Page 30 - NMRA Roundhouse May-June 2019
P. 30

                 How to make realistic fencing
Jeff Young
 R anch fencing is ubiquitous For this you’ll need a helper. Place a dot
in many parts of Colorado served by narrow-gauge rail- roads. It’s quite easy to make
scale fencing with a high degree of realism.
Use scale 6” and 8” square strip wood for the main posts. Corner and end posts should be 8”, corner and end stretchers 6”, and the remaining posts a mix of the two. Roughly round the strip wood with a scalpel and then dye it.
My scenery is constructed of Sculpta- mold over a cardboard lattice. I plant my fence posts with the help of a dental awl. Other scenery bases may require different methods. Use a post spacing of 8 to 10 scale feet. Eyeball this so they aren’t too evenly spaced. By the same token, make sure to give them a bit of sway so they aren’t completely vertical.
Lamp cord is the easiest source of “barbed” wire. Cut it into 18” pieces,
  strip the insulation, and then separate the strands. Run each strand between finger and thumb several times until it is fairly straight. I’ve tried painting it with a brush but do not recommend it. I now string about 20 strands between two pieces of masking tape and spray paint it: flat black first and then a very uneven coat of rust.
Run three wires of fencing, one at a time.
of super glue on a post, hold the wire
up to the post under some tension, and have your helper spray an accelerant on it. (I use Zap Kicker but there are many others.) Then move on to the next post.
Once all the wire is strung, go back
and add the spacers. I make these out of heather twigs approximately 4 scale inches in diameter. They are held in with nothing more than tension, thread- ed on one side of the top and bottom wire and the opposite side of the middle wire. Place two spacers between each set of posts.
For some extra detail you can add some broken posts and tangled wire on the ground in a few places. In S or O scale you might want to experiment with drops of thick paint for barbs. I tried this in HO scale, but you don’t really notice it so I don’t bother any more.
Jeff Young
  30 ROUNDHOUSE - June 2019
 

















































































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