Lineside fencing - post&wire

[Tim Hale]

Hi,

 

Does anyone wish to share their experiences with post&wire lineside fencing in 4mm?

 

I would like to install 'typical' SR concrete posts but cannot find a manufacturer, the alternative is to use agrigultural fencing but as the barbed wire is normally stapled to the fence posts, how do you replicate this effect and how do you create barbed wire?

 

If using wooden posts for agricultural, as opposed to railway, fencing what is the best source of wooden posts?

 

When I can create some decent fencing, I will post the photos on the SR layout thread.

 

Thanks

 

Tim

[buffalo]

Westerner recently showed some here on his Wencombe topic using Ratio posts and EZ line, and I showed some on my blog using 1.6mm square brass and EZ line. Both are GWR, so both are wooden posts. Are southern concrete ones tapered or would that not matter too much at this scale? Otherwise, I'd suggest the main difference between representing wood and concrete is how you paint it.

 

Can't help with barbed wire, though I've seen some somewhere but maybe that was 7mm or larger.

 

Nick

[gwrrob]

Green Scene sell coils of barbed wire.GS 344.

 

http://www.green-scene.co.uk/Accessories.html

[The White Rabbit]

I would like to install 'typical' SR concrete posts but cannot find a manufacturer, the alternative is to use agricultural fencing but as the barbed wire is normally stapled to the fence posts, how do you replicate this effect and how do you create barbed wire?

 

I would use either the Ratio fence posts or plastic section, primed, then dusted with baby powder to add texture, then painted again with a base coat of a lightish grey, then drybrushed with a darker shade. Barbed wire, Rob's mentioned GreenScene's wire, you could use cotton (may be 'fluffy') or lycra thread (suitably coloured), alternatively, Scalelink do a brass etch of barbed wire - I haven't used it yet, but it looks good - it's on my 'To Do' list...

 

Wooden posts - balsa? Nothing quite looks like wood than wood... preferably painted in acrylics.

 

Attachment - a very small blob of glue in a recess created/deepened by a triangular file?

[Southernman46]

Hi,

 

Does anyone wish to share their experiences with post&wire lineside fencing in 4mm?

 

I would like to install 'typical' SR concrete posts but cannot find a manufacturer, the alternative is to use agrigultural fencing but as the barbed wire is normally stapled to the fence posts, how do you replicate this effect and how do you create barbed wire?

 

If using wooden posts for agricultural, as opposed to railway, fencing what is the best source of wooden posts?

 

When I can create some decent fencing, I will post the photos on the SR layout thread.

 

Thanks

 

Tim

 

Good quality matchsticks ????

[Gwiwer]

Matchsticks can be drilled out to accept the wires and can - carefully - be sanded down to a more realistic scale cross-section as well. In doing so you can create texture on the surface which can be painted to represent wood or concrete. Careful use of an emery board can also shape the post top into a squared or rounded point if such things bother you. I find that although the detail is hard to actually see the dfact that it is there makes the fence appear better than just having chopped matchstick ends.

 

I have seen the metal links sometimes used to restrain the wires between posts also competently fabricated out of drilled Plasticard and also from scrap brass etching sprues.

[96701]

I've used

Green Scene sell coils of barbed wire.GS 344.

 

http://www.green-sce...ccessories.html

 

I bought some. Didn't use it because the barbs look too big to me, so if anybody wants any...........

 

I ended up using plastic line on my chain link fence. The photo makes it obvious that it isn't barbed, but it looks good in real life.

 

 

[RBE]

I used some of the missus cotton on mine (not the fluffy sewing type, but some stronger smoother kind) for barbed wire, the barbs in 4mm scale are so small its hard to reproduce. As for stapled wire fencing, same again but glued across the faces of matchsticks.

 

Can see both types in this pic although not that well.

 

 

 

Cav

[darren01]

HI Tim

Have you looked at the cattle dock post from Ratio, they make very good concrete post.

Darren

[Tim Hale]

Hi

 

I bought the Ratio GWR post and wire fence with an intention to paint it concrete, however the majority of the fencing in these parts is agricultural which is best replicated with matchsticks - Household Ship brand are longer and consistent quality.

 

Eazi-Line is my next purchase and I will copy the lead set by Westener by using a jig.

