yard right outside a barn. The barn is shown as a single wall, built in a typical Swedish 1800 or early 1900 fashion, but having survived in to the late 1900:s. All items, excpet the Fergie itself and the spade are scratch built. And yes, the cat is a photo 😀

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2023 by Svedberg
Bad image links.

[Gorby]

Excellent job!

[bentwaters81tfw]

The cat want's feeding.

And I'd be wary of the bloke coming for that scythe!

 

Apart from that, that's yer average Fergy, unless it belongs to some tractor nerd wot goes around showin' it orf.

 

 

Dashed spiffing job by the way.

[Badder]

Superb dioramaship as always.

I could go on for pages about all the superb details and the fantastic tractor itself, but I'm going to pick out your Silver Burch tree and the weeds growing along the foot of the barn. I'd like to know how you made the weeds in particular

 

Rearguards,

Badder

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

As someone that grew up around a lot of family farms this brings back a lot of memories. Very well done on this. 

[Svedberg]

Thanks everyone! 😀

 

On 03/06/2019 at 17:06, Gorby said:

Excellent job!

 

On 03/06/2019 at 19:30, bentwaters81tfw said:

Dashed spiffing job by the way.

 

On 03/06/2019 at 20:21, Badder said:

Superb dioramaship as always.

 

On 04/06/2019 at 01:07, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

As someone that grew up around a lot of family farms this brings back a lot of memories. Very well done on this. 

And thank you very much for your kind words!

 

On 03/06/2019 at 19:30, bentwaters81tfw said:

The cat want's feeding.

Darn! I thought it managed on all the rats in the barn. 😁

 

On 03/06/2019 at 19:30, bentwaters81tfw said:

And I'd be wary of the bloke coming for that scythe!

Boo! 

 

On 03/06/2019 at 20:21, Badder said:

... I'm going to pick out your Silver Burch tree and the weeds growing along the foot of the barn. I'd like to know how you made the weeds in particular

I have come to understand that you are, among others, a "weeds and leaves man", so I appreciate your intereset in my tree and weeds 😀 

I assume you mean the weeds along the grindstone. Those were made from sisal fibers and Noch leaves. A some point I bought a bag of fibers dyed green (it will last a lifetime). I cut snippets of those fibers to use as stems. I want the pieces to be fairly straight, as shown to the left below. Next I dip them in PVA glue, followed by a dip in some Noch mid green leaves, as in the right picture below. If you dilute the glue with a few drops of water it will be less tacky and the fiber will pick up fewer leaves. In my opinion that gives a more weedy look.

 

 

If you look carefully you can also see some weeds with ivory shaped leaves. Those are actually pieces from a Mini-Natur ivory mat. I know ivory does not grow freestanding like that, but from a distance I think these small pieces can pass as some kind of generic weeds.

 

 

The tree is a wire armature tree. There are a lot of descriptions on the net of how to do those, but here is a brief walkthrough of how I tend to do it. Maybe some of you have not seen this before and find it useful.

 

I start out with a wood skewer which I cut to suitable lenght. I leave a piece that will be used to secure the tree in place in the "ground", and then start to wrap the skewer with floral wire. You can use any wire you have handy. Every now and then I let the wire do a loop, before I continue wrapping the skewer (step 1 below). You add a loop wherever you want a branch. Next I cut the loops open (2), and then twist them into the beginning of a branch (3). I then cut a piece of wire and bend it into a V-shape, and twist that piece to a branch so that it all forms a branch that divides once more (4).

 

 

When you are done you have a tree like the one to the left below. I then add various compunds (spackel compound and/or PVA glue and likewise) to the stem and inner parts of the branches to give them a little more structure and hide the wire pattern. A tree after this kind of treatment is shown to the right below.

 

 

In this case, a birch tree, I painted the tree with white and black colors (left below). Next I add static grass fibers. These act as smaller twigs and as a place for the leaves to eventually sit. I used 10 mm fibers in this case. To attach the fibers i spray the tree with hair spray, and then sprinkle the fibers on to the tree. You need to spray and sprinkle not only from the top but from the sides and the underside as well in order to get fibers everywhere you need them. After this step your tree looks as in the middle picture below. The final step is the leaves. Using the same hair spary technique I sprinkle on Noch leaves. In this case l used light green leaves, for a birch in early summer. Final result to the right below.

 

 

A tip when spraying and sprinkling, both the fibers and the leaves, is to keep to one side of your workspace when spraying, and to the other side when sprinkling the material. In this way the material that does not stick to tree but falls right through can be retrived and used again. If you spray in the same location at your workspace the excess material will be made unusable by subsequent sprayings. Eithe because you spary on top of not yet retrived material, or because it falls down on still tack hairspary on your work surface. How do I know!? 😉

 

Hope this is to some help.

 

Edited September 10, 2023 by Svedberg
Bad image links.