Building a Horse Corral in O Scale

Howdy folks! Dave here at Thunder Mesa Studio, where this week I am back to work over here on Circle D Ranch. At this point Circle D Ranch consists of Walt's Barn, which was an O scale kit, limited edition, from Crescent Creek Models. Found a nice home for that. And this scratch-built log cabin that I did a video on a little while back, and I'll put a link up there for that. And what I want to do now is add a horse corral back over here. You see there's a spur that goes back around, and that's the private spur for Mr. Elias Omaj here, who's president of the Thunder Mesa Railroad. And I want to put a little horse corral back here so he can load his prize-winning horses up onto the stock cars that pull in here from time to time. I also built this Arkansas split-rail fence a little while back, around the same time as the cabin was built. But a horse corral has a different kind of construction. So I've already built the loading chute. Did that a little while ago. And now I want to build the rest of the horse corral around it, and that is this week's project. Basically I want to build a ranch gate right here to get in and out of the pen, and then fencing that joins up with these rock formations and follows the contour of the track around, and then comes down the side of the barn and back around like that. So pretty basic, simple fence, but you know, it ain't gonna build itself. So let's get started. Now I do have a little bit of experience with horses and ranches and gates and things like that, but I still wanted to do some research to see what the best way to go about this is. And as usual, that research led to a drawing. And here's the drawing right here. I've glued it up onto some some foam core so I can also use my drawing as a jig to build right on top of. I built this at scale, or I drew this at scale, so I can build right on top of it. Basically what we have here is a pretty generous gate, which is about 12 feet wide by 12 feet high. Plenty of room for a couple of men on horseback to ride through abreast, and enough room for this top bar so they won't bonk their head when they go through. The fence itself should be about 60 inches tall for horses. Seems to be the consensus right in there, somewhere around 60 inches tall. The gate right here is a triangular style gate, which is a pretty common design. Believe me, ranch gates come in all different configurations, all different shapes and sizes, but this is a pretty common one. And a good question to ask is, should the gate swing outward or inward? Well, I did a little research on that, and the consensus on that is it should swing both ways as much as possible. There's an argument for it swinging out, and there's an argument for it swinging in, but the general opinion should be, if possible, the gate should be able to swing both ways, and the latch should be operable by a man on horseback or a man on the ground, either one. So I've tried to keep all of that in mind while drawing this, and yes, I am going to try to design and build a hinge for this so that it can actually swing both ways. It can open and close in both directions. So we'll see how that turns out. But the first thing I want to do is build this gateway and this triangular gate itself, so let's get started on that. So I'm just gonna cut some O scale 8x8s for the gateway here, both the uprights and the cross piece, and all of the posts for the corral all the way around will also be 8x8s, and then I need to cut some 6x6 stock for the gate itself. Get all that cut and distressed and stained up, and we'll be off to the races. We'll be off, at least. This little trick I learned from marking rather than using a pencil, see, because a pencil line is fat. You want a little bit more precision, I use my hobby knife. Gives me a nice positive line that I can cut and a little bit more precise than a pencil. So I have a better chance, better odds, of these coming out the same size. Now all of these timbers, they've been out in the weather for a while, so add a little bit of distress to them. I like to use a razor saw to distress timbers like this, and I just take out, this is a fine-tooth razor saw, and just drag it along with the grain. And one way to keep it all from looking too uniform, see I'm kind of zigzagging back and forth, I'm twisting a little a little bit as I go, to give it, to give the grain a little bit of curve. Otherwise it can end up looking a little bit too perfect. I'm cutting this freehand, I want to be able to cut straight down as much as I can on my mark Make sure that's a good angle. Now on my drawing, I've left a fairly generous gap here between the hinge side of the gate and the post, and that's it, because if it's going to swing both ways, you've got to have the room in there to accommodate that. If it was flush up against this post here, it would not be able to swing, I mean that'd be okay if it was just going to swing out, right? But if it's going to swing both ways, I need a good healthy gap in here so that hinge has room to pivot. I've got some shoe dye and rubbing alcohol stain already mixed up from a previous project, and I'm going to condition that in. You know, just a quick dip, that's really all you need with this. You don't need to soak it in there unless you want it to be really dark. So I have been thinking about how this hinge is going to work, right? And what I have figured out is, I have some aluminum tubing, very tiny aluminum tubing, I think it is about two millimeter. I could tell you precisely if my calipers were working, but they're battery-operated and the battery is dead, which is why I will never again buy battery-powered calipers, because when you need them, the battery is dead. Anyway, I don't know what the inside diameter is, but this piece of 175 music wire slides nicely inside of that, so I'm going to use these to create my hinge, right? I'm going to cut a piece of this which is about two scale feet, half an inch long, and then I'm going to put the wire