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Buildings from card.

A windmill (2)

The roof of the windmill is a rather complicated shape.  Basically, I estimated the dimensions and formed the roof from a number of different shaped parts.  Trial and error rules o.k.  The pictures should give the idea of how it was accomplished.                   The rear of the roof...           The whole roof was now given a coat of shellac varnish (french polish) to
Atherington Victoria & East Yard.

Some photographs after ballasting all week.

Weary of paint and modelling clay, as the coal/minerals yard starts to look presentable, I thought I would try posing some stock.  Herewith my efforts.  Sorry about the backgrounds.     A 71 pretending to be a 74 pops into the minerals siding with a special delivery of tar.       Said tar wagon is taken off by the yard shunter, releasing the 71.  Now we return to Speedlink air-braked services...       The aggregates merchan
Buildings from card.

A windmill (1)

This tower mill is based on the surviving example at Bembridge on the Isle of Wight.  I emphasise that it is 'based on', not a slavish copy.  For a start, the real mill is built of stone which appears to have been rendered at some stage in its long life.  Following two renovations, the mill currently exhibits rendering on exactly half of the building.  Holiday postcards in my possession are all taken from the rendered front of the mill and show the building in an attractive pinkish buff colour. 
Third Rail N Gauge Shelf Terminus

Reclaimed Peco Goods Shed

Having a clear out of old model rail acquisitions, I found a Peco brand goods shed that I'd picked up as part of a job lot eBay purchase.  It was painted blotchy yellow, with a grey roof, dark red drainpipes, gutters and doors, and - somewhat bizarrely for a goods shed - it also had scale size holiday destination posters glued to it.   I very nearly consigned it to the recycling bin.  But I reconsidered and decided to take it on as a salvage project.   It had been
MikeOxon's Pre-Grouping Blog

Lock-Down 'Pastime'

Finding things to do in lock-down is something of an ‘art-form’. A friend recently introduced me to some software called 'Pixbim ColorSurprise AI'.  He showed me some remarkable results, where it had automatically coloured some of his old monochrome photos.   So I thought I’d try it out on some of my collection of 19th-century railway photos.  There’s a ‘free trial’ version but, as is so often the case, it is hobbled by printing multiple watermarks all over any saved results. To show t
MikeOxon

MikeOxon in general

7
Third Rail N Gauge Shelf Terminus

Converting a Station Kit to Fit... Part Two.

Following on from an earlier post, today (and a good part of yesterday) was spent building up layers of weathering on my recently "bashed" station kit.   Once painted with primer, I added two coats of yellow and picked out random bricks in varying quantities in black, white, brick red and blue-grey.  I painted the interior "arches" plain white too.   Having discovered that my usual "Brown Earth" paint had dried up in the pot, I ordered some more online - although not th
Third Rail N Gauge Shelf Terminus

Platform Edging Improvement.

Got on with adding some detail to my "Kestrel" brand platform edges today, out of the box this particular model has plain edges with a faint brickwork pattern. I wanted to create something a little more authentic looking, this was achieved by simply gluing on some "Kibri" textured plastic sheet in strips over the existing edging.  I can't remember the particular name of the sheet I used, I would call it "irregular stone" or something like that.   The platforms themselves are about
Brassey's Blog

GWR 2-4-0 Metro Tank - blast from the past

Like a lot of my stash, this is like the fisherman's knife that's had 3 new blades and 2 new handles but still the same knife.  I bought the Metro kit donkey's years ago and scratchbuilt a chassis in EM.  Then swiftly moved to P4 and scratchbuilt a compensated P4 chassis.  Then bought a new chassis and then bought an etched kit.    The original EM chassis had Ultrascale wheels which the EM Gauge Society sold at the time.  I recently put the EM wheels on the scratchbuilt P4 chassis to s
Brassey

Brassey in GWR Engines

11
Fact and fiction in the railway room

Picking up the story again

How time flies. I last added to this blog over two years ago, so it's probably time to pick things up again. I have worked on the layout, though progress is probably not as spectacular as might be expected after two years. My involvement in the Great Model Railway Challenge did mean it gathered dust for a year, but since the end of 2019 some steady progress has been made.   In earlier blog pieces I described individual features that I had created, now I think might be the time to descr
Atherington Victoria & East Yard.

Aggregate wagon-loads.

