Excuse the terrible pun!
I'm putting this one back on the shelf for a few weeks now - it's had me tearing my hair out on several occasions this week trying to fabricate the flush glazing for the cab fronts, and near disaster as one cab seperated from the body!
I've finished transfers on her (which do look fantastic - a great job by John at Precision Labels - they were a custom set for me), painted the underframe all matt black (ready for weathering) and painted the small bodyside details
...and you can start to see the layout emerging in line with my initial sketches and ideas.
Reading a copy of Barry Norman's 'Landscape Modelling' that I picked up from the Bridgnorth station shop on Saturday is proving to be quite inspiring and it's one of the driving forces behind this renewed vigour. Rose Hill is the perfect layout to try some of this observation and careful scene selection, compression and impressionism out on - and will be a great lead into my Meadow Lane project which
What other half baked excuse could there possibly be for my baseboard being 6 months late?
Well today my daughter and I were building a platform for her Harry the Hauler trainset and it seemed rude to not finish off the plywood - so 6 months on and progress had made a giant leap forwards and the baseboard is 'finished' (just needs sealing with satinwood later this evening now the PVA is dry).
So I thought I'd share this milestone for two reasons - show that the project isn't
...see the trains all in a row! (or not in this case!)
Well with other projects on the workbench it's been a while since I posted any updates on the Rose Hill P4 project, my 2010 Challenge entry - well it's not going to be finished but things are progressing still, albeit very slowly.
The Pacer is coming along but most effort has gone into 'finishing' (for now) the station building. This is a 80% scaled version of the real building at Rose Hill, in length, so has a few comprises but I think it
I'm a victim of my own interests - I'm sure I'm not alone in having a myriad of projects on my workbench at one time all vying for my attention.
Well Rose Hill has taken a bit of a back seat if I'm honest with the construction of my first etched brass kit for Meadow Lane (my Manchester Ship Canal Railway project) and tinkering on OO stuff from time to time as Paxton Road crawls forwards.
However, with the kit stalled awaiting some weighting to improve running I looked to my masking tape an air
Progress may well have slowed, but it has not stopped.
With cold weather stopping me from working on the baseboard or spraying the Pacer work has dramatically slowed on my Rose Hill project. There are some signs of life though as the station building has begun to change from primer grey to weathered brick.
I'm pleased so far - and hope to be able to show you more in a few weeks. The plan is to finish the basic colouring before adding the building fine detail - that way the brick col
Somehow even just mocking up something with wood and offcuts makes it all come to life in my mind...
Rose Hill has the beginnings of a baseboard! If you count an un-cut 18mm sheet of plywood as a beginning. These shots show her mocked up with track, Pacer and the two buildings.
A view from the fiddleyard/backscene end of the layout from both sides - note the planned curved end
A few other shots... low angle and overhead
A Northern Pacer waits with the 14:12 departure for Manc
My P4 project, part of the RMWeb 2010 challenge is a model of Rose Hill, Marple. It's a toe dipping exercise in prototype observation - not 100% to scale (something more like 80% with the station building and pub) but with the definite intention of 'feeling right'. That means fantastic observation of prototype and artistic colouring.
The only rolling stock required (until Bachmann release a 150/1 in Northern Rail) was deemed to be a Pacer as I had one of the original Hornby ones to hand fr
Boy am I glad that Rose Hill doesn't need any other buildings when this one is finished!
I've been making slow but steady progress with the pub for Rose Hill all week - after the photo of the 'first cuts' last Tuesday I got to the stage where it was self standing last night! A long way still to go though and I'm absolutely hating cutting windows and details out already!
Construction is 40 thou plasticard with a brick plasticard laminate. This is hopefully strong enough to prevent warping
Well today turned out to be a 'snow day' with my family not able to get to work and nursery! After a fun morning building a massive snowman my 2 year old went to bed...
So out came some prototype photos, a ruler and my notebook. I decided with the cold weather baseboard construction will have to wait and my time would be best spent on the structure I'm least looking forward to constructing - the pub. I've not got views from all sides but I've got both ends and the front plus some partial rear s
I always find a good sketch helps me visualise how things are going to work - ever since the early days of armchair modelling for Paxton Road, so today saw me knock something up for Rose Hill.
Usually I'd start from scratch but I wondered if I could build on the (poor) photos I took last night with some ink to show what I have in mind and check out whether the scaling factor will still trick the eye.
What do you think?
I'm pretty pleased. I suspect I'll lengthen the platform by abo
Well Christmas and New Year have come and gone and despite a few items (a sound equipped 37, EWS Seacow and a Dynamis controller) I've managed to make some progress on Rose Hill.
This evening I've been scaling up dimensions from Google Maps (great tool - when you draw a line it tells you how many feet it is!). From my simple layout (see below) I've determined a number of key dimensions:
Platform length = 332ft = 1328mm
Station building length = 42ft = 168mm
Pub length = 52ft =
If you remember a few weeks ago I was moaning about the Slaters pantile embossed plasticard and it's lack of relief. I wanted something that had more relief and I could get the 3D effect on the ends of the roof showing overlapping tiles as well...
Well the answer I came up with was perhaps a little different from the norm but before I tell you how I did it, here is a photo which shows the end result. I'm really pleased, it looks just right to me and hopefully the idea will help other modelle
Sometime it's hard to sit down and work on a layout until you've got a baseboard built so how do you fill the odd hour here or there?
Well this week I've been assembling all my Easytrack (half as OO, the other half is for Rose Hill so is P4). It's quite straightforward but leads to sore fingers sliding the rail through the moulded sleeper bases. The effect is worth it though, it looks superb. Even the OO is fantastic and I've got myself down for point construction in 2010!
So what next? Ove
An exciting looking pair of parcels arrived this morning, just after I got home from town rather chuffed to find my article in Model Rail (see my other blog)...
A long thin tube and a big jiffy bag nicely labelled up from Exactoscale! My P4 track components (and gauges) plus some OO stuff to compare as well!
Then I had to go out so I spent the whole day itching to read my article and put together a few trial sections of P4 track.
I finally managed it about 6pm this evening and after a q
It might not look like much but I feel I've reached a milestone this evening...
At this rate it's a good thing I'm building just a single line terminus! Nevertheless the first car of my Pacer is at a point where it can be painted.
Full side on view showing overall progress to date!
Work has been quite extensive - perhaps not as far as some have gone, but I've chosen to work on the things that will make the largest visual difference.
On the front ends I've replaced the handrails, adde
Well unlike some other people I've had less modelling productivity this weekend...
Apart from ordering all my P4 bits and bobs last week, very exciting, and my Christmas present arriving on Saturday (the Railfreight 37 with sound and a Dynamis controller) it's been a quieter week. Prior to the present wrapping evening ahead of me I dug out my Pacer for some modelling relaxation and to see what I could do in 20 minutes. Rather than start on the second car fitting handrails (which can easily s
A flurry of activity on the Rose Hill project over the last few days and after the inspiration last Friday, and a day or two to mull things over I ordered my first P4 bits...
Thanks to Dave at Ultrascale they arrived this morning - the wheelsets to convert the Pacer. I was so excited I had to test fit one of the driving sets before I even took a photo!!
I've not yet got the trackwork and gauges ordered - so can't prepare the wheelsets properly as I need a back to back, but the visual improv
