Welcome to my blog, the story of my continuing journey into the World of Zombie Wargames.

Monday 1 December 2014

Paling Fencing and Gates

Gate assembly on the left, fencing on the right
For my urban environment (but also useful for suburban and rural ones too) I decided I needed some substantial fences rather than the ones I pretty much flung together for a rural games nearly a year  ago (here). The ubiquitous coffee stirrers would of course be the mainstay of the construction materials along with some better wood glue (Evostick) than I used last time .
The basic method I used was to glue the stirrers (with one of the rounded ends cut off to a strip of coffee stirrers (two stuck together) as the base.
To reinforce the fences I would glue another glued two-piece coffee stirrer at about 5mm from the top.
The picture on the left shows the approximate method.
The "uprights" parts of the fence are about 40mm and I can get two strips of fencing from a single length of stirrer plus another length of 50mm.

The gates are made in a similar fashion to the fences. They are three coffee stirrers wide, have a height of about 35mm and are reinforces with the double thickness stirrers (I made a lot of these).
The photograph on the left shows 4 completed gates and another nine gates in the making.
I would be making 16 yards in total, so I needed a lot of doors and I had estimated about six feet of fencing ( I was wrong)



Strip of gates

A strip of gates in the making.
These started similarly to the ones above and have had the bottom 'strip' of gates cut from it.
The gate strip just needs to be cut vertically apart for another four doors.
The horizontal pieces are a single thickness of stirrer.

The gates cut apart
The four doors in the pictures above.


The gates had some scrap of stirrer cut and added , this gave added strength  and a bit of detail.stirrer.





Several different styles of gate


The gate posts were two pieces of double thickness coffee stirrer glued either side of the 'hinge'.
I use several of these four-layered coffee stirrers  for lintels and posts.
The large gate is for my next large model (already in the planning stage).




Hinged gates with posts.



The picture shows the gates with their respective posts cut to match the original one









Assembled gates
Assembling the gates took a lot of patience, filing and waiting around for glue to set.
I found it almost impossible to use clamps on them too which didn't help.

 For the fencing either side of the gates I would need some shorter fence pieces too, so more were assembled using the same methods as the first lot.
In the picture the horizontals seem to be crooked but they haven't been glued on yet and are there to merely support the uprights on the base whilst they stick.



You're probably thinking that it doesn't look like I made a lot of fencing, but the picture on the right shows the top third of every section (the 50mm fences) and for each of those there were two 40mm sections!
Those of you with better eyesight than myself can spot the ruler at the foot of the picture showing the length of fences (about 14inches by 3 and a bit rows)  I've made. So about 7 feet of 40mm height and four feet of 50mm height, which combined with all the gates and posts I made I reckon I've gone through well over 300 stirrers  and maybe as many as 500.
Finally for this week here's two gate assemblies.
They're both rough and ready, but do the job imo.
The one on the right has a stirrer base attached, that will be trimmed. I've included this not for stability, but again for strength. The left and right fences of the gate assembly are
fairly flimsy and need more reinforcement.
I'll also use the lip of the base to add some filler.

That's it then for this week, I'll be showing some of the completed enclosures next week.

As always, your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.



26 comments:

  1. Nice work. I had to check but I see no plastic coffee stirrers. Is this really Joe or an alien who has taken over his blog!
    Joking aside (I hope) very nice work I will look out for them in future aars. I still like looking for the poster bill boards!

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    1. Thanks Clint, I'll show some of the finished articles in situ next week.
      Strangely enough I came across my pdf of all the billboards I did just recently

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  2. Your cutting and gluing has paid off those are very nice fence pieces.

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    1. Thanks Robert, I'll reserve judgement until I get to use them.

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  3. Great stuff Joe. They look just the job. Certainly your effort has paid off. Looking forward to seeing them painted up and plenty of Zeds attacking them :-)

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    1. Thanks Blaxkleric, it was more of a chore than a concerted effort on my part, something that just had to be done if I was ever going to get my urban environment looking the way I wanted it to.

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  4. They look great Joe! What no Builder Joe to shows us how big they are your slacking man!

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    1. Thanks SImon, I'd actually forgot to put Sid in the photo's but he'll certainly make it to the next photo-shoot

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  5. Excellent work! I was just musing on my need to make some more wooden fences, and some like these would be perfect around houses. They look very nice, and I'm impressed by your output.

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    1. Thanks Paul, that's exactly what I'll be using mine for and they did take about a fortnight to get to the stage they're now at, but I only work about an hour a day on them,.

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    1. Thanks Rya, we'll see just how effective they are when they're in use.

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  7. Great work Joe. It's amazing what you can do with coffee stirrers.

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    1. Thanks Bob, it truly is amazing, but at less than £2 for 1000 it's what I have to go with.

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  8. Joe, you truly are the king of coffee stirrer modelling! Great work... again!

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    1. Thanks Bryan, I do my best with what I've got.

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  9. Great work mate.. great ide to use coffee stirrers for planks :)

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    1. Thanks HW, I use then more out of necessity (and it's a pain cutting card into strips)

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  10. That's a great post Joe, I will certainly follow your tips here. Last time I was making fences like those, I used ice cream sticks and they are very hard to cut, so I didn't get far. I got the coffee stirrers so there is no excuse not to make some myself!

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    1. Thanks Mattyoo, that's the great thing with the stirrers, they're easy enough to cut singly and have added strength when glued together in multiples of two or fours etc, I use a razor saw to cut the thicker pieces btw and it takes seconds.

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  11. Damn impressive work all round sir.

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    1. Thanks AL, nut it's nothing others couldn't do equally well.

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  12. Very nice tutorial! Yet again you make great stuff out of nothing. Thank you mate

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    1. Thanks LS, "Necessity is the mother of invention" (or something like that) so they say. I doubt many gamers buy over six feet of fencing but could still probably use it.

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  13. This was a very informative publication. I like the pictures and the texts!!! Keep up the good work.Looking forward see the "lick of paint" completed. :)

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    1. Thanks Ptr, I do hope it does inspire others to try out some of my ideas and formulate some of their own (so I can copy their's).
      Painting the completed enclosures has been started.

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