Saturday 4 December 2010

Gabions and Wattle fences

To make wattle fences and gabions (for gun emplacements) I´ve come up with this little method. I stick normal pins in a piece of cork.Note for the Gabion that I have used a round piece of wood to get the spacing right. For the Gabion I use an uneven number of pins, an even number will mean that when threaded, the threading will always come out behind/infront of the same pin, and that looks daft.

The material I use to do the threading is normal copper wire. I use two different thicknesses and weave them in alternate layers. Using just One thickness ends up looking a bit too neat.




The pinheads I leave on as I am doing the weaving...this saves scratches to my tender paws :-) All I do for the fence is start at one side and weave the wire behind and front, behind and front of the pins...easy eh?
Same with the Gabion but a continious wire can be used. Once in a while the layers need pressing down on top of each other to close gaps up.




Once the gabion is half full I press a bit of modelling clay into it to help hold the form.





When the desired  height is reached, cut of the head of the pins at different heights (looks more natural) and then I smear woodglue over the whole thing.
When the glue is dry I cover the lot in dark brown paint liberally splatted on with a brush. Shade and whatever to taste. The Fence or gabion can be pulled out of the cork and placed in a dio etc. 

14 comments:

  1. Brilliant. Might be more of that straw/can work from your point of view, but it's very useful for the rest of us, at least as a starting point. And the end result is just fantastic!

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  2. Thanks for a great tutorial! I'll have to keep that in mind for making wattle fences for my vikings.

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  3. Excellent tutorial. I might even have a go at making a few of those myself.

    Regards,
    Matt

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  5. wow! cool tutorial!
    Thank you!

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  6. Great tutorial mate.I will let you know how I got on with them for an ECW dio on looking at.

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  7. Thanks...I hope it´s of use..:-)
    Cheers
    Paul

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  8. Cool. I like the idea of making portable fence lengths. Weaving the wire takes forever doesn't it? I made a wattle enclosure and it took hours.

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  9. Ha! Great minds think alike :-D. I found it pretty quick...you say you used wire as well..mind you yours looks quite a bit bigger and it´s 28mm..so maybe it would be a lot more work. I like the idea of being constructive and saying money and having something original..I mean, who else has got exactly the same tatty old fence like mine ? :-D
    Cheers
    Paul

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  10. Thank you for the idea; it will be very useful.

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  11. Hi Paul,

    Fantastic tutorial! I think these are much more realistic than the store-bought version. Questions, what diameter is the wattle for 1/72? also, what's material is inside of an actual wattle?

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    1. For 1/72 correct scale you could use cotton then cover in thin PVA. Wattle was made with willow or hazel wood in Anglo Saxon Britain.

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  12. Hmmm... I wonder whether, if I make a couple of nice-looking gabions with your method, I could then cast them in resin...

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