through and bend it on both sides, so it creates almost like a staple shape, and those protruding wires will go into the gate itself. And this part, the tube, will be... I'm going to create a little trough in here, and I'm going to epoxy that piece of tubing in there, and then, theoretically, the gate should pivot right on there, right? I'm going to mark this. There we go. Okay, I don't need this, I don't need that, I don't need this and this, so now I need to create just a little shallow notch for this to sit in, and then I can glue it in place. I'm also going to paint these pieces, too. I'm going to get some paint on here, kind of a dark, rusty brown, I think. Now, I've gone ahead and marked where I need a little trough to begin and end, and one of the best ways I've found to do things like this is to take a flat file, use the edge. I don't want to go too deep, because then it will interfere with the swing of the gate. I just want a place that I can glue this into. Back up. Thinking more about this, it seems like the smarter thing to do would be to put the wire through and bend it first, I can cut the length later, right? And then just install the whole thing on there, as one unit. Seems like that would be the way to do it. Do some final adjustments later on. Alright, nice and loose in there. Excellent. Alright, now I'm going to get some paint on this, using some of the old Rust-Oleum camo. Dark brown, my favorite go-to for old metal. Wait, back up one more time. Okay, well I got this painted, but before I install it on here, the smartest thing to do, I think, would be to build the gate itself, right? And then, install this in the gate, line it up with the post, and then everything will fit together nicely. It takes me a while sometimes to get these things figured out, but I think I've got it figured out now. So, I'm going to put the gate together, I'm going to use my drawing, and create a jig, and I need some packaging tape to put on the top of this so I can glue on top. Okay, now I'll get some nice pins. I've chamfered one of the ends here, the end where it meets the fence post, because it would be worn down like that. It should not take very long at all. And then the angle brace, put them all together. Alright, I think we can do this now. I've got my hinge, gate, okay. I need to mark where the holes are going to be, I need to drill a couple of holes. What a nice, tight fit. I'm using a size 71 bit. A little bit smaller in diameter than this wire. Hopefully I can get a nice press fit on this hinge. Remember, you can always make holes bigger. It's much harder to make them smaller. I think I've got it. Just about got it in here. Alright, I got it in there, but I ended up rubbing most of the paint off with my fingers because I didn't let it dry. Yeah, I was being impatient. I kind of like the way it looks. All that accidental weathering. Looks like a little worn out. I'll touch it up later. So now, mix up some 5 minute epoxy. And carefully attach that onto there. I only need a very small amount of this epoxy. Try to dispense a small amount. Mix that up. You've got to be really super careful not to get this into the working part of the hinge. You know what I mean? You want it on the barrel, not on the pins. But at the same time, a fairly generous amount on the barrel so that it actually sticks. Put that aside. And let's prop this up to level. A scrap of something, something. There we go. Into the slot it goes. Now we wait. Well, it's been a minute or two. I don't want to mess with this too much. The epoxy has set up. But I really want to give it a chance to cure completely. Probably overnight. Before I monkey around with this too much. But I just can't resist testing. To see. I'll take it. That's a success. Now I can finish building the rest of the ranch gate. Or the gateway, the archway here. Put those pieces together. I also have a little stop here. The gate would sit on. I need to figure out a way to latch the gate. So I think I'm going to just put a peg in the top of this. And I'm going to secure it closed with a piece of rope. That can be a loop of rope that can be removed from either side of the gate. And by a person on horseback or a person on foot. So I just need to figure out what to use for a peg. But this toothpick will work. Nicely, I think. Go into this. Ram it right through. And when that's dry, I'll clip it off and get some stain on there. Now I think I can put the rest of the gate together. Okay, well the gate is pretty much finished. I added some diagonal bracing up here at the top. With some 1x8s just to make it a little bit stronger. I also added a couple of pins to help locate the gate over where the corral is going to go. It's foam over there on Circle D Ranch. Except for the base of the barn itself. It's foam covered with sanded grout and some real dirt sprinkled on top. So these will just poke right down through that foam and hold the gate upright. While I'm building the rest of the fencing around it. Right now, I'm going to add a rope. It's going to be used to hold the corral shut. This is some number 10 crochet thread. And I've colored a few inches of it here. A darker brown with a sharpie. Grab some CA. Dab right here. We can start this. And I'm going to take just a little bit. Wrap this around a couple of times. And then I'll leave a larger loop. I can go over that tag that I put in there. Through here. Through there. Tie it off. I like to put a little CA to harden that knot. Get some brown paint and touch up that hinge. Get back in there with some chalk. Add some dark brown and some orange. Simulate rust. It does a really nice job of tying it all together. You should be able to get it in here right about here. Just like that. All right. The gate is in. Just need to build the rest of the corral. Now, before I start building the corral fence, I just wanted to take a minute to talk about the other key component in this scene. And that is this loading chute. I built this a while ago. And unfortunately, I did not film