A busy moment at Ropley.
Hi all.
I really hate making posts like this, but there hasn't been an awful lot of progress on the layout of late and so there isn't much to show in the way of changes. Its quite frustrating really, as there are a lot of jobs I want to get stuck into, but once started they need a few days to see through to completion. Hopefully over the festive season I should be able to make a significant move in the right direction though thanks to a week off wor
The Watercress Belle departs Ropley for Alton.
Hello all.
Since the last entry I have made a start on repainting a Farish FO to represent one of the coaches painted in a faux Pullman scheme and used on the MHR's dining services. Two of these are required, along with an RU, MK.1 Pullman and BG to make up the set used on the Watercress Belle and Countryman services.
Those that read the Painting and Weathering section of the forum will know that getting to this stage s
A reminder of a Norfolk Holiday...........and some railway stuff.
Hi all!
Not much modelling in this entry, having just returned from a week boating on the Norfolk Broads. If you hark right back to the first entry on this blog you'll see that the original plan was to model the swing bridge at Somerleyton and if anything the latest trip has re-kindled interest in that project, a few more close up detail photos being added to the research folder for future reference!
Anyway, to ma
Shedding some light on things.
Hi All.
For a little while now I've been thinking about whether I should go to the trouble of adding working lighting to the layout. Whilst there isn't that much around the yard, it would add another level of realism, and potentially allow some atmospheric N Gauge photos! Just take a look at Missy's blog post here to see what kind of effects can be achieved.
So, this afternoon I plugged in the soldering iron, dug out some 0.8mm diameter brass and lo
Muck, Ash & Oil.
Hi All.
Well, 100 blog entries! I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at progress since Ropley Started nearly 2 years ago. Progress hasn't been as quick as I would have liked, but I have learn't alot along the way. I would never have thought I'd be making my own pointwork for a start! I also wanted to say thanks for all the likes, comments and feedback, it really does help keep the modelling mojo alive and kicking!
It started with a p
A lazy Summer afternoon at Ropley.
Hi all.
Recent progress on Ropley has been limited to work in the yard area, and it hasn't been as straight forward as I would have liked. Getting engines to run through the inset DAS 'muck & oil' is proving to be a challenge, and whilst one engine will quite happily crawl along, another simply refuses to budge, so I foresee much sanding and tweeking to get things running smoothly. Still, we're getting there!
The most challeng
Hi all.
Firstly apologies for the lack of updates recently. Various things have conspired to prevent much visible progress with the layout since the last entry here so there isn’t much more to show at present.
That said, the tree factory is slowly churning out more examples for along the top of the embankment, meaning that once the ground work is completed, it will be a fairly quick task to get them all planted in position. Also all of the wood for the first fiddle yard has been acquire
Hi All.
One of the unique features of the RMweb Members day over a normal exhibition is the opportunity to get up close to the layouts on display, and this year Missy of this parish very kindly allowed me to spend some time operating (playing with) Highclere. The layout itself doesn't really need any introduction and in the flesh it truly is a work of art, but of particular interest to me this year was the more mundane part of the layout, the fiddle yard, and the opportunity to see it in act
Work has started on the main yard area, with the first DAS applied.
Hi All.
A rather random entry this time, with a few different areas of the layout seeing work or planning. Firstly, the first DAS has been applied to the main yard section in the area immediately in front of the coal staithe. I plan to do small areas at a time to make sure I can manage the removal of the DAS from around points and the insides of the running lines. The method is largely the same as that described here, b
A quite moment at Ropley between services.
Hi all!
I spent a couple of hours this morning toning down the watertower a little and adding a spot of extra weathering. It's now getting close to how I want it to look and the only addition to the tank itself is a few streaks of light green paint present on the real thing. The first stage was to give the whole thing a wash of very thinned black, which helped take the edge off the light grey. Even in daylight it was much to light, and dried
The water tower now painted and with basic weathering.
Hi all.
Again a short entry, just to show that the water tower is now painted and semi-weathered. The real thing is somewhat of a mix of colours, from the basic grey through various different shades of rust and (predictably) some green. I started with the green, using Maskol to cover the areas I wanted to show through. the second layer was a basic rust colour, before again Maskol was used to cover the large patch of rust on one side
All primed and ready for the final details and painting
Hi all.
Just a really quick entry to show the water tower now primed. I'm really quite impressed with the way the rivets decal film is pretty much invisible, and where it can just about be made out it's barely noticeable. If you're looking for an easy way to produce rivets, then I really can't recomend the Archer sheets enough.
Next stage is adding the smaller details then painting & weathering!
Cheers,
Tom.
The water tower is now firmly "riveted" together
Hi all.
A small package dropped through the letter box yesterday containing a sheet of Archer Transfers resin rivets. I must hand it to DCC Supplies for some excellent service as I only ordered these on Wednesday, and with the economy postage I wasn't expecting them until the weekend.
