Friday 25 May 2012

Renedra Wattle Fences

Late last week I popped into Northstar to get a pack of their excellent (if sharp) spears.
Whilst there I also picked up a set of the splendid Renedra Wattle fences. And nice Mark did me a deal, so shop with Northstar I say!

I've been after some fences like this for quite a while, and was on the point of making my own when these hit the market. At £10 for almost 5 foot of fencing they're a bargain. So I had to have some.

So what do you get for you cash?
Two of these frames actually:

Each frame contains five long strips of fencing and two shorter ones, one with a gate. There are also six little "feet" that you glue to pegs in the bottom of the fence to stand them up. Two of the long strips have some "wear and tear" modelled into them.
They're nice clean, crisp castings that look like wattle fences to my untutored eye.
The long fences measure just under 12.5cm/5", the short pieces 6cm/2 1/2"
Here's some of them:




Clipping them out they needed minimal tidying up and were easy to put together. I trimmed a little around the peg and foot to make sure the base of the fence was as flush with the ground as I could, but it wasn't really necessary, and certainly not if you're planning on adding any sort of base.

So I hastened to apply paint. There now follows what may well be the most boring and self evident step by step guide to painting them

Having cleaned them up and glued on the little base/foot thingy I sprayed them black. They were then given an all over covering with Charadon Granite:


Stage two was a simple drybrush with Graveyard Earth:


The next stage was a light drybrush with Bleached Bone:


Then I added a little bit of sand, painted brown and drybrushed followed by some static grass to the foot and they were done:




Overall I'm very pleased with them. Cheap, effective and plentiful. My only concern is that they are (inevitably) very light and with only the small foot attached they may move around/fall over. Obviously this would be easy to fix by adding a base but I'm lazy and also would like to be able to use the same fences on both my green and desert boards, so the unobtrusive foot is ideal. Also, by the time I've made and added bases I've increased the cost and labour involved to a point where it might be better just to buy resin ones.
I'll give them a whirl as is and can always go back and add a base later.

Here's a couple of shots of fences with their proud Late Roman owners for scale.



Great product in my opinion. If you need wattle fences, grab them.
Now it might be time for some of their Saxon tents...

5 comments:

  1. They look pretty good..for 1/72nd scale I suppose they could be embedded a bit into the basing to reduce the height.
    Nice paintjob.
    Cheers
    paul

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  2. They are very good indeed! Spotted them at Salute so just had to pick up a bag. Haven't painted mine yet.

    Cheers

    Matt

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  3. Quality review - simple and effective.

    Btw, am I the only one out there who uses a spare North Star Spear for itching my feet?

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  4. These are nice. Not seem them before. A lot cheaper than the metal Gripping Beast ones I bought a few of!

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  5. Thanks chaps.
    Paul do you want me to take a pic of a 1/72 bod by one of them?
    I've got some Revell Panzergrenadiers lying around...
    Vladdd, with a username like yours I'd have thought you'd have lots of suitable sharp implements lying around :)

    Tom

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