Yet another one for my Forum friends. What’s the easiest HO scale chain link fence to build? I have a school area on my layout that needs a fence to contain the flying bounce balls, basketballs and of course the kids.
As usual, any assistance that can be provided would be greatly appreciated.
I have used the Walthers chain link fence kits. Each box comes with a pair of swing gates, and a bunch of vertical posts with angled tops, plus horizontal top pieces. The actual fence material is Tule. That’s the fabric they make wedding veils out of.
The awkward part is assembling everything, which must be glued, usually with CA because of the dissimilar materials. I usually make a simple jig with post holes, so I can first assemble strings of posts and top bars, and then cut and glue strips of fabric to them. I use aluminum colored spray paint after assembly, then spray that with Dul-Coat. A bit of rust weathering powder at the base can age it a bit.
If you feel like scratchbuilding it brass wire will work for the top and posts, and then you can solder rather than glue. You can get the Tule at fabric shops or Michaels. It’s expensive by the yard, but they probably can give you small scraps for almost nothing.
I used Micron art, much more to scale and easy to use.
I like the Woodland Scenics. Looks nice and is already built. Just drill a couple of holes in the layout surface for the posts to insert in and it’s done. In a couple of places, I used a touch of CA to keep the sections lined up.
I’m not familiar with that particular company. Do they have a website or other source to look at their products?
If the need arises, how easy/hard are the fence pieces to trim?
Here is the oddity – on layout visits model chain link fence often looks pretty good to the eye. It looks less good on layout photos that you see in the magazines or on-line. So, the challenge to modeling chain link fence is that the materials which are close to scale size for the openings tend to look nearly opaque, whereas looking at chain link fence – or prototype photos of it – you notice how much you can see through it, and all it seems to do is slightly “darken” things on the other side. Tule has that see-through look but is not really scale size and you particularly notice that in layout photography, where it looks like an HO scale person could put their head through each opening.
All other things being equal I’d rather capture the near-transparency rather than scale size.
Dave Nelson
My complaint with the WS fence is that the gates are not wide enough for commercial trucks, you have to splice them together for a wider gate.
As I’m just surrounding a school playground, I’m not too worried about commercial trucks.
That’s good to know. Just looking at the description, the Walthers kit looks like it might be a bit of a pain for someone with fumble fingers like me. (I’ve cut every finger on my left hand at least once with a hobby knife. I also have a scar on my left index finger from kitbashing my freight storage building twenty years ago. Cuttung a pilaster out to bridge a pair of panels and the knife slipped.)
I’d have to see the panels in person as to how to fit and use them, but the preliminary plan is to only trim the panels that don’t have posts.
I have seen a chain link fence where the builder soldered brass wire together for the pipes and used silver wedding veil material for the fencing. Looked very good in HO scale.
E-bay is now best as they are selling out remaining stock (bought mine when they were not getting rid of company.
This is a bad tutorial, but this is, in my opinion, the cheapest, easiest, best looking, and most customizable way to make chain link fence.
Very true.
Oddly, water features often look so-so in real life, but look amazing in pictures.
-Kevin
I measured the area in question and one WS kit will be sufficient and it is on order.
Here’s how I made mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_guMOYoCpw
FWIW. Here’s mine from 2008. Tule and styrene. Scale too large and not painted. Was first try.
Zoom on small building.
My layout needed a LOT of chain link fencing. Several large industries on the layout needed perimeter fencing and rather long lengths of it, too. I found that the Walthers kits worked quite well with one modification. Instead of using the soft wire included in the kits for the horizontal frame pipes, I used .020" music wire. I first drilled top and bottom .020" holes through the vertical uprights BEFORE removing them from the sprues. With the uprights drilled, I could then thread them onto the lengths of music wire and lock everything together with CA. Spray a mist coat of black paint on the tule to make it easier to see while cutting or use a dark colored cutting mat. I used an Opti-Visor to cut the tule with a hobby knife, one diamond at a time! Yes, this is rather tedious but the results speak for themselves. I like to attach the tule using pressure sensitive glue as it won’t wick into the tule and fill whole diamonds as CA often does. I started using regular thread for the top barbed wire strands but later found that EZ-line works far better. I use light gray primer to paint “old” fencing and aluminum to to paint “new” fencing. Pan Pastels work well for weathering.
Hornblower, that is a fantastic idea and job. Congratulations.
Tom
I second that. Very nice job.