Chain Link Fence Again

Some months back I was showing some chain link fence made by Plastruct that I had put on the layout. The Plastruct fence seems a bit over-scale, and I mentioned back then that I also had some chain link made by Walthers, but hadn't used it yet.

The Walthers kit says on the box that it will make 80 inches of fence.  I envisioned that there would be a roll of fence material about 80 inches long, plus a bunch of fence posts, etc. I thought this would be just great because one of the sections of fencing I'd like to put on the layout would be something like 56 inches in length.

But, what you get in the Walthers kit is more like a sheet of mesh for the fencing, which you must then cut to the correct height to match the height of the posts.  I found this to be a lot easier said than done, as the mesh tended to stretch as my fresh Xacto blade ran over it. This stretching made the cut uneven, so I had to try again. My second try had a much better result, although I wouldn't call it perfect by any means.

Also in the box, you get several pieces of steel wire, probably about .020" diameter, and about 8 inches long for use as the top and bottom chords of the fence.  The wire pieces are to be glued together end to end and then cut at whatever overall length you find appropriate, and then glued to the fence posts. I felt like I was fighting through this project the whole time. I guess that's why we call it modeling.  The top and bottom chords came out nowhere near straight, and the mesh isn't quite straight either.

I'm glad that my fence installation is going in an area of town that is pretty run down. I painted the finished fence with a couple colours of rust, and it actually fits in to the overall scene quite well despite the troubles I had putting it together.

Here's the Walters kit, and what it includes.  There's a 2nd sprue of fence posts that I somehow missed including in the 2nd picture.  You have to look closely at the top of the 2nd picture to see the fence mesh that's supplied. Also shown is the steel wire top and bottom fence rails.

Here is my first of the Walthers fencing installed on the layout. It fits in well in the derelect area of the layout. I still have more fencing to build and install.

I do like the gauge of the mesh much better than the Plastruct product, and the fence posts are much nicer looking too. I'm going to try to find some music wire to use for the top and bottom chords of the fence, as I feel that might be a lot easier to keep straight than the short pieces that come with Walthers kit.