Hi,

It's been just over a month since the last update and we're in the middle of a mad dash to be presentable for our first public outing.

Shows

Middleton Railway, Model Railway Show - 27th / 28th June (12 Days) - http://www.middletonrailway.org.uk/

TINGS 2015 - 12th / 13th September 2015 (3 Months) - http://www.ngaugeshow.co.uk/

Storage Boxes

Not too much progress has been done on these as we are concentrating on other work, but the inner frames have been assembled and are awaiting cladding in 6mm ply.

Signals

The signal controllers have been added to the Scenic Modules. Each module can control 8 addresses as they are currently configured, but by using the Arduino devices, we can expand on this if we needed to in the future as we haven't used the full capacity. The modules need a DCC feed to listen to the DCC Bus and a 12v DC supply which we use to power them and run the Signal LEDS. As the Arduino only runs from a 5v supply, we are regulating the 12v on the module.

Going Green

By far, most effort over the last month has been put in on the scenic modules, putting down a base layer of scatter material and then starting to build on it to create a more realistic looking model. We are tending to use the excellent Woodland Scenic scatter and clumping material. I for one have been quite surprised how easy it is to apply to the baseboards, we are basically painting a watered down mixture of PVA onto the boards and then covering in a layer of Scatter. Once this has dried and then the excess has been removed, we then start to add highlighting scatter and clump foliage. When we started adding to the base layer of scatter we'd been using another diluted PVA mix with the highlighting scatter, but this ended up being a bit hit and miss. So we then tried some WWS Layering Adhesive, which seemed to work much better for us. We've found it much quicker to apply and you can also direct the spray a little better, so you can work in tighter areas.

We still have a long way to go though, but it's quite amazing what an hour or two does for the overall look.

Cheers, Mark.