Sunday, April 04, 2004
15mm Fences
Terrain
If you’re going to play miniature wargames set in the American Revolution or the American Civil War, you’ve got to have rail fences in your terrain kit. Bob Bailey and David Glenn offer advice on making 15mm worm fencing in the Terrainmakers’ Yahoo Group.
David Glenn:
Here’s how I make a lot of good-looking 15 mm split rail (worm/snake)
fencing:
1. I use boxes of flat toothpicks, making sure to trim off about ½”
off of the pointed end of the toothpick. (Save these pieces.)
2. For the bases, I use the big tongue depressors. They’re about 6
inches long with rounded ends. Craft/popcycle sticks aren’t wide
enough for the fences. The rounded end is also useful for combining
sections at 90 degree and other odd angles leaving little gap between
sections.
3. I also make up a few half-sized sections by cutting a few tongue
depressors in half, and `rounding’ the flat, cut edges. These come in
handy for creating gaps and for surrounding those `odd’ sized fields
and pastures.
4. Take the fence bases, paint the top side and edges with green
paint, then sprinkle or dunk them into the proper flocking material.
Shake them off, and set aside to let the paint dry.
5. Once dry, you can start to make the fences. I put some glue on a
flat surface (a piece of aluminum foil, piece of plastic or scrap
cardboard). Using a pair of tweezers, I start laying rails by dipping
each end of the rail into the glue and then placing on the base in a
zig-zag pattern. Keep making successive layers until you have the
proper fence height. (about 3/8” high)
6. Some types of split rail fences have small, vertical rails placed
to each side where a `zig’ or `zag’ is created, crossing just above
the top rail. Look at some old pictures to see the type of fence I
am talking about. Use the ½” long pieces saved from step 1.
7. For variety, I add some ground foam, small rocks along part of the
fence base, and add some taller grass at the rail `elbow-shaped’
areas, where weeds would have grown. This gives it a more realistic
appearance. “Remember, it’s the little details that count.”
8. Either leave the fences a natural color, or give the wood a light
washing with a brown or grayish color paint or stain to simulate aged
wood.
I made about 50 feet of fencing in an evening, after all of the rails
were trimmed.
Bob Bailey
Take flat toothpicks and cut them in half. Use the flatter half for
the fences, laying them atop each other with the contacting ends glued.
I found that about 5 “rails” gave a good height. When dry, I sprayed
them a moderate grey, washed them with a grey-black wash, then drybrushed
them with a light grey, thus giving a quite good weathering effect.
I used the other halves of the toothpicks as the horizontal rails of
post-and-rail fencing, laid between pairs of wood posts attached to
bases, again with the contacting ends glued.
The flatter ends work better with the less supported nature of the
worm fencing, while the thinner ends are very convincing as the narrower
rails of the post-and-rail fencing.
I think I like the idea of the bases with the vegetation “extras”
better than my “no-base” approach, although mine can be used at all times
of year (I use a brown cloth for early spring and late autumn, a green
cloth for warm weather, and a white flannel cloth for winter
scenarios).
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