Killing time waiting for the modelling clay ballast to dry on the left of the yard, I made myself a few wagon-loads of various minerals for my POA wagons.  Cut an oblong of card or plasticard to fit the Open, mould a lump from floral foam and glue it to the former.  Paint, or cover with glue and chippings:     The wagon on the outer left has two, incorrectly shaped, 'heaps' glued to a base, unpainted.  My first attempt, this will be re-done.  The inner left is an experiment
MES Body & Paint

Gundam Variety

I had to put away the Tau.  I just did not have the patience.   The whole operation became very daunting very quickly.   Instead, I bought some new Gundam kits to settle with;   The larger box is a so-called Master Grade, or MG kit.   Excellent levels of detail, well-thought colored molding, & intricate assembly that attempts to affect 'realistic' poses.  I favor the kits.   Larger scale, too, at 1/100.   The other three are so-called High Grades, or HG kits.  All t
AlfaZagato

AlfaZagato in Kitbuilding

0
Fen End Pit's Blog

J17 - Progress of a PDK kit

For those who don't know what a J17 is, here is a picture.   They were a James Holden designed locomotive built for the GER between 1900 and 1903, a sort of half-way house between the lighter J15 and heavier J20.   As I hinted the J17 kit from PDK is also quite 'old school' by today's standards. The frames just had simple holes for the bearings, not even a half etched line as a nod that some people might spring or compensate their locomotives.   Progress today
Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in J17 Build

0
Third Rail N Gauge Shelf Terminus

Quick Build Co-op!

Having noticed - when going to the kitchen cupboard - that the "Co-op" have gone back to their old logo, I got to thinking that if I could build a Co-op Supermarket - the logo off a tea bag box etc could serve very nicely as a shop sign.   A quick rumage through the scrap box later,  I came up with a serviceable little low relief of the rear or side of a Co-op.  I used no glue in its construction, just good old double-sided tape to construct it (and the foam padded kind to add extra de
Atherington Victoria & East Yard.

'Do not try this at home'; or, the tedium of ballasting.

Having waited a week for the modelling clay to dry, on closer examination I see my method of squashing and scraping with my thumb a large lump of modelling clay across and into the track has caused the sleepers to move and distort:     My how I laughed!  Thankfully, this was done for only one-third of the layout.  For the right hand sidings (general merchandise) I will make little 'sausages' and cut them off to push down into the sleeper gaps.  For the passenger station viad
Barry Ten's S&D blog

Stourpayne Marshall - Jinty and goods shed etc.

Some recent low-stress modelling on Stourpayne Marshall:     This Bachmann Jinty was renumbered to a Bath example and then weathered. It came with "British Railways" lettering which I was reluctant to remove, even though I don't have any evidence that this particular loco carried that scheme. A number of S&D locos did, though, right through until 1953 or so, so it's not obviously out of place.   It runs smoothly, and incredibly quietly, but I can''t get it to s
Barry Ten

Barry Ten in S&D

7
Seahaven

The hills are alive...

The back scene painting has come on from doing the sky last time. I started with painting the hills into the cliff face. I had sketched in a viaduct in the background to suggest a mainline that the station and goods branches end up connecting to.    (initial hill painted in. A hint of woodland copses and hedgerows on the hills with scrubby embankments either side of the viaduct)    Following this I carried on with the hillscape round the layout until it came to another
Paul Robertson

Paul Robertson in Blog

0
Buildings from card.

A lighthouse (4)

I pondered over how to make the six rather large windows and decided to go with the self-adhesive label method.  The windows were drawn in pencil on the labels and fixed to the clear glazing before cutting around the panes and lifting out.  I sealed the outer edges of the frames with Micro Kristal Klear to prevent them from lifting.         Structurally, the windows on the model support the roof so I needed the glazing to be quite thick. (I studied online photos of
Fen End Pit's Blog

J20 - Some missing bits

Having put the J20 together and painted it I spotted that I'd missed a couple of important bits off. The first were the front guard irons which were easily soldered onto the front of the chassis. The others were, it appears, completely missing from the kit, these were the two large lockers in the cab, one of which has the reverser mounted on it. The kit appears to not have parts for these at all and they are not mentioned in the instructions. Photographs of cab interiors are notoriously hard to
Fen End Pit

Fen End Pit in J20 build

0
Bosmelin

Eight Months? Eight Months!

Yes, it’s nearly eight months since I last ‘writ’ something for this blog. But it’s not been eight months of complete idleness in the construction of Bosmelin as there’s been bursts of frantic activity, periods of self doubt, periods of re-planning and periods of, yes, finding other things to do rather than railway modelling. So today’s update will be a compilation of where I am today with the project and why. Concept: originally Bosmelin was to have been a reasonably close representation
RichardS

RichardS

0
Redgate's Modelling

Not another Neverwazza!

A spoof photoshopped photo posted on Facebook has coincided with me having a Triang Evening Star with a disintegrated tender frame going for spares. So ladles and Jellyspoons, we have the BR Standard 9MT Tank Engine   Black outline is the stock 9F, red the 4MT Tank. Green is the extended tanks and bunker (well it is a 9F) which also moves the rear pony to a more suitable place. The blue line is where the bottom of the tank front needs to be raised to clear the weighshaft and line
RedgateModels

RedgateModels in General

10
Buildings from card.

A lighthouse (3)

Next I decided to build the small wall which sits on top of the lower roof and encloses what I shall call the lamp room.  Those of you with a copy of Miniature Building Construction can refer to the appropriate drawing for clarification. Everyone else, bear with me, all will be revealed eventually.  Like the rest of the structure, this low wall is hexagonal.  I took measurements from the drawing and, using my schoolboy geometry, and using a compass, plotted a hexagon of the right size on paper. 

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