Tuesday, December 27, 2011

ACW Splitrail Fences In Progress

I spent a few hours the afternoon of Christmas Day in between company, watching the Dr. Who marathon on the Space Channel and trying, in vain, to figure out exactly who River Song is (yes I know she is Amy Pond's daughter, but not exactly sure how). Oh well. It gave me a few hours to put some more fence rail sections together for my American Civil War 28mm collection.

My idea for these was to make modular sections on large, flocked bases that enhance the look of the table. I had made four sections two years ago, and always wished I'd bitten the bullet and made more at the time, since in a large ACW game you can never have too many split rail fences. You can see these earlier sections on the left of the photo below.



The fence sections are made of cedar shims bought in packs from Home Depot, split up with an axe (very authentic, I think) then trimmed with a hobby knife and glued together on the base. The bases, as mentioned above, are sections of MDF board, covered with wood putty mixed while wet with different types of model railway ballast for texture, then painted and drybrushed, my standard recipe for bases. Once the fences are painted, I'll flock the bases and add some accent pieces such as rocks, strands of taller grass, etc.

When I get these new sections finished I'll post some shots of them next to some figures. The fence sections are probably too thick and long for real life, but I like the substantial look of them. It's always nice to have these nice big fences between you and that enemy firing line, if only for pyschological benefit!

3 comments:

  1. Very nice. I need to make some of these. I have a few small sections that are unbased at the moment.

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  2. Only 4? I should think you'd need 40.:D
    Mike B. has several feet of fences for his 15mm ACW and it is not enough, especially when you've got fencing on both sides of a turnpike!
    Just bite the bullet, cut out a huge whack of bases and start gluing like a possessed thing.
    You'll also need a few broken down sections...

    But time spent on terrain is never wasted.

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  3. Thanks Chris.

    Too right, James, I really need to muck in and do nothing else but make more of these bastards. It was the same thing with a cornfield project I did last year, I made a dozen stands of corn, when I should have done 50 at once. Got to think big, I guess.

    Thanks for the idea on the broken down sections.
    I agree with you, good terrain is always worth the effort.

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