Hedges and Fences - step one - The cutting

Having had (in my eyes) great success at the alien 'tree's I decided I would venture out to add soem earth style hedges and fences to my growing collection. A quick surf for ideas and a trip to Brigg I was the proud owner of a pack of 99p Wilko scourer pads and some 3mm balsa from Brians DIY - adding some plasticard out of the cupboard (the first set warped as I used a balsa base) these are the steps I came up with:

Starting with a stip of plasticard 15cm long (the size of the pad) and 15mm wide (looks right to me), I used an emery board on one side ready for gluing and cut the corners for neatness:


Taking a strip of pad 15mm wide (this looks fine and matches the local hedges) I then cut into the tops at a 45deg angle (ish) to create a hacked natural looking edge basically by pulling the off cuts out by hand - I took some down to 5mm to represent gaps but so far not tried for holes...


A quick pull on the sides to fluff the material out and I end up with


Using Gorilla Glue, I laid a SMALL trail along the bottom and wet the base. This I found better than gluing the base and wetting the pad.


If you have never used Gorilla Glue search it out. It is the strangest glue I have used and due to the foaming it is perfect for this as it works its way into the pad fibers - here is a hunt on TMP to see other users comments.


To make the fences, I cut strips off the balsa and used Power Pritt Gel to hold the joints. This was a stroke of luck as I had no balsa glue and already found this handy for paper models (and paper is wood in another form):



Over the next few days I'll post the basing and painting items but I need to let the glue dry first.


Forgive the centering of all photos - the editor in Blogger is driving me crazy and I cannot see any error in the HTML