the build. But I did photograph it. So I'll throw some slides up there while I'm talking about this. But it's basically built in the same way with the same techniques as the gate I just did. It's scale, O-scale lumber, 8x8s for the uprights. And then some coffee stir sticks for the planks. And that's about it. Then it's got some nice little details like some nut bowl washer castings. And this little horseshoe up here on the top, which is laser cut. I really like that. Now, I know you horse people out there, a lot of you are saying, why would they have a loading chute in a horse corral? Well, play along with me here. All right. This particular horse corral belongs to Elias Omaj, who is the president of the Thunder Mesa Mining Company Railroad. And he's the owner of Circle D Ranch. And he has his own private spur that comes out to his barn. And he likes to, you know, go riding in the country sometimes. And sometimes he likes to transport his horses on his railroad. So he has a loading chute dedicated to that purpose at the back of the horse corral. So that's the whole backstory on that. That said, where I originally had it in the scene was a little bit too far over to the left, so I moved it further. I'm going to move it further over to the right so it's more visible and makes a little bit more sense in the scene. And we'll still line up with a standard Bachman stock car. Now I'm ready to start on the sections of corral fence. And I'm using the same drawing as a building jig template that I used for the gate. I drew a little section of fence down here. And I want to build it in 8-foot sections like this. And the uprights are scale 8x8s. And the cross pieces are actually copy stir sticks, but they're not the ones I usually use. These were sent to me by a friend of the channel. And they're a little more petite than the ones I usually use. These are about a scale 2 inches by about 9 inches. They vary a lot, which I like. And I'm sorry I don't remember who sent them to me. And if you're out there watching, let me know so I can give you a shout out. And I'm very sorry that I forgot. And I want to thank you for sending them to me because I found them very, very handy. In fact, I'd like to know where you got them. That said, I'll start in building this. And the important thing to remember with livestock fencing like this, be it horses or cows or whatever, is that the posts go on the outside. Right? And the reason for that is that if the animal leans up against the fence, the boards don't just pop out. Right? Because the animals are heavy. So I'm building this actually from the inside. It'll be flipped over. Quickly get this first 8 foot section done. Now this first section is a full section of fence with two posts. And the next one will be a half section. So it'll just be one post and the three rails coming out. By the way, this is what's known as a three rail fence. Very, very common out here in the West. You just need to make it tall enough so that the horses can't jump over it. And that's usually measured up to, you know, their withers, you know, usually about 60 inches is a good rule of thumb on that. So we can pop this out of here. There we go. I've got a nail and a pin vise. Put some nail holes. Just a nice detail that's very easy to add. And you notice these boards don't come all the way to the end. And that's because the next slats, the next three slats, are going to overlap right there. Well, the glue is dry on one of the half sections I was just talking about. So now you can see how they go together. Just like that. I just want to show you one little detail here. See how this has kind of cut away these scalloped... I did that with a hobby knife. These scalloped indentations in the top. And that is something known as cribbing, which is often seen on horse corrals. Sometimes when horses get bored, they will chew on the wood and create these scalloped-shaped indentations. Well, you know, I don't want my horses to be bored, but it's a cool detail to include nonetheless. Now to build the rest of this fence, I'm going to have to go back and forth several times between the workbench and the layout over there just to make sure everything is fitting properly and to figure out the number of panels that I'm going to need. But I've got a pretty good idea, so I've stained up a bunch of wood and posts and planks to get started. This is kind of a tough spot to work in and an even harder area to get good video of, so I hope you can see what I'm doing back here. I'm using some Eileen's Tacky Glue to hold it in place. Make sure these fence posts sit level. I'm actually digging down into the sanded grout a little bit, which I used for the ground cover here, and glued into place and painted with a thin wash of latex paint that matches the rest of the scenery. Dig down a little bit. I can actually create sort of a post hole. So on the surfaces where it's making contact with the fence post, I'm using wood glue, and where it connects to the layout itself, the scenery, I like to use Eileen's Tacky Glue in there. Okay, now I need to take the fence back over here to this rock formation, which is actually going to form part of the enclosure. Well, I think the corral itself is pretty much done. You can see back here how I solved the problem of bringing the fence up to the rock formation. Since it's theoretically soft sandstone, you could hammer poles right into the rocks. That's what we did here. Now, a couple other little details I want to add. There needs to be a source of water and probably a snub post in here somewhere for reluctant horses that don't necessarily want to be bridled and ridden. Now, a snubbing post or snub post is basically just a pole, often round, near the center of a round pen or corral that's used for training horses. The idea is you bring the horse over and you snub him up. You tie him up to this post so he can't move around too much. It's used for getting horses used to the saddle and the bridle and all that kind of stuff like that. Anyway, I've