Wire fence

I slipped in a teaser on the wire fence I had prototyped a couple of posts ago, as by sheer fluke, the assembly went perfectly first time I did not take any photos while putting it together. To rectify this, I've created two more and here is a step by step:

Components are a pair of kitchen scissors (the only thing I've found to cut the mesh with), the normal thin plasticard for the base, some thin plastic rod (as wood is way to thick) and the wire mesh


The best mesh I have found is used for car body repair and is available from Halfords in the UK - an A4 sheet is currently £1.89

Using the scissors, I cut out a piece 70mm by 22mm (or so) and four posts from the rod and use super glue to join them. Simplest way I have found is to bluetak the sheet on the top of a small cup and put drops of glue in the mesh holes (i.e. do not glue the rod) and use a knife to roll the rod onto the glue - this stops the mesh sticking to you and the work surface. After this dries, you may like to bend any fence that sticks out at the side back around the rod using pliers - this does save it cutting into your hand when moving it around.

I plan to have some broken sections long term and on one strip I cut a slit just by a central rod position to simulate someone breaking into the compound by cutting the fence


I used two part epoxy glue to stick the dry fence to the base - by running a trail of glue across the bottom and around the posts it gives a better stick than both super glue and plastic glue - I did consider a hot glue gun for this bit but I cannot control the volume of glue on the base / fence so the 'epoxy and toothpick' method was used. Once dry (with my glue that is less than 30 minutes) it is a simple job to paint the base brown and flock as normal. I have used a black wash to take out the stark white of the posts and a brown / black touch to add rust and dirt to the fence itself - this breaks up the clean new look for my needs - your space port may be cleaner than mine...

A quick surf shows some simple signs saying 'Danger Keep Out' etc. and when copied into Word and shrunk these printed fine on thick paper - I used the Pritt glue to stick these till I varnished the whole thing (I'll try to get a better photo soon):


Note that the above two photos show the problem with the mesh - it is very hard to cut in the correct place. Sometimes it leaves a 'V' shaped top and other times the loop remains whole. I've tried a knife, scissors and score / bend to fix this and given up - my skills are not good enough to get this level of detail consistent...

One other point I have not mentioned - I use magnets from Litko on the base of these to hold them in the smae box as the 15mm figures.