"Making Gabions" Topic

Anybody got any advice on how to make gabions? I'm interested in doing them at N-guage/10mm.

Thanks in advance.

Materials:
Kite string
Thin style wooden tooth picks
Air hardening Clay
Flat piece of foam or cardboard
PVC or white glue
Sand

Process:
1>Draw a circle the desired size on foam (or cardboard)
2>Stick tooth picks around circle
3>Take a piece string and dip it in the glue
4>Weave string around tooth picks.
5>Repeat three and four till you have the desired height.
6>Let dry
7>Snip off tooth pick ends
8>Fill mostly with clay.
9>glue some sand to inside top.

When you weave the string, you want to make sure it is tight. Have an extra length to start with and secure one end outside of the gabion. You can trim this when done. When weaving, have one hand pull the string. Use a finger on the other to hold the toothpick in place. This will be slow going the 1st couple of passes, but makes it easier to pull the string tight without moving the toothpick.

Now if you don't want to do this multiple times, get some mold making stuff from Micromark. Given the size, a simple one piece pour mold would be more then good enough for this simple shape. And plaster of paris or hydrostone would work for casting.

Hi why not order 10MM Gabions from Pendraken they are in their ECW range part# EC25 £3.00 GBP for 10.

Guy

Guy,

I missed them on the Pendraken site – thank you.

Elliott

These would work well at 10mm too:

Scroll down a wee bit:

link

They are about 6mm to 7mm tall.

String seems a better choice than the wire I had thought about using though I was thinking about 28mm gambions where string night not work so well. Solder or lead wire might be better than stiffer copper wire though string is definitely something I will try as it wins hands down on price and ease of use.

Definitely though you should only make a few and cast your own.

Good call on the solder! I hadn't even thought about that one. String would be much cheaper but solder seems like it would be easier to work with. The 1st time I tried it, I used scraps of electrical wire and that didn't work as well as I would have liked.