After taking a diversion into laser printing for the future city centre of my model, I've been putting my 3d skills to more currently practical use.
The station retaining wall along Livery Street has been designed and indeed printed. It wasn't cheap and the brickwork is \ little hit and miss, but I did it this way for several reasons.
1 Speed - a have a very low boredom threshold and lots of unfinished projects. This way I could get most of the wall done before I got diverted to somethi
Those who have been following my long winded efforts to build my model railway may remember that I lifted all the trackwork following a failed experiment in securing both the cork underlay and the track using spray adhesive. The warm weather saw expansion which resulted in track lifting and the cork bubbling. As the track had not been pinned the adhesive didn't prove up to the job.
So reluctantly the whole lot was lifted and I decided that I had to start again. Well the starting was delayed
I've got the design of the facade finished and so thought I would share a few more pictures with you.
Its succesfully loaded up to Shapeways - though that doesn't mean much until you try to print it. As the cost of likely to be 125 Euros I'm gonna wait until their next sale. I'll share the results with you
In the meantime for those interested here is a link to one of the few images of the original
regards
Rovex
It being too cold to be in the shed, I have spent the day playing with Sketchup.
Opposite the entrance to Snow Hill id the Great Western Arcade. It was built over the tunnel carrying the tracks from Moor Street to Snow Hill. Originally it had a very impressive facade but this fell victim to enemy action and was burnt out. Rather than restore it after the war it was demolished and for a long time the arcade was somewhat truncated.
A modern building now occupies the site but the original a
The latest CAD ramblings.
I've been playing with the canopy parts to see if construction could be made simpler by putting all the parts together and this is the result.
I've ordered three of these to test out the modular design and see if it works. if it does I shall be selling a lot of unopened ratio canopy kits.
The eagle eyed amogst you will have spotted that one of the arms on the support has lost its detail. I don't know why this keeps happening, but it does not look like
Arrived home from work today to find that the sample side all had arrived from shapeways. This was done in FUD and I must say looks a far better product than previous samples. However this is reflected in the price.
I've sprayed in brick red as a primer and also to help it show better in the photos below.
An exterior shot.
close up of the column detail
Another exterior shot
and a partial interior shot.
The top and bottom screens will be glazed and you
The laser prints arrived today. So I am posting a few pictures for comments.
I apologise for the quality of the photos but my camera isn't up to much when it comes to close ups and the flash bleached everything, so I had to turn it off.
These are probably the best of the photos. The surface is a bit rough and I managed to mismeasure the roof column so this is a bit short. I've corrected the uploaded version, so next time should get it the right size.
Would appreciate knowin
Well a pleasant afternoon which should have been spent in the garden - or at the very least doing some productive modelling has been spent beavering over my new toy - sketchup - on the computer. The results are here.
The Central girder
The intermediate girder
the valance
and all four compenents shown together - roughly
Now I shall no doubt find that what I've created is unprintable.
I have got around to painting the model of Brackhampton (pronounced Birmingham) North Signal Box I made several moons ago. I have been unable to find any decent colour pictures showing how the box was painted in real life and the girder supports were causing me some heartache. "black" seemed too stark and dark stone didn't seem appropriate either.
Anyway, last week I was leafing through a new book of GWR structure colours in Ian Allan's Brum bookstore when I found out that some features on G
track laying has recommenced. I don't know if I've mentioned this before but following an expansion problem and an experimental track fixing method I lifted all the track on my layout and decided to start again.
This time 4mm cork underlay has been glued down with copious amounts of undiluted PVA glue. On top of this the track plan has been pasted. It was printed out on heavy duty printer paper and then pasted down with wallpaper paste. This should ensure that the track is in the right place
Having had to lift all the track at Brackhampton due to my revolutionary track fixing technique proving about as effective as Network Rails maintenance of the Dawlish sea wall. I've been concentrating on scenic modelling whilst I save up to buy more finescale flexible track.
Latest thing I've been doing is building the platforms. The arrivals side has been started, using large amounts of wills platform kits and additional paving sheets. This has also meant I have had to have a go at the subw
I couldn't help myself - I had to upload a few photos of my latest ebay purchase. This is a model of GWr railcars 35 and 36 made from three Hornby railcars. Not my work I have to admit. Very well made and needs only a little bit of fillering and sanding to complete the bodies.
I intend to replace the plastic handrails and install flushglazing and other details.
I can now sell the Westward kit I bought of this train many years ago.
So now my Brackhampton has a suitable train for its e
Work has commenced on laying the pointwork at the North end of Brackhampton. I've been waiting until Hayfield of this parish (who has been very patient with me and long suiffering) had built enough of the various pointwork to allow me to lay the mainline almost all at once. I didn't want to lay each piece as it was built only to find I had miscalculated and it didn't fit. These first two photos shopw the point work for the mainlines with the trackwork leading to the eastern bay platforms.