 

Thank you

 

Tim

[The Stationmaster]

I don't know how things are nowadays but it used to be illegal (so I was told) to use barbed wire in railway lineside/boundary fencing - hence it was never seen back in the 1960s/70s (and later) except possibly in some very extreme special situation. On a number of occasions where we had regular instances of trespass I asked the Civils to install barbed wire and was always met with a very firm (and polite) refusal. (And that included the Salisbury - Exeter line when a goodly chunk of it was within my purview and my good colleague Dick Sloman was ACE at Yeovil and very strongly against the use of barbed wire).

[Campaman]

I used matchsticks, drilled for the wire, I then lined them all up on a strip of bluetack for spraying as concrete.

 

I used a method described by Chris Nevard, I first sprayed them with a light grey primer, then a dusting of white, black & brown from a distance so that you get bigger globules of paint falling on them, it gives a convincing concrete texture.

 

For the wires I used a fine grade of nylon fishing line, I stretched lengths out and sprayed them silver with a dusting of the brown to give a weathered look, these where then threaded through the installed posts and locked off with a small blob of superglue gel where required.

 

You could also thread the wires through and brush paint them in situ.

[Benbow]

In an attempt to copy the ex BRSR fencing that runs at the end of our field alongside the Basingstoke to Exeter line I used square Evergreen plastic section and 5amp fuse wire with flat plastic intermediates. I soldered the fuse wire to metal anchor posts to get it tight then disguised them with a convenient bramble bush!

Roger

 

[Oldddudders]

I don't know how things are nowadays but it used to be illegal (so I was told) to use barbed wire in railway lineside/boundary fencing - hence it was never seen back in the 1960s/70s (and later) except possibly in some very extreme special situation. On a number of occasions where we had regular instances of trespass I asked the Civils to install barbed wire and was always met with a very firm (and polite) refusal. (And that included the Salisbury - Exeter line when a goodly chunk of it was within my purview and my good colleague Dick Sloman was ACE at Yeovil and very strongly against the use of barbed wire).

I am 100% sure that in certain locations - e.g. South Acton - in my Silverlink days there was razor wire in use. Trust me, just looking at that stuff gives you the heebie-jeebies!

 

These days I come very close to the same dreadful stuff - inches away - in the Members' Grandstand at out local race circuit. Keeping the proles out is an art in itself, evidently!

[The White Rabbit]

Ah, the P word again... I know in some places with railway access owned by the MOD or 'associated' organisations such as BNF/DRS, there is razor wire for national security reasons.

 

If anyone wants round topped posts, there is an easier way - those in the picture below were laser-cut for my business (PM me for details). The picture is of work in progress, so there's still a lot more detail to come. Sorry about the lack of scale and poor quality image, like I said, work in progress and it's just a snap on my workbench, but the posts in the foreground are a 4mm x 2mm profile and those further away, 2mm square.

 

[The Stationmaster]

I am 100% sure that in certain locations - e.g. South Acton - in my Silverlink days there was razor wire in use. Trust me, just looking at that stuff gives you the heebie-jeebies!

 

I expect you're spot on with that Ian - definitely a big change in later years but equally definitely I'm sure it wasn't on to use barbed wire back in the '60s and '70s.

[buffalo]

I had an opportunity to take a closer look at a couple of examples of Southern concrete post fencing today. The first was along a line that closed in the early fifties, so was most probably pre-nationalisation. The second was alongside a current line, so perhaps more recent. The former was overgrown and decaying but, in all visible respects appeared identical to the later posts.

 

Here are a couple of mobile phone photos. The first is of a normal post from the more visible current fencing:

 

 

These posts reach to between 4'6" and 5' above ground and are 3" square at the top thickening to about 4" square at the base. There is a pyramidal top about 1¹/₂" high. Although now used to support chain link, the orientation is the same as the older posts with wires in situ. The holes are at right angles to the wires and the wires are retained by a loop passing through the posts, just as wires are usually stapled to the face of wooden posts on other railways. Normally, the wires are on the side of the post facing away from the railway land.

 

Again from the current fencing is an example of the end strainers or corner posts:

 

 

These are more substantial, being 6" square with 4" square angled bracing that fits into a slot molded into the side of the main post. The wires are attached through the holes in the post using long eye bolts. The holes are in line with the wires. The eye bolts have been removed here but some survived together with the wire on the older example.

 

Nick