it's not as tedious as it would seem. I have drill press and a V-Block. It takes about 10 minutes to drill and taper a trunk. I do a few at a time. I cut wires in 2"-3" in lengths (by eye, I don't measure it), this can be done 5 minutes at a time and dropped in a box for later. the most time consuming part is inserting the wires, 2 per hole. some holes need to be opened a bit more with a drill in a pin vise and I need to add a drop of CA glue at the trunk to keep some of the loose ones from spinning. this takes about 30-minutes per tree, which doesn't have to be done all at once of course. then spreading & trimming the wires, shaping the tree takes about 5 minutes with a scissor. all of this can be done a few minutes at a time, when can only get to the train room for a few minutes. I make 6 or 8, then apply the sawdust to the batch, next day apply the static grass, next day spray paint, next day apply the static grass needles. each spray/grass application session is a 1/2 hour or so. being able to make such incremental progress, 10 or 20 minutes at a time, keeps it from becoming tedious...
I estimate if I worked on a single tree from start to finish, it would take 45 to 60 minutes, excluding glue/paint dry time of course.
I've noticed only dead sticks of branches on the trunks of some trees....I will be making some of those as well...
