2025 was a funny year. For various reasons I didn't have much time for modelling and wargaming, and the projects I did undertake are only part complete. I did however have a couple of games of 'O' Group and that hi-lighted that I had nothing like enough normal (not bocage) hedges.
I've therefore spent a bit of time over Christmas and New Year making 18' of hedges, including half a dozen sections with a gate. As with my bocage hedges, I included a few sections with trees growing out of them.
For the sections without gates I prioritised speed of manufacture and used strips of horsehair glued to 20mm wide strips of the rubber backing of carpet tiles without any attempt to texture, paint or add static grass to the rubber strips. I made the strips with a variety of lengths: 4, 6 or 8 inches.
On John Boadle's recommendation I used UHU glue to attach the horsehair to the bases and 'trees' as this provides the required initial stickiness and won't go brittle. This whole batch has used almost two 60ml tubes of glue but I bought a pack of a dozen quite cheaply online so I won't be running out any time soon.
Once the glue was dry, I cut, tore and pulled the horsehair to the required shape, aiming for an irregular look with some looser pieces - sometime I overdid the pulling and had to re-glue it or add bits back on. I was aiming for a more irregular and slightly more open look than I'd got with the bocage sections.
Once I was satisfied with the general shape of the hedges, I sprayed the whole thing black with the cheapest black undercoat I could find then sprayed a grey highlight over this and/or dry brushed it with brown emulsion. I'm not really sure this makes much difference as once the foliage is attached the horsehair drops back into shadow and the colour isn't noticeable.
The trees are made using sections of heather collected on hill walks - you often come across areas with lots of it at the side of paths, roads or ditches after maintenance work. I tried to attach the horsehair to give an impression of foliage around branches growing out fairly horizontally from the main branches and trying to avoid making a horsehair lollipop. I cut some small squares of 3mm MDF, drilled holes in the middle and glued the base of the trees to these before attaching them to the hedge bases.
In the first batch of hedges, I included 4 straight bases with trees in them. Predictably they are very prone to toppling over so, for the second batch, I put the trees in T-section pieces so they will be more stable.
As with those I made for my bocage hedges, the gates are based on old photos showing an style with a high end on the hinge side and more vertical bars than is usual on UK farm gates. Because they are made from thin plastic and rather fragile I needed a more rigid base and used 3mm MDF. Obviously the gateway section at least would be visible so I textured and finished these with my usual basing style and materials. This meant I could't just spray the whole thing black so I cut, shaped and sprayed the horsehair separately then glued it on. This gave a problem with glossy bits of glue being visible but this generally disappears under the foliage and is matted down by the later stages.
I wanted to make the foliage colours more varied than my bocage hedges so added a batch of cork granules in Leaf Green to those with Hookers Green and Chromium Green I had used previously. There is a natural variation from each colour, depending on how much paint gets on each cork granule and I also used mixes of the three colours on a single bush or tree. This is still far short of the almost infinite variation one sees in nature but it looks reasonable on the table with more variety than appears in the photos. I'm planning on making more trees and some river sections with trees and bush lined banks - for these I think I'll add some more colour variation.
To apply the foliage, I painted tacky glue over the surface of the horsehair. There is a balance between putting on enough to glue stick the granules but not so much that you just have a green shell of cork completely hiding the horsehair 'twigs' beneath. Once the glue was dry, I tried to shake off any loose granules. With using three colours I had to do some work to go back and fill in any excessive gaps and also to cut off or re-glue any stray fibres that stuck out noticeably but had somehow failed to pick up any leaves.
With only the tacky glue there is a constant stream of granules falling off. To counteract this, I first sprayed everything with a 2 parts water to 1 part Mod Podge matt medium as a cheaper alternative to 'Scenic Cement'. This has the beneficial effect of matting down any glossy areas of UHU. Initially this has a worryingly milky-white colour but dries to a clear matt finish. When that was completely dry I sprayed on lots of hair spray - the cheapest and firmest hold possible (again on John Boadle's recommendation), in this case Superdrug's own-brand 'Ultra Firm Hold Hair Spray' at £2.00 per can. I first masked off the gates and surrounding ground texture. The overall effect is pretty solid without too much visible build up though there is a slight sheen from the hairspray - I suppose the market for hair products with a dead flat matt finish is limited. This is only really noticeable on the tree trunks and branches, and some bits on the gates where my masking was inadequate so I gave these bits a quick mist over with matt varnish.
We've got another game scheduled for next week so we'll see whether this is enough hedging.
