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This is a rare species, found only in a small number of habitats,
characterised by the presence of individuals of rare taste and
wit and a high precipitation level, usually of beer. The materials required are:- Piano wire, in various lengths up to 20cm or so. Small scale plastic tubing. The cheapest option is to get a pack of 2mm tile spacers from a tile shop, For less than £1 you get 500 plastic tubes 3 or so cm long. Aquarium foliage that has small, slender leaf shapes. I use a type from Petsmart that seems to have been discontinued by them, but which might be available from elsewhere. It is sold attached to a square mat, 4 to 5 inches square in a cardboard tray, wrapped in plastic. There are about 25 clumps of foliage, each with 4 stems. Each stem has 3 points at which 6 'twigs' of leaves are attached. I call the part of the stem they are attached to the 'Node' - I'll refer to this in the instructions below. PVA glue. Bamboo coloured paint. Bark brown paint. Some inner plastic insulation from a 1mm electric cable. (This is optional) Sellotape, Insulation or masking tape. I use 2mm mdf board to base my terrain on, rather than fixing it to terrain boards. It means I can shuffle things around, it's easier to carry and store, and I can use it on cloth or other types of layout. The good thing about 2mm mdf is that you can cut it with a scalpel held at an angle to create a chamfered edge. No sawing and sanding, so it's quick. Tools required:- Pliers to cut and bend the wire. Scalpel or similar to cut up the foliage and the tubing. Darning needle or other thick pin. Long-nose pliers to cut and bend the wire, and which is used to crush the plastic foliage - detail to follow. I use a glue gun to stick the completed stems to the base. Other glues will suffice. Steps:- Cut a variety of lengths of wire from 6 to 20 cm. You need more of the medium and shorter lengths to go round the edge of the clump. I use about 12 in a clump. Bend the bottom end of the wire twice to create a 'foot' for the stem which will enable it to be fixed more strongly to the final base, and taped to the temporary base for construction. Tape a series of lengths to a card strip to act as a temporary base for construction. Cut plastic rod lengths. I use lengths between 7 and 9 mm, but it depends on taste. Prepare the foliage - cut away the stem just below and above each node. This should leave about 1 or 2 mm of stem to which the 'twigs' are attached. Splay the 'twigs' out horizontally, trying to spread them out as much a possible, and using the long-nosed pliers, crush the stem down from 1 or 2mm so that it spreads. Using the pin, make a hole in the centre of the flattened area. This is where it will be threaded on to the wire during construction. Pour out some pva into palette, add some dark brown acrylic paint and mix so that it is slightly darker than bamboo. Put small blob of glue near bottom of wire. Thread plastic pipe onto wire and push to bottom. Paint the tube a bamboo colour. I use 'Asiatic Flesh' made by Colour Party paints. It's an ordinary acrylic - nothing special. No need to wait for it to dry. Put small blob of glue on wire above the tube. Push foliage onto wire, through the pinhole made earlier, down onto top of tube. Ensure general direction of leaves is downward, which is opposite to how they were on the aquarium. Downward leaves look more like real bamboo. My son says so and he's 7 so it must be right. Another small blob of glue on the wire just above the foliage. Repeat previous 5 steps until only 5 mm or so of wire remains at the top. Cut a small length of the insulation and pull the wire out, so you have a small flexible tube. Push on to the wire, paint it with acrylic, put a small blob of glue on top, then push a single 'twig' into the end. The reason I marked this as optional above is that you can use another piece of plastic tube, but I prefer this because the insulation is slightly smaller and it grips the wire and the twig a little better. When you have prepared a number of these stems, glue them in a clump, tallest in the centre, to a permanent base. The foliage tries to push them apart, which is why I use a glue-gun. It gives a strong bond very quickly. Some tips:- Bend the piano wire on some of them so they are not all too straight. Make sure they are not all bolt upright. The foliage tries to push them apart, so leave out a couple of pieces of foliage at the bottom of the longer stems. You won't notice they are missing when they are stuck in the middle, it saves a little work, and it makes positioning the stems close together a bit easier. When positioning the stems, if they are not straight upright, ensure that they lean out from the clump - it looks a bit more natural. Save the tattiest 'twigs' for the lower parts of the stem. Pushed in with all the others you can't see that they are tatty. I tend to put a twig or two extra on the topmost node of stem of some of them. These extras are put on upside down compared with the others, so that it looks like some of the newer leaves growing upwards before hannging down as they mature. No idea if this is right or not, but it looks ok. Alan |
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