Where does the time go? Been far too busy with other things, e.g., work, children, DIY, etc., to make much progress, but in an attempt to build and maintain momentum I have joined the Farnham & District Model Railway Club! F&DMRC have a great N-gauge group and a fantastic exhibition layout in the form of Basingstoke. Looking forward to learning lots, meeting nice like-minded people and hopefully contributing something to the new N-gauge layout, Warwick.
Other than that I have finally
Really enjoying getting back into modelling and making good progress on Harpers Road. I thought I'd just post an overview photo showing the layout standing on it's relatively new mini-legs. These are made from eased-edge construction timber (100mm x 47mm I think) and are attached with a 10mm carriage bolt. The idea is that different size legs for different uses: shorties whilst modelling at home, long ones if I ever get to a club or exhibition.
Because my house is a tiddly little Victor
It's been so long since my last post. All hope of entering, let alone winning, the Challenge 2010 competition has been lost! Still, I've managed to get back into modelling again now that family life has settled down a bit. By leaving my layout and tools neatly to the side of the dining room I've been able to do the odd hour or two most evenings recently.
I'm really pleased with the trackwork so far. Taking my time to get it neat and doing it properly, such as modify points with frog-switchin
Work on the Harpers Road baseboard continues apace. I'm quite into it now and feel motivated after successfully overcoming the first hurdle of building a decent baseboard.
Yesterday I set to work by filling the screw heads, sanding and applying a coat of Japlac Primer & Undercoat in Off-White:
Today I managed to do both coats of Rustins Matt Black:
Not quite sure what I should next? Probably using more plywood to create the foundation of the dividing walls be
After a 5 month hiatus post Banana Terror and as indicated in #7 Rethink I am back in construction mode having completed the new baseboard.
Probably a weird way of going about it but I have used a simple glued'n'screwed butt joint because I wanted to have a 3mm "lip" all the way around the edge. I've seen this on other layouts and think it looks very neat. I bet it's a great way to stop ballast and grass from falling off during construction.
Lots and lots and lots of "Stronger Than T
After my disaster with the Mk.I baseboard I've had time to reflect upon the plans for my layout. It's really difficult deciding what to model when a) you've never done it before, B) don't want to make expensive mistakes and c) are conscious of the fact that you don't really know that much about trains. I'm still going to stick with the idea of basing my layout on something that has gone before me so I know at least I'm heading in the roughly the right direction. But the layouts I like the most a
Oh, dear! The best-laid plans of mice and men, and all that...
My spanking new baseboard has suffered a terrible setback due to a terrible shortfall in planning on my part. The problem? Acclimatisation.
Basically, the wood (MDF sheet and spruce) has been sat in my unheated workshop all winter. I made the baseboard out in the workshop in the cold - it only took and hour or two, so no need to put the heater on. After spending a few days tucked up all cosy and warm in my understairs cupboar
The baseboard is born!
We have finally overcome the first, and I'm sure many would agree, hardest hurdle when building a model railway: actually doing something in the real world instead of pouring over magazines, catalogues, the internet or endlessly designing your layout on paper.
As Harpers Road is only 48" wide and 9" deep it was never going to take long to do baseboard, around about an hour or two (in-between Seth's constant stream of questions about the tools in my workshop). The t
After considering the helpful comments on previous posts we have revised the layout for Harpers Road so that we can include an engine shed without the need for a set of 3-way points.
Our first attempt to jiggle things around was a complete disaster in over-complication so the v2 plans were consigned to the bin. Hence the new plan is referred to as v3:
The right-hand front siding has been doubled by using an extra left-hand curved point. The two tracks will lead into the engine shed
Scalescenes.com Low Relief Warehouse
We've built several N-gauge Metcalfe kits but now that we have decided to model a modern diesel-era scene we don't have much use for a period country station or goods shed (shame, I was rather pleased with the finished results but my wife thinks they looks great on the mantelpiece).
We like card modelling and have scratchbuilt other non-railway models such as space rockets, satellites and famous landmarks. After a little Googling we discovered Scalesc
As described in our first post our bookshelf N-gauge layout is going to be closely based on the excellent OO Dudley Road by Pete Harvey. We have attempted to recreate the plan using Peco Code 55 in XTrkCad.
One problem we have encountered so far seems to be the lack of 3-way points in N-gauge let alone a set with Code 55 rail. We've looked at offerings from Fleischmann, Trix and Arnold but they look so different they'd really stick out like a sore thumb. Rumour has it that Peco are due to re
This layout blog is about the design and construction of the model railway that I am building for my 6-year old son, Seth. It is also the first model railway we have built.
Because we live in a tiny Victorian terrace there is no room for grand schemes and we have decided that for our first effort we will stick to a compact book-shelf layout and so that we can fit in as much as possible it will be N-gauge. We don't know much about trains other than we like watching and riding on them (we live