T
I recently purchased an old MTK kit of Ebay of a Sunshine stock slip coach to diagram F24. I'm not a great fan of MTK kits, for those who don't know they come with the sides and roof and solebars all folded up from one sheet of aluminium and they usually have badly fitting ends.
It was described as an unknown kit but resarch before I bid allowed me to discover the coach type and for £12 I didn't think I could go far wrong. The Ebay photo suggested brass sides and so I thought perhaps the pre
Not a great deal of progress since my last entry, mainly due to the fact that until I can get a trench dug gown to the garden shed to lay the electric cable, my modelling is limited to the weekends and eventhe only whilst the sun is up.
However "Hayfield" of this Parish has continued to do me proud with his trackbuilding and I thought you might like to see his latest builds. The first two shots show the South end of the station and once the pointwork to the left has been laid and connected i
Baseboard building continues a pace and these are few shots of progress. Holes have been cut for the streets and canal to pass under the station, although having checked google I'm going to have a cut a few more.
Track laying on the Southern end of the station has also started. Cork underlay is used and this is glued down with contact adhesive, Which has also been used to secure the trackwork. I lay no claim to having built any of this. It was all made for me by "Hayfield" of this site, and a
Well we've been moved almost three months now and tonight was the first night I've done any modelling - althoug whether you can call daubing a bit of paint about modelling is questionable.
I've not been idle the last three months, but unfortunately other things have been keeping me busy. Including trying to sort out the garden (it now looks like the Somme - whatever happened to GroundForce - I must have a birthday surprise coming up), extending the old pond, starting a new one. Once we can a
With the shed half lined out, and me awaiting more plywood to finish the job (hopefully this August bank holiday weekend), I 've printed off the track plan and laid it out in the shed to make sure it fits.
Bit put out when it didn't look like it did, until I realised that I had made too little allowance for the overlap between sheets. With the sheets stuck together all was well.
I've been inspired by the skill shown not only in track building but in baseboard ideas and construction on th
Whilst I await the delivery of some more GWR dark stone paint to paint the girderwork on the Signal Box, I've been cracking on with the water tower for the station. The original one at Snow Hill stood on the Southern approach to the station, on the opposite side of the tracks to the South signal box and next to a typical GWR overgirder turntable (very good article in the RM last month on how to make one of these).
I have only a few photos of the tank and its supporting brickwork and so once
Work has progressed apace, the supporting girder work has been finished including the curved bracing to support the box floor. In order to try to get these as identical as possible, 14 pieces of 20 thou plasticard (20mm by 15 mm) were glued along the edges. the shape marked out on the top sheet and then the curved bottom part cut and sanded on all 14 sheets at once. the sheets were drilled to provide the inner curve then seperated and cut and trimmed to fit and glued in place.
The relay and
Whilst I await some decent weather so that I can order the materials to line out the new shed without them getting soaked I've been dabbling with building the North Box for the station. This is based on the old one at Birmingham Snow Hill, which was some 50ft by 10 ft and stood on girder stilts because of the restricted site.
The basis of the cabin are some butchered sides from a number of the Hornby GWR Dunster Signal boxes, the windows whilst typucally GWR do not match those of the prototy
These are the coaches after the first visit to the paint shop, lining and numbering to be done. Have you noticed they don't give you enough "W"s on the transfer sheets. I'm gonna be left with tons of left over lettering and numbering from these transfer sheets. I wonder if I can sell partly used sheets on ebay .
Rovex
With the aid of the annual bonus from work I've purchased teh home for Brackhampton. Its at the end of the Garden and thus allows the long suffering other half to be free of all things model railway. It was put up surprisingly quickly on Saturday and once boarded out will give approximately 21ft by 14.5 ft to fit the railway in.
Right, where did I leave that number of the builders yard
Rovex
Thanks to Mikkel's help and a bit of lateral thinking, in that I could only save the screen print's in a format which I couldn't upload, so I ended up printing them off and scanning them in, here are two track plans for the environs of Brackhampton station.
This first one shows the overground approach with four tracks from left to righ the main up and down lines and then the relief up an down lines. These run into from extreme top to bottom, platform 12/11, bay platforms 10 and 9, platf
Modelling progress has been non-existent for the last couple of months as I broke my thumb during some very heavy gardening. I managed to drop several stone paving slabs on it, and when the swelling hadn't gone down after a week I went along to A and E. There were very impressed with the break and I've had to have a pin put in. All in all very painful and not to be recommended.
Anyway I hope to get back to work on things soon, but with two new puppies demanding most of my spare time, things
