Important Points:
1. PE needles are 3-D / PVC are 2-D
2. Most PE trees have PVC in the center to provide depth and density.
3. Shop for Realistic Christmas Trees
Transcript:
The differences between a Traditionally Manufactured Artificial Christmas tree versus a More Modern Manufactured Artificial Christmas tree.
The first thing that you’ll notice is the branch. This branch is constructed by taking a sheet of plastic and then that plastic is cut or shredded. And then there’s 2 pieces of wire that are twisted around that plastic; twisted very hard, very tight to create this style of branch. That’s also called the “bottle brush” technique. This is the technique that’s been used for a very long time. Since I was a little boy this was the manufacturing technique that was used. And this manufacturing technique is still used today. It is very popular, it is the most popular technique.
This tree is going to have a more molded look. This branch is created using a mold, where they talk the mold and they do what’s called the injection. They’re injecting the plastic into the mold in order to create the branch. The big difference is you can see this branch has much more body; it’s more of a 3D. It actually creates the closeness; you actually see individual needles as opposed to this. While you can see individual needles, they’re flat; more of a 2D style and they’re squishable and bendable. This manufacturing technique is still used today and is very, very popular.
Which of these techniques is going to be perfect for you? It’s really a matter of opinion. If you’ve owned artificial Christmas trees before, maybe you’ve owned an artificial Christmas tree for the last 5, 10, 15 years you’re going to be more used to this style of branch. Your ornaments, the way that you decorate the tree, this is going to be the technique that you will typically gravitate towards. If you’re someone that has, maybe you’ve only had 1 artificial tree or maybe this is the first artificial tree you’ve ever owned, then this style of branch is going to be the superior choice for you. Simply being that this tree looks more realistic. This tree when you look at it, if you look at it from a couple of steps back, it takes awhile for your eyes to adjust to understand that this is an artificial branch.
Now notice this tree does have the traditional style branch back in the tree. These are more of the 2D needles. The reason why is to create the depth of the tree; to create the density of the tree so the center pole is not so obvious. This style of branch does a better job of covering up those holes. The other piece is that if you’ve built the tree entirely out of this style of branch while creating the density and the depth using this style of branch all the way through, that tree is going to be very expensive. There are a few trees out there that are made only of these realistic tips but those tend to be more sparse and they tend to be more expensive.
As far as ornamentation is concerned, this style of branch is going to be a little bit more advantageous for doing heavy, heavy ornaments. I don’t mean heavy in weight, I mean putting lots of ornaments on the tree. The reason why is because this is going to have a little more flexibility. You can bend it all the way back. If you just want to get it out of the way you can bend it all the way back on itself.
Now on this tree you can bend this branch the same way but you can’t bend it all the way back. If you bend it all the way back it would look unnatural. You’re not going to be able to hide certain branch tips by bending it back. Another point that I would like to make is some of the realistic trees have what we call floppy tips. That means that as the mold comes out, there’s no metal inside of it. And so if you try to hang an ornament, it would flop down.
This particular tree what I believe is important is finding the trees that have the wire in the branch that go all the way to the tip. You can literally, if you need to, you can bend the branch right at the very tip and not have to worry about it.
Next when you’re choosing the 2 different styles of trees, remember this is more of a traditional tree. It’s going to have the traditional light that’s in it which is, if one bulb burns out the rest stay lit. Which means if this one bulb burns out there’s not going to be any other bulb goes out. However if this bulb is removed from the string or it’s broken, it’s cracked or it’s shorted out you’re going to have an entire band of lights that are going to go out.
The more modern tree is going to use what is called, is going to have an advanced socket, where if one bulb burns out the rest stay on. But you can also pull the bulb out and the light stays on if it’s cracked, broken etcetera. Now I’ll put this back in.
And back over here, we have the traditional manufacturing technique along with a spiny needle. You can see how thin that needle is and then also we have that spiny needle with a little bit of bloom on the end. The grapevine adds an additional kind of a rustic look and then also we have the pine cones. This trees going to be good obviously in a country style home or a log cabin style home, etcetera. It’s not going to require quite as much ornamentation as a tree such as this; it doesn’t have any of the kind of options.
And so with that we’ve talked about comparing the more advanced Christmas tree with the molded branch tip and advanced lighting compared to a tree that has the traditional style branches and a lot of the options. It really boils down to your personal preferences which you want to have in your home.
We’ve kind of summarized the differences between the two. Next we’re going to talk about and demonstrate how we set this tree up.
