Afternoon all,
Now for a little bit more; to the left of the roadway (on which I still haven't managed to find something to do the yellow lines) I decided to do a bit of work on the allotment gardens to the left hand side. I chose my favourite material of file divider card as the material to reproduce a representation of wooden fencing, such as we have around our allotments here in the 'Land of the Prince Bishops', or indeed any allotment site. Typically in the real world the perimiter fences are the responsibility of the local Parish Council that own and let out the plots so these at least are uniform up to a point. Dividing fences are the resposibility of the tenant so can be (and usually are) a bit rough. File divider card is easy to work but at 0.4mm thick the palings are just a bit overscale. There has to be a limit to how thin the vetical boards can be, commensurate with the strength necessary to perform the function of a model fence but I'm minded to stay with this because it seems to look the part. Fence posts are a different matter and I have used 0.5 mm plywood from a local model shop that has a host of those things that you would never think would be any use to railway modellers. I double up the thickness sticking them together with PVA and then as near as possible cut 1mm square strips which in 2mm scale = 6" and very slightly over scale for, say a 4" square post, but it does possess the rigidity I'm looking for and looks OK to my eye. Card and ply both start life the same so there's nothing like wood to represent wood.
The first shot below shows me making an effort to look as though I know what I'm doing. The card is painted both sides with a brown colour, in this case Humbrol Acrylic Matt 29, then allowed to properly dry. I'm cutting strips between the two pencil lines so the various 'boards' are roughly 1mm wide but because I'm only cutting between the lines it retains its integrity. It's surprising how uniform a cut can be made with a little practice but as you will see in subsequent shots a bit of variety of thickness gives a pleasing randomness to what would normally be a very uniform fence.
In the shot below, taken to illustrate the card is still in one piece, so to speak, it can be seen what exists at this juncture is much like the lanterns we all used to make during our formative years at this time of year, to hang around in school as festive decorations. There is another reason for doing this of which more anon...
The next operation is to cut the vertical boards to length and the way I do this is to use a chopping action with my trusty old single sided blade as seen below, a sharp tap using my Grandfather's old tack hammer. A bit of care needed here (not only for the obvious reason of finishing up not being able to play guitar for a while...!) but also if the cut is made on the wrong side, all your hard work goes scuttling off in all directions, including the floor. It's picking the little things up again that ruins them and means a wasted modelling session.
Below you can see some of the 0.5mm ply that wasn't laminated has been cut into long strips and stuck to the white card temporarily using PVA and this keeps them a uniform distance apart, well, within reason that is. The palings are being stuck on, one by one gently picking up and placing them using the sharp point of the blade. Good fun eh...? It's not a bad job to do really - very theraputic.
And here's what the fence panels look like before being cut to size and installing on the layout. The lower panel has a recess at the right hand end for the allotment water supply.
The first garden begins to take shape but as you can see the bloke in the Land Rover, who already has pre cons for poor parking, cannot reverse for monkey nuts either, has bumped the standpipe while backing out recently and created a steady stream of water away from it.
I used the microscope slide method described by Gordon Gravett to represent the water and "a think it's champion" (I am quite pleased with the effect). The garden gate is made using the slatted system referred to earlier with horizontal rails and the diagonal being stuck on the give strength and keep the other boards together before being removed from the sheet of 'cut boards' trimmed to shape and stuck in place. The hut is my first use of one of Severn Models etches - it's temporarily in place for this picture and needs some rear guttering and a downpipe into a water butt, yet to be fashioned.
Asute observers will see some fence posts above the retaining wall in the background. There's a little bit to tell about those which I'll try and get done before Christmas or maybe between Christmas and New Year but...
"coss wa deein lowdsa runnin aboot gannin here n there ower Christmas tae see wa bairns, it cud be efta that - burral dee me best"
(because we will be visiting our family during the festive period it may be into the new year before I manage although I will try).
"Az ganna finish by wishin yiz aal a very merry crissmiss an aal the best fa nex yor"
Compliments of the season to you all and a very happy healthy and productive modelling new year.
Mick S.