Today's Shed Talk: Park Life.
As the weather has been quiet again, and with the help of a small fan heater, work on the layout is progressing nicely. Despite My Herpes having lost track of a roll of instant lawn for the layout, I found I had sufficient to finish off the park area so I decided to do the park, after having weathered down the roads on the Poplars estate with neat black powder paint. Really, I should have ballasted the track and installed the OHLE before doing the park, but apart from a couple of trees, everything is fairly low so shouldn't impede progress, and I needed to scratch the itch of doing some scenic modelling.
Entrance to the park, showing toilet block and cafe, with room for a couple more picnic benches. The two loos are 3d printed (they were lift tower modules I designed for previous plans hence the large buttons!) and the cafe/kiosk is an indeterminate origin German waiting room, all mounted under a surplus 3d printed roof. In spite of multiple plan changes, I'm a bit of a Womble and never throw anything away.
View over the kid's playground and formal promenade with the informal kickball wicket and dog loo behind. The views of the railway have led to the park becoming known as Trainspotter Park. The fencing is from Torri Laser in Mochdre, the walls are resin printed by PK Models in Stafford (who also did the retaining walls and the terraced housing in the background) and the kid's playground items are from eBay and Woodland Scenics.
The signalbox is the Wills ARP box, with a Hornby Skaledale staircase and an Anyscale Models resin "warehouse" as the relay room, I need to have a think about the positioning as I will need to put a safe staircase down to the box from the top of the retaining wall. Unless the signaller can absail down the wall...
The relocated Market Buttercross, is now a performance space, with a man and a guitar amusing the oldies. The Buttercross is the Hornby Skaledale model which is nice. Walls are again from PK models on eBay, the benches I designed and 3d printed, trees from the Model Tree Company and flowers and greenery from World War Models, Tajima and others. The two oldiewonks having a kip in the deckchairs are surplus "resting actors" from the outside film shoot at Crossroads King's Oak...
Dog loo/informal kickball area/trainspotting zone.
The Civilian War Memorial, commemorating the six adults (left) and four children (right) who died in WW2, by means of Cypresses planted in 3d printed planter-benches, with the "Squashed Budgie" (actually a Phoenix) and obelisk "dedicated to all victims of war" at the end. The bare plywood on the left will be the vehicular access to the park-keepers shed. I'm undecided just yet whether it should be asphalt or bare earth. The obelisk, planters and low planter box on the right were all home made via various 3d printers. I've managed to wear out the famous Aldi-Balco printer, a replacement Geeetech and am now on a small, not especially brilliant one for any last minute small details. Not sure if I will buy another large, high quality printer just yet until I know what I'm doing on the second layout, but I've really got the 3d printing bug, notwithstanding the purchase of the Aldi printer being an impulse buy after seeing talk about them on this forum. To me, it's the 21st century version of scratchbuilding, but with different skills. With traditional scratchbuilding, you have to have the precision of a brain surgeon wielding a scalpel on plasticard, and be able to follow a drawing. With 3d printing, you have to know the printer's capability, and design and draw the item so you can maximise the efficiency of the print, in effect thinking through how to "productionise" your design. Different skills, but skills nonetheless. 3d printing isn't an easy cop out traditionalists might think.
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