The sheet itself is printed with rows of very fine resin dots, representing the rivets, and has a selection of various different sizes spacings. The
Can you tell what it is yet?
Hi all!
Continuing work on the water tower area of the layout, I've made a start on the tower itself. The prototype structure was once resident at the Longmoor Military Railway before being moved to Ropley and is fed by a larger tank which is located up on the embankment, another structure yet to be modelled. Information on these structures is difficult to come by, and I don't know if this was a standard L&SWR design. It is very similar to the tower a
Visiting diesel locos now have means to obtain fuel at Ropley.
Hi all.
Just a quick update to show the fuel pump and shelter which have now been finished. These are all built from assorted platic card sanded & filed to shape along with stretched sprue for the pipes. The Shelter was sprayed with Railmatch Malachite Green in line with the seeming MHR policy of if it doesn't move, paint it green! Weathering is all done with powders. The shelter just needs the limited clearence signs fo
An Alton bound service departs from Ropley.
Hi all.
Something I have been almost about to start for a while now, has finally been started, namely the water tower. This is quite a key feature of the yard and so I wanted to try and include as much detail as possible here.
The first stage is to model the base. This includes the drain area, concrete base and small brick building which I can only assume houses some sort of pump for the tower. The prototype looks like this:
New trees springing up everywhere!
Hi all,
The tree line along the top of the embankment has moved forward a little recently with the completion of a few more specimens! It's slow work, mainly because my fingers need some recovery time after all that wire twisting, however I think the end result is worth the effort (and pain!) Obvioulsy it's impossible to have a 100% accurate representation of each and every tree (or is it...) so this will be a rough approximation of sizes and shapes
It's modelling Jim.......
Hi all.
Spurred on by WillJ's fantastic work in Google Sketchup with his various projects, but notably his PPM Class 139 & City of Truro boiler (Check out his blog here if you haven't already), I downloaded the program in order to get to grips with the program and allow me to make a start on the support for the ex Kings Cross footbridge currently being installed at Ropley.
Why do this in 3D? Well, the supports are actually quite complex for a simple
Remember this part completed tree seen a few entries ago?....
Hi all
I've spent the afternoon finishing one of the many trees that will be required for the top of the embankment. The tree in question was seen partially completed a few entries back, and was been produced using the the twisted wire method, with some polyfibre teddy stuffing I found on the net for the finer branches.
I'm quite pleased with how this one has turned out, and I have to admit that for a short while I was
A quiet moment between services.
Hi all.
My sole purchase from the York show this year was a bag of Green Scene Weathering powders in browns, black and ash grey. I had been mulling over ways of improving the weathering of the track on the layout and also how to achieve the multitude of different colours and shades found at the real location and decided that powders might give slightly more control and flexibility than using paint.
It's something of a bugbear of mine that I see a
Spot the difference?!
Hi all.
Taking advantage of the thoroughly rubbish weather outside today, I've tackled a few smaller details which were preventing ballasting moving further down the line towards the station. I had previously completed up to the area where point rodding crosses under the mainline to reach the wheel drop road points but there were a few detail items relating to the ground signal controlling exit from the yard area.
The Prototype (from the other side!)
A 4MT hauled service departs Ropley heading for Alton.
Hi All.
Well, not a huge amount of progress to report just recently for various reasons, but mostly work related as usual! The backscene has had its first coat of white applied, and a template has been made for the top of the embankment, although I really need to get back to the real location to work out the exact lay of the land behind the tree line along with the exact location of the footbridge.
You may remember a few entr
Giving thought to the final presentation of the Layout
Hi All.
Now that the backscene is in place, I have been giving some thought to the eventual presentation of the layout. The intention was always for Ropley to be exhibitable, should anyone want it, and so it will need to have a proper frontage. To that end, I thought it would be nice to incorporate the Ropley Station totem as part of this, the only question mark being what colour to paint the rest of it.
A quick doodle in Pa
Ropley's new Bendy MDF coloured sky. But not for long.....
Hi All!
Another one of those 'I'll do it next time' jobs has been completed in the shape of the Backscene. After reading a few threads on the Forum on the subject, I opted for bendy MDF, in the hope it would be fairly easy to form a nice curve at the end of the board, and it seems to have done the job nicely. The other end doesn't have the curve to allow the possible future extension to include the station area. The MDF is pr
The Winter Sun peaks through as a Weekend service heads towards Alton
Hi all!
Just in from the Festival of Railway Modelling at Doncaster Racecourse. Nice show as usual, and kudos to the girls at the entrance for opening the doors slightly early to allow those lucky few of us near the front of the que in out of the sub zero temperatures!
I picked up the final point motor required for the scenic section, so the end is in sight for the electronic work now and I'll be able to run en
