What type of wall materal for netting/visual barriers

[Prov1x]

I'm the uspsa match director at our local club and we are needing to replace some wall material. I've sent a couple of emails to other match directors regarding this topic but haven't gotten any responses. It seems the stage design/construction forum doesn't get much activity so I thought I would ask here.

What type of material is best and most economical for building walls? Currently ours have the orange construction fence material and it's cheap and it break all the time. I am looking for something better like the tenax hd security fence but would like to know what other clubs are using.

Any info, links etc would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[mosher]

We use the 3mm corrugated plastic cardboard sheets from home depot. They come in 10 packs, and work out to about $11 for a 4x8 sheet. They aren't see through, and we can just cut ports wherever needed with a utility knife. Very light.

[Tim Egan]

You might want to look into shade cloth.

http://www.gemplers.com/shade-cloth

Different weights allow various amounts of light thru.... somewhat self healing.

Denser shade cloth captures the wind more than the orange netting, so that can be a factor.

TimE

[rishii]

How windy does your range get?

Our gets windy as hell, and we tried plywood, plastic cardboard, plastic lattice fencing and shade cloth.

they all acted like huge sails and we spent more time repairing stages, then shooting them, we've settled on construction fencing, and over the years I found out that it comes in different thickness's. The thicker stuff is great, the thinner ones do break easier

[MarkCO]

Deer block netting. About $15 to $20 for a 100' roll. Most is 7 foot tall, so you can either make 7 foot wide walls, or trim the excess off. It is cheaper and at least as durable as construction fencing. Plus, at less than $1.50/wall, replacement is not bad. And yes, we get a lot of wind.

When we redid our walls, we kept the trimmings and used it to make some inserts and built some walls with 1 foot vertical openings in the middle.

[MarkCO]

Here are some photos of our walls.

[Prov1x]

Here are some photos of our walls.

Wow, those look good. I looked at the deer fencing as well and thought about trying it too. Where can you find it, store wise to look at, instead of online? Lowes, home depot etc?

Our walls openings measure 4'2" tall and 8'2" long and some are the split walls like in the 2nd picture.

Edited November 12, 2014 by Prov1x

[Prov1x]

How windy does your range get?

Our gets windy as hell, and we tried plywood, plastic cardboard, plastic lattice fencing and shade cloth.

they all acted like huge sails and we spent more time repairing stages, then shooting them, we've settled on construction fencing, and over the years I found out that it comes in different thickness's. The thicker stuff is great, the thinner ones do break easier

In Oklahoma the wind comes sweeping down the plains....okay that was dumb but it can get pretty windy here. Last weekend, with the construction orange fence, we had walls blowing over even after being staked down on both sides.

[MarkCO]

Some of the Farm/Tractor/Ranch supply stores carry the deer block netting. I buy it on-line for the best price.

[MarkCO]

Here is a closer photo so that you can see the actual mesh better.

[JFlowers]

I like mesh - deer fencing, green plastic construction fencing, whatever - for several reasons. Doesn't blow in the wind. Lighter weight. But as an RO I like it since I can see the range. At Area 6 one year I was behind some barrels fixing an issue when the CRO started LAMR with the next shooter. Talk about pucker!!! And that's with a dedicated RO crew on the stage! At local matches, where everyone is working I really like being able to visually inspect the stage.

[kevin c]

We use the heavy duty snow fence from Resinet. The stuff is very strong: doesn't break down from UV, doesn't stretch or tear, even holds up to spatter off steel. We are hard on our props out here, since we leave them out in the (admittedly mild) weather 24/7/365, but it's the wooden framwork that gives out before the fencing does. Some of our wall sections are four or five years old with the fencing still going strong.

The downsides are that it is very expensive [around 95$ per roll (4X100 feet) plus shipping], is a bit hard to roll out flat, and is best mounted using a pneumatic staple gun (the staples from the heavy duty staplers we use to mount targets just crumple up).

[ivan]

. But as an RO I like it since I can see the range.

It's better for the RO for safety reasons, and it's better for spectators so they can see the action!

-ivan-

[b1gcountry]

I have also seen house wrap and landscape fabric used.

[ROY NEAL]

Another suggestion that is cost effective and tough as it has to be able to get shot (can you believe that IPSC/USPSA shooters actually miss?)

We use a lightweight combination. Orange snow fence (also orange elevator safety fence) on one side with black door screen sheets on the other side. The plain black screen is great since it lets air go through it and allows RO's to look through it and make sure that no one else is down range. The problem is that the black screen didn't really hide anything and a few shooters put some rounds through a section one match. We added the snow fence and safety fence screens to the other side of the black screen and that made the difference. Wind still gets though, RO's can still see through it and it creates a nice vision barrier for the shooter. We just made walls with different ports already in them (high, low, vertical, horizontal ect....). If we don't want to use the port during a match, a no shoot is stapled over the port opening and then it is covered. We started this about 4 years ago and they have held up very well.

We originaly used the core plast 4 or 8 foot sheets but those were expensive and wind is an issue with them. We still have some but haven't built any new walls with them for years. Pictures our walls can be seen at out website........www.ipsc66.org

R

[zodiac]

We use the heavy duty snow fence from Resinet. The stuff is very strong: doesn't break down from UV, doesn't stretch or tear, even holds up to spatter off steel. We are hard on our props out here, since we leave them out in the (admittedly mild) weather 24/7/365, but it's the wooden framwork that gives out before the fencing does. Some of our wall sections are four or five years old with the fencing still going strong.

The downsides are that it is very expensive [around 95$ per roll (4X100 feet) plus shipping], is a bit hard to roll out flat, and is best mounted using a pneumatic staple gun (the staples from the heavy duty staplers we use to mount targets just crumple up).

^^ We use the same stuff. I really like the fact that it doesn't get brittle in subzero temps.

[Guzza]

We have a combination of orange construction mesh and shade cloth. Not sure what grade it is but for what its worth, the shade cloth has far better longevity. Our shutters stay out year round they get a tempiture range from say, -5degC to 35degC. And yeah, we get alot of wind too at certian times of the year too.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Guzza

[Jim Norman]

We use Stockade fencing from Lowe's or Home Depot. 8 x 6 sections are about $24 each and last for years. We cut in ports, or windows, attach knock-out panels etc. We use 2 x 4 angle braces to hold them up and yes it does get windy here.

We have 5 stage trailers with everything needed to put a stage on the ground, walls, braces, steel faultline, target stands, sticks, etc.

[JHicks8h]

Industrial landscape cloth is what we just replaced all our walls with at our club. Reasoning. It has little effects from weather, semi permeable with wind, but not as permeable as the snow fencing. Just from past experience the solid walls decrease the shooters ability to come on a target early when moving into position. It was also easily to cut and staple into place.