Update:

Bodge Jobs, Balls-Ups, & Pigs Ears!

As forecast here are a few pictures. I am yet to lay the four exits but that will be done soon as I wanted the 'harder' bits done first. Due to my faulty board build I used Balsa wood and C&L 3mm foam as the packing and trackbed. Most of it has gone ok but a few bits where the track joins hasdecided to be at a different height. To remedy this I soldered metal fishplates as a solid join whilst holding the track in place and height with pliers. I however faltered as I forgot (3 times!) that you need to keep the Frogs isolated. So I cut the soldered join with a mini disk, that way it still retains a little of the fish plate look. Should have just glued plastic ones there in the first place and done what is described below.... :shock:

Bodge job, due to the above method being a fail I this time had to hammer in a couple of pins next to the rail, and then solder the track to the pin thus setting the rail at the same height to the adjacient. I did initially try tacking a pin through the sleeper but this produced an epic fail with much visual interest! Looks a bit of a mess, but as I keep saying; this is my suck it and see layout in P4, can learn from all these mistakes as I go along and if I manage to start the bigger plans one day.

Not all the track bed and sides have been laid yet, but it'll be brought to the same heights later. The ballast is Javis 'Extra Fine' but to me it's still a tad fat, better than previous 00 efforts anyway. I used Normon Solomons method of spreading the base with PVA glue and theen laying the track on top followed by ballast on top of that, five minutes later and you can vacuum the rest up - looks great to my eye. it looks better than my last ballasting job on my 00 layout by miles so I'm happy.

Post Act Wisdom tells me I should have spray painted the plastic tracked sleepers before layout but never mind, I'll have to summon Peter Paintbrush and share a nice brew him..it,..whatever. The last picture shows a really wonky siding that I doubt any deicent loco would tremble to trundle, but as mostly wagons only are going down there I'll leave it and use the 'industrial line' excuse once more. Hope ye P4 n00bs are all learning from my feeble efforts/results.