Before discovering RMWeb, my interest in railway modelling was rekindled by a chance purchase of a copy of BRM as something different to read. In this issue Right Track 7: Building Buildings with Geoff Taylor was advertised and a short time later I purchased a copy.

This DVD was quite a revelation, before this I had never considered scratch building anything, but this looked like something I'd like to try. But what to build? Not long after I learned that the farm cottages that my Grandparents lived in were being refurbished into a more modern family home. While the building would still exist, the character I remembered as a child would be gone. So I decided to build a model of it as I remembered it.

As this was before I joined RMWeb it never occurred to me to take pictures of the construction as I went along, but I'll describe the build with some pictures of the finished model.

The basic structure is made from 30 thou plasticard with the ends shaped for the gable wall. Openings were cut in the front and rear for the windows and doors. These were made from Evergreen strip and glazed with transparent sheet before being added to the walls. The sides were fixed with MEK into a basic box structure.

Smaller box structures were made for the kitchen extensions on each gable. The walls of the main structure were coated in PVA and DAS modelling clay applied all around except where the extensions were to be attached. When dry, the walls were scribed to represent the block work. The extensions were painted with humbrol enamels and talcum powder sprinkled over to represent the rendered finish. Some dry brushing of a dark grey was used to weather the finish.

At the rear of the building, coal cellars were constructed from 20 thou plasticard and laminated with slaters 4mm brick sheet. The roof was constructed from artists mounting board. This was covered with strips of normal printer paper, cut with a scalpel to represent slates. This process was repeated for the pitched roof on the kitchen extension and the coal cellars.

The walls were painted with enamels to reflect the basic sandstone colour and dry bushed to add variation, The brick work on the coal cellars were given a light wash to pick out the mortar and the excess wiped off. Again dry brushing was used to add detail.

My mother told me about a tin bicycle "shed" that was at one end of the building. To model this I used Evergreen strip for the frame and Wills corrugated sheets for the wall and roof. The corrugated sheets were painted a suitable rust colour and then maskol applied to certain areas, before applying another coat of green enamel paint. When dry the maskol was carefully removed to expose areas of rust. The area was also dusted with weathering powders.

The chimney pots are castings from Dart castings fixed with super glue. The down pipes are made from evergreen rod with sliver of masking tape used to represent the fixing brackets. Guttering is made from Evergreen half round section, with the brackets cut from larger section of plastic rod.

The final model is a reasonable approximation of how I remember the cottages and was fun to build.

As I have this model I am keen to include it if possible in my diorama to give it a proper setting rather then simply left sitting on shelf.