Here’s a little project to keep things ticking over - it’s only a pile of firewood but a nice, attractive little feature that could find a home on many layouts. The best part is that it’s free and very simple to make.

I wrote about gathering and cutting the wood a while ago and now that the trees from which I harvested the wood are flowering for the first time, I can tell you that the wood came from some young plum trees.

I like to make small pieces like this on the bench rather than directly onto the layout. Holding the pieces of wood in place while the glue is applied and allowed to set is the most difficult part of this little project but that is very simple to resolve: you just need some sort of fixture to hold them. Convenient for me was a reject wagon, but anything similar would do. I placed a small piece of card on the bottom to stick everything to, but this isn’t really needed. It is simply a case of building up the pile, piece by piece, gluing as you go.

Once you have built to the height you want, it is just a question of waiting for the glue to set. As I only wanted a small woodpile against a wall, I had to think of a way of making it look like it was supported. Originally I was going to use some bricks at either end, but this didnt look right done so small. Then the idea of using a couple of stakes of wood came to me, a bit more of the same wood used for the firewood were cut to size and then glued to the ends. I also added another piece of card to the underneath to help hold everything together. This will be covered by the ground surface eventually.

So there you have it, one little project that would look at home in many settings.

[This tip originally appeared in the GnATTERbox]