chosen to model a round one and I've used a 3 16ths of an inch dowel with a length of dress pin in the bottom so I can put it down into the foam. And an important detail, I've taken and sanded a little bit of a notch. I don't know if you can see that. Just where it's been worn away from the rope being tied around it over and over again and the horse pulling back. Just a little detail that most people won't notice but horse people will. Back in the old days, before the time of galvanized steel tubs that we use today in ranching, water troughs for horses were often made of wood. If you've watched any old western movies, you've seen these along the side of the street in front of the saloon where the hero or the villain ties up his horse. There's usually a water trough. They were basically just wooden boxes that were caulked. They're made out of boards and then caulked to hold water like a canoe. So that's what I'm going to attempt to make here. I've got some scribed 1 32nd of an inch thick basswood from my scrap box and I'm going to use that to model a wooden water trough. One of these pieces needs to be the floor. They're all the same so I guess it doesn't matter. It's going to be 2 feet high, about 6 feet long and 2 feet wide or deep. Pretty basic. One thing I can't stress enough on all of these things is the corral, the gate, all of it. These things were not built by professional carpenters. They're built by ranch hands, cowboys, things like that. If some of the angles are a little cattywampus, that's okay. That just adds authenticity to a model like this. Now I can just cap these corners with some scale 1 by 4. There. I think that'll work. Now for the water, I've got something else planned. I put a block in here. This is some 1 1⁄4 inch square stock inside and that is to raise up the level of the water which is actually going to be made from a piece of clear acetate. It was clear until I painted it a murky, swampy green on the back. I don't know about you, but I've never seen a horse trough where the water looked clean. Now I'll cut this to the right size. What I should be able to do is glue it in here with the shiny side up and it should do a pretty good job of simulating the look of water. I don't want to use CA. Where is my Eileen's Tech? Put a little smear of that in there. This is the shiny side. Yes. Press this down in there. There we go. Now, I'm going to use some watercolors. My favorite burnt sienna and cobalt blue mixture because even though these things are caulked, they are made of wood and they are going to leak. Let's find the board line here. Water streaks down the side. I'm going to do one side because only one side is going to be visible really. I'm just going to glue it in place over here by the fence. It will be relatively easy for the people working on the ranch to refill. If you're wondering where the water comes from for the trough, this is the 19th century. There's a creek right over there. I haven't poured the water in it yet, but eventually there will be a creek over there. They would take buckets and just bring it right over, just the same way they get water to the house. Something you will not find in a horse corral that's currently in use by actual horses is grass and weeds. That is because a horse will eat absolutely everything that they can reach. They'll go through the fence with their head and get grass and weeds. But just beyond their reach, they will grow. I want to put some clumps of grass and weeds around the perimeter of the corral. None inside. I'm just using some silvertuffs. It's hard to say. Silvertuffs from Scenic Express. This is just some of my dark, dark brown acrylic stain. It's almost black. This is what I use to darken the scenery when I'm doing the rock work. I'm also going to use it right now to add some stains around inside the corral. Because, you know, horses make messes. First I want to put some by the water trough. Perhaps some water has leaked out. Just a few random spots here and there. That will all dry a shade lighter than that. I think that's pretty good. There is something I almost forgot. You horse people out there, you probably know what it is. Yeah, it's a gate for this loading chute. In order to prevent any unscheduled departures in the corral, it's made up a little triangular gate to kind of match the one on the front of the corral. That one's non-operable, though. It doesn't really need to operate. And that will do it for the corral. I think that's it. Let's see. Am I missing anything else? Ah! Horses. Gotta have some horses in here. These guys are... I can't really remember where I got these. I don't know what the manufacturer is. I think this one came from a package of toys. I got it on eBay. And this other one... Ah, that one. This is some tooling that's been around forever. Not the greatest sculpt in the world, but, you know, you can paint them up to look okay. Yeah, eventually I want to add more horses to the corral. Aspen Modeling Company makes some of the best O-scale horses that money can buy anywhere. Beautiful sculpts. And both saddle horses, unsaddled, draft horses, you name it. And you can get those. So I'll probably get a few more of those for the corral. It's not a very big corral, so maybe five horses tops in there. Oh, one more thing. The gate works great. Open it up just like that. And yes, it does swing in both directions. Black horse out of the way. Very happy with the way that turned out. I want to thank you for joining me for that build of the Circle D Ranch horse corral. Don't forget to hit like and subscribe if you want to see more of this kind of thing. You can also follow Thunder Mesa over on Instagram at Thunder.Mesa or check out the Thunder Mesa Studio website. That's ThunderMesa.Studio. Or if you really like what we're doing here and want to show your support, you can head on over to Patreon.com slash Thunder Mesa, like these nice folks did, and show your support there. Until next time, keep moving forward, everybody, and adios for now. ¶¶