Help re: Installing stone fencing on existing scenery!

[signalmaintainer]

I've acquired some nice-looking stone fencing from the Hornby range -- a little base paint and dry-brushing will have it looking more suitably like limestone. I'm also thinking of using the pieces as masters for molds.

 

My quandrary is how to install the stuff. My pastures have undulations; the fencing is resin (and may be plaster in the future), and is not at all flexible enough to match the contours.

 

I'm thinking of carefully cutting a slot into the pastures where the fence line would go. Not too deep -- about 1/8" to 3/16" -- into the anticlines, while filling in under the wall with a bit of Sculptamold where the fencing passes over a syncline. Sort of smoothing out the abrupt changes.

 

A little earth-colored latex paint, some scatter grass and weeds, and presto!

 

OK, that 's my cunning plan. Please poke holes in it and give me your best practices for installing stone walls.

 

Thanks much in advance!

[Gwiwer]

I assume you are referring to either one of the Skaledale stone wall varieties or something similar. Mine are Skaledale dry-stone walls variously dry-brushed or washed over with a multitude of acrylic blends. Many went in long after the land which they are plonked on. Some went in after the vegetation as the layout evolved and plans changed.

 

The resin is fiendishly tricky to carve successfully and extremely messy if cut with a saw. It has been known to shatter and render a section useless or at best consigned to the recycle bin.

 

I have however achieved rasonable effects simply by sticking the resin units down and topping up the ground cover at the bottom with flock or stone which neatly fills gaps and gives a much more "used" look. A little static grass in clumps also helps. Almost anywhere you look a stone wall will have at least some ground cover along the footings including alongside a road.

 

In a couple of places I have carved a small recess in the scenery to seat the units a little lower and this was successfully done with a craft knife. It does take a fair degree of tidying up afterwards if you end up cutting through plaster.

 

Any small gaps between the units can be filled with milliput or similar or with clumps of flock or foliage depending on your scene.

 

Here is a wall which went in after all the initial landscaping was completed but has been blended into the curves of the land.

 

[Dave777]

I used Sculptamold to create a small 'shelf' for mine (N gauge) to sit on. It needed a bit of work to fill in a few gaps underneath once it had been placed (and I also filled in the gaps between the sections too).

 

 

 

This looks much worse than the finished article! It painted up nicely, although I've not got any decent pics of that to hand.

[Etched Pixels]

I've acquired some nice-looking stone fencing from the Hornby range -- a little base paint and dry-brushing will have it looking more suitably like limestone. I'm also thinking of using the pieces as masters for molds.

 

My quandrary is how to install the stuff. My pastures have undulations; the fencing is resin (and may be plaster in the future), and is not at all flexible enough to match the contours.

 

I'm thinking of carefully cutting a slot into the pastures where the fence line would go. Not too deep -- about 1/8" to 3/16" -- into the anticlines, while filling in under the wall with a bit of Sculptamold where the fencing passes over a syncline. Sort of smoothing out the abrupt changes.

 

A little earth-colored latex paint, some scatter grass and weeds, and presto!

 

OK, that 's my cunning plan. Please poke holes in it and give me your best practices for installing stone walls.

 

Thanks much in advance!

 

Should work with the resin walling and you can also stick a thin line of tall grass clumps (or static grass straight from the packet) along the edge of the groove to hide any odd bits of join.

 

I know you can bend the retaining wall if hot and very careful (it snaps easily) but I don't know if the stone wall would snap too easily to do this.

 

Re: making moulds - I would be rather surprised if that wasn't breaching Hornby's copyright !

[signalmaintainer]

Thank you all for the excellent and instructive replies. I feel I can tackle this project now with much more confidence and a lot less procrastination and waffling! Seems like such a silly little thing, but I simply wasn't certain how to get going in the right direction, and the idea lights hadn't been turning on until quite recently.

 

Re: making moulds - I would be rather surprised if that wasn't breaching Hornby's copyright !

 

If I were to sell the molds or the castings, yes, but here in the U.S. such activity for personal use as part of a hobby is permitted and not considered copywright infringement.