28mm Old West fences

When getting ready for my Old West game I realised that I didn't have the right sort of fencing.  I had a lot of picket fencing but nothing rough enough for the homestead of a gang of moonshiners.  I had a quick look at what was commercially available but nothing looked that great and it was quite pricey for what it was.  

It's not a massive architectural undertaking.  All you need is something for a base and something for the fencing.  A quick delve through the spares/trash bag and boxes soon furnished what I needed. 

The bases were made out of foamcore.  I cut out the shape, roughly bevelled the edges and cut a seam down the centre.  Be careful not to cut too deeply.  You want to be able to press the fencing in firmly and if you make too much of a cut they won't hold well.

The fencing was made out of stirrers.  I'd bought a load for pence from a market decades ago and I'd only used them before when making one of the Old West outhouses. It was good to use up some more. I cut each stirrer into roughly 1 inch lengths and then split them length ways to get the right width for planks.  Each plank was then dipped in PVA and pressed into the seam down the foamcore base.  I randomised the planks, cutting bits off and breaking them as I wanted a ragtag look.  

The fence bases were treated just like figures bases.  Once the fences had been left to set in place I applied PVA along the bottom of them and added some fine sand.  Once this was dry they got a covering of my usual sand mix.  

When they had set they were painted in a dark brown mixed from cheap craft shop acrylics.  

A heavy drybrush of Vallejo Graveyard Earth was next.  And finally I applied a drybrush of the Dulux green emulsion that I'd recently had mixed up for me. 

The fences were washed in a dirty grey which I then wiped off to leave a stain.  I repeated this on selective panels to add further depth as I didn't want it to look too uniform.  I was happy with the dirty, faded, silvery grey look of weathered wood.

I was even happier that was another bit of terrain added to the collection for next to no cost.  I love terrain building.

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