Today I have addressed another of the peculiar challenges that this project keeps throwing up but which could also be relevant to more conventional projects. This time it is barbed wire and its associated screw pickets. I have been thinking about / dreading this aspect for ages but have come up with a rather good solution. Once I had established suitable dimensions from photographs and various sources i made up a little jig;

Simple but eventually effective. What you do is just bend the wire around the uprights then squidge a bit and finally lift off with a knife blade and trim the ends.

The next problem was what to make them out of. First attempt was brass rod but this was too hard to shape and would end up very expensive. Then tried various bits of copper cable but TOO easy to shape i.e. just not strong enough. Then robbed my MIG welder, the gardening wire and even paper clips but nothing was right. eventually yesterdays trip to Hobby Craft turned up the solution. I came away with various sorts of wire for jewelry making but the winner was some .3mm galvanized steel wire for flower arranging which is cheap and just right!

So here we are with a couple of dozen made up. The one on the left is an experiment with the screw on the end to be used in wagon loads. They are now primed and will be rusted shortly and tomorrow will adorn a little section of the layout.