Picket Fence - HO Scale

Picket Fence - HO Scale from Woodland

A scenic accessory for layouts and dioramas in HO scale: a low picket fence with upright pickets of the kind that lines the front gardens and gardens of family houses. It is not a model of a vehicle or a building but an element that divides a scene up and gives it a sense of size. The manufacturer supplies it hand-painted and weathered, so it is set straight into finished terrain.

What a fence does for a scene

A picket fence is a small element with a large effect. A house set straight on a lawn looks as though somebody had forgotten a model there; as soon as a fenced garden comes about around it, the scene gains an inhabited character at once. The fence at the same time marks where a private plot ends and the street or the sidewalk begins, and so gives the whole development order. It comes out best in residential districts and in the quiet parts of a town.

Installation tips

• Lay the route of the fence out dry first and only then set it into the terrain.
• Push the pins into a soft ground; on a hard board mark the holes out beforehand.
• Run the fence along a contour or follow a slope, so that it does not hang in the air anywhere.
• Bring the manufacturer's weathering into line with the surroundings using a fine dust pigment at the foot of the fence.
• Add the grass and growth right up to the fence, so that the transition does not look separate.

Who it is for

For builders of residential development and suburban scenes in HO scale who want to make gardens around houses and to separate private plots from the street.