There has been a blank hole, for some time now, on Brafferton where the coal drops were supposed to be.
By curving the main line, which was of course dead straight, I gave myself a dilemma of how to deal with this pesky area; should it remain straight, in which case how could I get it far enough back to give adequate clearance? Or should it curve parallel to the main line; but were coal drops ever curved?
From an aesthetic point of view, I went with the latter option. The curve is only slight and I expect it will be a non-issue for observers. Excepts for any pedants out there now making a pencil note in their book to be referred back to 24 months henceforth...
Anyway, on with the construction. The ten cells were marked on a base of plasticard and walls built up from 20 thou and 30 thou card:
My preferred method for brickwork in 2mm scale is brickpaper. I've used Builderplus for most of my work in the past, but this time I've used the Freestone paper which is slightly lighter and, to my eyes anyway, matches the local brick better.
In my youth (!) I was lucky enough to come into contact with many excellent 2mm modellers, Mike Raithby, Bill Blackburn, Bill Rankin, Jim Boulton and Peter Wright to name just a few. I'm sure it was Peter who showed me the trick of applying brickpapers; never use a glue which will "wet" the paper. So to affix the paper to cardboard, I use Pritt stick with only very small amounts of white glue on smaller details. On plasticard, I use plastic solvent; this can be brushed on the plastic before laying the paper on, and it can be soaked into the paper to provide more adhesion. In either case the paper retains its stiffness and can be easily trimmed with a sharp scalpel:
Coping stones are applied with more plasticard giving the requisite 14mm rise in the cells; these were really quite low coal drops. Humbrol matt 28 gives an initial colouring to the white areas before the rails are attached (in the next post):
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