Hello I am putting in a fence around my junk yard and thought it needed a section of junk fence. You know a fence made of stuff that’s not a fence. The only thing I can think of is a old door and some odd shape wood. My layout time frame is 1935-45. And the junk yard will be auto/railroad related. Any ideas ? Thank Frank
How about pieces of sheet metal?
Well, the most common fence (besides chain-link and the ever popular beat-up stockade) that I have personally seen would be corrugated metal sheets, 2 high (8-10’ total height), fastened to (metal) pipe railings in the back.
I have seen prototype pictures of old boxcar doors used as fencing (welded together at the edges, and then to pipe fence), but I think you mentioned that in your OP.
Actually the pipe fence framework may be too modern (or expensive) for your era - more likely a framework made of salvaged steel structural shapes (such as lengths I-griders, L-bars, and yes, lengths of worn-out rail) welded (or riveted even) together.
Your era is too early for the most common boundary marker today - retired/reused shipping containers (often with chain link fencing & barbed wire along the top outer edges).
Edit - but not too early for dewheeled shorty (well, 28ft length - not shorty back then) trailer bodies, beat-up and weathered, lined up end to end, as at least part of the property line - OK, this may be more of a 1950s phenomon, but you probably could get away it with.
Thinking about it, likely any junkyard of that era, if indeed it had a fence, would probably stick w/ wood or correguated sheet metal (if immediately after WWII, you could use a host of other war surplus materials like Plywood or perforated metal sheets from temporary landing strips), with maybe salvaged wrought iron work (balcony railings, gate sections, etc) for a fancy front scrapyard entrance.
This is my fence. It is made from weathered metal siding pieces (Cambels) and strip wood. The staining and weathering was done to all the parts before the fence was built. It was easy to build too.
A possible source of recycled sheet metal would be those enameled sheet metal signs used by gas stations and other businesses in the 20s and later. As businesses folded during the depression a lot of those signs found their way into the junk/trash stream - and the ones that were about 2x4 or 3x6 would have made easy to use fence and gate panels. A little rust, some dings…
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
You may find this one hard to believe, but… my sister-in-law lives southwest of Columbus, Ohio, near Mt. Sterling. Only about 3/4 of a mile from her place is a junkyard… one whole “fence” section is old school buses! They have had the wheels removed & sit on the ground. They have been all painted gray but are now kind of rusting away. But it is easy enough to see that they are indeed old school buses.
It certainly is the most unusual fence I’ve ever seen… and I’ve asked her to get a picture of it for me so that I can post it in my blog one of these days.
dlm
Corrugated Steel!
http://www.soddersenterprises.com/Products/Aluminum/Alum_01.htm
Paint them different colors and add some rust stains.
Central Valley has fence and railing sets that have some wood fences in them which you could paint to look weathered:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/210-1601
and Campbell (also) makes corrugated metal:
200-802, 200-803, 200-804, and 200-805, in 10’, 12’, 4’, and 6’ scale widths, respectively. Walthers shows them as $7.71/pkg, but I can’t find how many are in a package.
Of course, if you have heavy duty aluminum foil and a clean haircomb, you could carefully make your own for almost nothing, too… [:-^] Maybe closer to scale thickness, even!
Hope that helps,
Jim in Cape Girardeau
The Hoffentoth boys use Campbell corrugated siding, on a strip styrene framework, to keep the neighbourhood kids from swipin’ coal for the family’s furnace. [swg]
Creechan’s Fine Fuels also use Campbell siding as a fencing material, although siding-covered buildings also make-up some of the yard boundaries:
V.A.Wagner Lumber uses a similar strip styrene framework, but opted for random-width 1"x12" styrene “boards”.
Wayne
That’s funny the school buses were mentioned … that’s exactly what yard up the road from me used, but took a slightly neater approach …
All the buses are laid on their sides with the smooth roofs facing the road. Sheet metal was welded between the individual busses to fill the gaps. The entire roadside was then painted gray ! It actually made for a rather tidy fence to hide a rather UNtidy area !
Mark.
I don’t have a clue how realistic it is but auto/truck hoods or boxcar doors may work if you are thing about junk from the yard as the fencing.
I used wooden coffee stirrers… cut 'em, stain and weather 'em… VOILA!
Years ago, when a building was going to be demolished, the crew would often remove all the interior doors and use them to construct a fence around the site. Doorknobs and all. Not sure if that would be appropriate around a junk yard, although I’m sure that plenty of those doors ended up in salvage yards, and would make a reasonable story behind the fence.
It would depend on the era of your layout, too. In the 1960’s, President Johnson’s wife Lady Bird traveled the country promoting efforts to beautify America, and a lot of localities adopted ordinances regulating how junkyards were screened from view from public streets… This meant a lot of those hap-hazard fences were replaced with more attractive barriers, ranging from chain link fences with slats in them to plants and trees that would block the view.
Lee
I mentioned the fence made of boxcar doors above (bascially doors lined edge to edge, welded to a framework), but dang if I can find a prototype photo on the web (I believe I saw it in a Modeling magazine many moon ago). Vehicle hoods from the 20s & 30s might be more problematic, being either rather narrow panels or very rounded pieces as opposed to the big flat hoods appearing in the 1960s…
It’s not a fence, but I recall seeing bulkheading around a marina at Smith Mountain Lake near Roanoke that was made from N&W hopper car sides. They still had the logos and dimensional data and everything on them!
Lee
Now there’s an oxymoron - Lady Bird & beautify in the same sentence!![:-^]
That’s rather cruel [:O]…but then, I suppose you never saw one of her “before” photos. [swg]
Wayne
Hello wow these are some grate ideas I may have to make the fence bigger to fit some of these. Time to go though the junk box a little better. I have some aluminum shim stock that’s about .040’’ thick that should work to make sheet metal. How about a billboard I have some old MRR mags that have sings and billboards printed in them or would the billboard be to big ? Thanks for the help Frank
.040 is about 3.5" in HO scale - pretty darn thick (or are you modeling O scale?) - something along the lines of .01" would be better, although even that’s pretty thick - sheet metal would be less than scale 0.10" - wow, looks like 20gage Alumium sheet would actually be thinner than the stock your proposing to model it with (20g = 0.0320" Al). In other words - real 20g Alumium sheet metal = .0320" thickness, your shims =.0400", you really need something like .00044" thick for HO scale!
If the junkyard has a long enough section of fence facing a busy road, then advertising signs mounted on that fence would certainly be appropiate for that era.
Yes, it was important that junk dealers not have to look out and see Lady Bird…[:-^]