The idea of building it on the U channel has worked better than expected, especially since the channel could then be pre-planted with vegetation.
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The intermediate strakes are 0.6mm Plastruct rod. If doing it again I would probably use wire. They are so obvious in photos of the line that they need to be modeled, and that in turn meant I had no real choice about whether or not to model the fence wires, for which I used knitting-in elastic. This is one of the alternatives to stretched sprue that kit modelers use for rigging biplanes. I could imagine using it to represent signal wire as well. In this case I've used Metalcote on it, but to be honest I think it would have been fine in its natural state.
I think it has made a big difference to the diorama
The fencing is looking good James, I shall try your ideas and methods out when the time comes to tackle my own.
ReplyDeleteThanks Geoff. I used a Ratio concrete post tacked at each end as a loom for the kitting in elastic. Ideally the elastic should be super glue tacked to a solid post at each end and then the Ratio posts removed. The elastic runs one side of the posts and the other side of the strakes to keep it roughly in place without being glued anywhere else - which is why I should have used wire for the strakes I suspect not gluing the elastic to intermediate posts makes the fencing a little less damage prone.but also the give in the elastic is significant, so you can pull it out to run a cloth along it to clean dust off.
DeleteOh, and if I was doing it again I think I might use an I beam (That's an i beam but the point of that is lost in a san serif font) to balance out the tension just a little more.
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