Hi folks,

Thought I'd add a little more detail of the inspection pits I have installed in my shed, after a kind comment from Jack Kerr (aka Jock67B).

My original intention was to create my own pits but I liked the look of the chairs on the Peco kit version and I wouldn't have to worry about the depth being correct! I also don't like the look of the cut down sleepers on some layouts I have seen.

I didn't want the concrete side-wall look so ended up lining them with Slaters brick plasticard after assembling 4 off of the Peco kit. Because of the plasticard thickness I had to create my own end steps; I copied the Peco ones supplied in the kit but I think the step height is too small. I can live with them though.

Next I painted the side-walls a blue Engineering brick colour after reading about typical LMS inspection pits from a website (can't remember which one sorry...!).

Next I started to weather the floors. I wanted to show some puddles and lots of dirt held within them as that's how they appear in most of the images I have found. I tried painting gloss black paint on the underside of some transparent plastic packaging and when dried cut out some puddle shapes and glued them onto the floor of the pits. I didn't want to go too over the top but think they look ok when the light is right. I plan to make more, larger puddles using a similar method but on glass for the area outside the office. I plan to have a 'recent downpour' look to my future layout!

I'm afraid the photos haven't captured the look very well but hopefully you can see what I'm trying to achieve.

I have also found two images of the illumination tests in the office building. I drilled three 3mm holes into the ceiling of the office building, one for each room. I then glued 3mm LED's into the holes and hard wired them together using their bent legs. There are several leads which run to this circuit, and for a red LED behind the fireplace, which run down the back of the building into the baseboard underneath the office chimney. The leads for the main shed circuits are sandwiched between the outer and inner back wall at one end, and within the columns at the front of the shed. I hope to get some fully illuminated images soon, whilst I test all of the lighting before sealing everything in!!

Thanks for reading again, please advise me on my roof dilemma from my second blog!!

Cheers,

Pete