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Work on Shelby-Hendrix Speedway (SHS) continues at a snails pace, but at least one lane could be up and running this week. Once that happens I'll be torn between trying out cars and getting more work done on the track. But, given the gaps between sections that exist now that a lot of spare MDF has been cut out, I'll have to get to work on some scenery soon before cars start hitting the floor.

SHS is being built as a track located in northern California, somewhere between Redding and Eureka in the Redwood forests area. So I was thinking, at the back left corner of the table wouldn't it be cool to have a few Redwood trees as part of the scenery. MRC sells individual 18" tall redwood trees for $51. In 1/32 scale this would be a 48' tall tree. Given that redwoods can grow to be 250' - 350' tall I decided to calculate what the dimensions of a scale one would actually be - between 4.7' and 11' tall, with widths of 7" - 11". I'm not sure this would fit in well even if I had the ceiling height to accommodate it.

By the way, if you haven't been to the northwest to see these trees, you've got to put it on your bucket list.




Maybe a painted or photographic backdrop of a redwood forest in the distance will have to suffice.

Slothead

Oh, it'd be definitely worth while if you could do something large. It won't have to be completely to scale but some large trees would certainly help with spirit of place.

Have a look through some model railway sites for redwood trees. I've seen some done with the bottom ends of sunflower stems. Cut off at the point where the roots spread out and they make a great trunk and base like the above. They're then drilled and branchlets added. Another option, someone on Slot Forum International made giant redwood trunks from pink & blue foam offcuts. A wire up the middle of them would help with strength. But the foam meant there was no need to drill for adding branches.

There was a gent on Slot Forum years ago that built his track with some monster scaled trees. While super cool, perspective-wise it looked wrong in my eyes. I'd play with them and not go almost 5 feet tall. Just my two cents.