The Strawberry Line

Absolutely superb work here on your blog and extremely useful details for fencing.

 

Grahame

Blummin brilliant modelling there Andrew captures it very very well, even the apple trees it’s just as I remember it. Particularly photos 3,6,7,8,9 and 14,15 and 16 obviously for me post Beeching without the rails and loco..

Fiveways Farm was Mr. Parsons who owned it always had an old red Fergy tractor to run about on in the 1970s Had one with a cab and tarpaulins, there was a hay cart in the orchard for years blue and red painted it was stood there until it rotted away. Irrelevant I know but your model evokes memories.

Cheers

Ade

When making the orchard trees, did you hold them upside down when sprinkling on the red?

Absolutely superb work here on your blog and extremely useful details for fencing.

 

Grahame

Thanks

Blummin brilliant modelling there Andrew captures it very very well, even the apple trees it’s just as I remember it. Particularly photos 3,6,7,8,9 and 14,15 and 16 obviously for me post Beeching without the rails and loco.. Fiveways Farm was Mr. Parsons who owned it always had an old red Fergy tractor to run about on in the 1970s Had one with a cab and tarpaulins, there was a hay cart in the orchard for years blue and red painted it was stood there until it rotted away. Irrelevant I know but your model evokes memories. Cheers Ade

Thanks. It's not irrelevant at all. Please keep them coming! I'll add a tractor and a rotting hay cart to the shopping list. If you have any other nuggets, I'd be delighted to hear from you. I have no recollection of the line pre closure so it's all good stuff for me. I'm really interested in the cottage that lay on the north side between the stone loading shed and the goods shed. I've very few photos of that to go on.

When making the orchard trees, did you hold them upside down when sprinkling on the red?

I confess I didn't. There is just the smattering from above to indicate apples. If you turned the trees over, you'd see hundreds of course. Ahem...!

It looks great, Andrew and the fencing method sounds ingenious, although I'm afraid that despite the photos, I didn't quite understand exactly what the large piece of plasticard with all the holes does.

It looks great, Andrew and the fencing method sounds ingenious, although I'm afraid that despite the photos, I didn't quite understand exactly what the large piece of plasticard with all the holes does.

The two anchors at either end fix the height of each of the strands in the fence. When pulled taught, you then have straight lines between the two ends. You don't have any allowance for changes in ground levels along the way at the points inbetween.

If the fence passes over a depression in the ground into which the posts are fixed, the wires will therefore be an unrealistic height above this as it passes in a straight line. The opposite is true if the ground rises over a crest. The traveller is positioned at each post, then the strands glued to it as you go. In this way, the strands are always at the correct height for each post, rather than the extremities. Does that make sense? 

I feel an article coming on!

OK, thanks, I think I get it now, but what happens if some of the strands under tension in the dip become unglued?

OK, thanks, I think I get it now, but what happens if some of the strands under tension in the dip become unglued?

It'll just find its own level between the two nearest posts which are glued. A drop of glue and re-setting with tweezers would be required. I've used this method on Wheal Elizabeth and Clevedon and never needed to re-fix anything.

“ I'm really interested in the cottage that lay on the north side between the stone loading shed and the goods shed. I've very few photos of that to go on”.

Andrew it was knocked down before I got to play around there.

What I do know is that the cottage was brick and we built a den in the left overs of it. Also our fire place at Maymead, Lower North Street was made from those bricks that dad rehomed!

I”ll see what photos I have.

Cheers

Ade