Palm trees are expensive to buy, but fairly easy to make. The basic method I use is from an article in Military Modeling, Jan 96, by John Wylie. I will outline his method first, and then some of the short cuts or changes I have developed. John uses wooden dowels for the trunk, the size and length depending on the scale you using. In 15mm I would recommend 1/8 or 3/16 in lengths of from 3-6 inches. His leaves are made by coating a strip of bond paper with white glue, and placing thin wire at 1 inch intervals. The wire can be purchased at ladies hobby stores. The wires should be about 3 inches with 1/2 on the paper. a second strip of bond paper is then placed over the wires and pressed down. Run a thumb nail down the sides of the wire to get the paper/wire bond tight and leave a rib. Leaf shapes are drawn when the glue is dry, and then cut out. For Date palms, (the middle east) the leaf is an elongated oval. For Pacific Islands, the Coconut palm leaf is more of a rectangle. Paint the leafs green. The leafs then have there edges snipped to give a frond effect, and the paint touched up. Bend the leafs into an arc. About 12-18 leaves are bound to each trunk with thread. The trunk is then textured with a thick resin coating, and painted a gray brown. I make the following changes. I purchase bamboo garden sticks at my garden shop for the trunks. they are hollow and you can cram the leaf wires down into diem, and secure it with some white glue. I use Elmers wood putty to texture the trunks instead of resin. It is cheaper, but a little messy. From being stationed in the Caribbean, I remember coconut palms as being pretty much one diameter top to bottom, with very little swelling at the base. They frequently had some curve to them. I also lived in Califorriia for 30 years where Date palms are common. Date palms vary. Most have straight trunks, but the thickness varied. Some were very thick top to bottom, others had very thick bases, then were slim from 6-8 feet up, on to the top. The one in my front yard was at least 35 feel tall, and three feet across at the base. It was about one foot thick most of the way up however. I bought a reel of green garden ties at the garden center. It is about 1/2 inch wide, green paper with a wire center. This is fine for coconut palms as is, except for the fronding. You have to shape it some for date palms. I found and purchased oval leaves at the ladies hobby shop made of silk. They make good date palm leaves. For small scale leaves you could use grocery store ties. To construct the leaves yourself, Avery self adhesive labels are convenient. Find one the size you need and follow the directions above without using white glue. John based his trees in small groups on hard board and terrained the bases with sand. Depending on your available storage space you can do this or base then individually on fender washers. Make the bases heavy so they don't fall over easily however. Back to MWAN #97 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1999 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com