by Jason Hasert

Bumper Crop

How do you make a 1/64 corn field? How many times have we read that on Toy Tractor Show.com Toy Talk. It is a question I have been asking myself since I started my display. Hay fields are easy you just use train display grass. We tackled a wheat field in the July "Down on the Model Farm. So now we need a corn field.

Let's make a corn field for the 1/64 farm

My goal was to create a realistic looking toy corn field for my display to pose combines, grain carts and tractors in. I also did not want to spend a fortune to get it done. I started thinking about how this could be accomplished. In 2001 I was a display judge at the National Farm Toy Show and saw many super displays with corn fields. Displayers either used toothpicks or pipe cleaners to create corn fields. Both options got the point across but did not look all that real. Toothpicks looked better and people used green cellophane topped toothpicks for growing corn and yellow/orange toothpicks for fall harvest scenes.

The draw back in my mind to the plastic top toothpicks is that the bottoms are wood. I though it is better than nothing. So I headed off to the store. What I found was that these cellophane toothpicks come in party packs of 250 toothpicks in 4 different colors. The toothpicks come in red, blue, green and yellow. This was a set back but I bought 3 boxes of 250 toothpicks.

Next I needed a simple way to set the toothpicks up. I thought styrofoam would be the best way to go. Gluing the toothpicks was not an option and drilling hundreds of little holes into plywood does not sound like fun. I went to the Walmart craft section in search of a styrofoam base that would fit on my display. I found nice styrofoam boards that were 3x2 sections. These foam boards fit right into my display seamlessly.

Styrofoam base and toothpicks

Now that I found my materials I started setting up the cornfield. I placed an ERTL 12 row combine on the foam board and started inserting the tooth picks 12 across in between the headers snouts. This creates perfect 1/64 30 inch rows. The snouts help you keep straight rows. Just place the tooth pick right up against the edge of the gathering chains ad push the snouts into the rows you have set. Of course you can use a 4 or 8 row head too. In about 30 minutes I placed three packs of toothpicks on the foam board. That is 750 tooth picks.

Making 1/64 30 inch rows

750 Toothpick set in 30 inch rows

As you can see in the picture above I had quite a multi-color field of tooth picks on white styrofoam. I thought when I wanted a wheat field I took carpet and spray painted it yellow. Maybe I could do the same to create a corn field. I took my yellow paint and started painting. One issue I found was the paint does not like to coat the cellophane. The yellow paint kind dribbled over the toothpicks. I turned to John Deere green paint. This thicker metal paint coated the corn nice and even. Note that you have to shoot the tooth picks up and down and side to side. I did all of may painting outside on the lawn. I used John Deere paint rather than gray primer because if the green shows throygh it is more natural than gray.  This is perfect if you want green corn. All you have to do is lightly spay the tips of the tooth picks with yellow paint to create tassels. 

Painting Toothpicks: First Coat

Second Coat

John Deere Green Field

Ready To Display

Once I finished with my green corn I got out the dark yellow paint. I just painted everything over and then sprayed the scene with shots of light yellow to create texture in the corn. If you wanted to you could lightly spray the green corn so it looks like it is turning from green to yellow. The great thing is you can use the same toothpick base and just pull it up and paint it green or yellow over and over. Be careful not to directly spray the styrofoam base as the paint will melt holes into it. Spray lightly and you will be fine. One surprise I found was spraying just the foam. Using brown spray paint to create dirt between the rows I found it looked natural. I experimented on a board with out tooth picks. Sure enough it looked like dirt. I then used a bit of yellow to spray on trash windrows from the combine. This worked to show a kidney bean field and to show a field just tilled by a chisel plow, ripper or disk.

Kidney bean field created on painted styrofoam

Styrofoam painted as a tilled field

Foam boards are a huge help in displaying. I now can create corn fields, dirt fields and even a grassy field. Just paint lightly and you can create a nice scene on styrofoam. Having boards means I can change scenes with ease and without mess. There is no substitute for model dirt. The dirt allows you to make tracks, furrows and rows but it is not portable and makes for allot of clean up if you change your display as much as I do.

Corn field placed into main display

Here are some pictures of the corn field completed. To dress it up I used trees from a train store to cover up the edges and seams. Here in Kentucky corn is harvested from August into late September. I used a mix of green trees and fall color trees to create a KY September corn field. 

September field

I also wanted standing and harvested stalks. To create harvested stalks I pushed the tooth picks all the way through the foam so just the cellophane tips stuck through. I then created bare spots in the toothpicks by placing a combine and a tractor and grain cart on the board . . I placed the toothpicks around the models so when the field was painted I could place the toys into the clear spaces.  The toys look natural in the stubble rather than sitting high up on top of the toothpicks.  If you want to get really fancy you could make tire tracks in the stubble showing where the tires crushed the stalks and where they were untouched. I have not gone that far yet.

Setting the combine

Creating stubble by pushing toothpicks down for stubble

Combine place seamlessly into the display

Painted  grain stubble

Painted green stubble

I hope this article will help corn fields pop up across the TTS-Times members model farms. If you try the method described here or have another way please send pictures of your cornfield and I will post your projects in a future "Down on the Model Farm". The toothpick corn field built here cost around $15 to make. The 3x2 foam board was $2.99, the toothpick pack of 250 was $2.50, the yellow paint was $0.94, the brown paint was $0.94. I used 3 packs of tooth picks and two foam boards.

In October we look at bins

Now that we have a corn field ready for fall we will look at grain bins. In October our theme for TTT will be the corn harvest. Harvesting corn is the fun part but making a life like display includes storing the corn. Grain bins are part of a harvest system. You need to match your combine capacity to a number of trucks to haul the corn to a dryer that that can dry the amount of corn your combine sends it and then you need bins that can hold all the grain. "Down on the Model Farm will look at the Ertl grain set and custom bin sets made from Standi Toys bins in October.

Corn Field Photo Gallery

C&D Models Byron 8400 Sweet Corn Picker

Claas 860 scratch built by Gordy Schultz

Unloading on the go

Opening the field

Classic Harvest

70's Bumper Crop

TTT September 2003 Page 10

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