As one does when you don't have a railway I've been thinking about what to build next, I want to utilise as much of the saved buildings from the old railway as possible, so this would mean it has to be quite a size, (so hopuse hunting has been a bit difficult what with prices in Redditch being somewhat higher than my backwater in Leeds. So as well as a house that has room for large Victorian furniture, I also need a large garage, or play room or a garden big enough to allow me to build one and s
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
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
Just thought I'd post a few more photos of the restaurant and corridor composite now they've had a coat of undercoat and the underframes have been put together.This is the underframe for the composite, the trussing is made from 60 thou square plastic strip. This shows the extension of the interior by adding an extra first class and third class compartment.
both sides of the composite.
the restaurant car
underframes for both vehicles, showing the six wheel bogies on the restaurant
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
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
Following on from last nights post, here's the same thing after ten years of wear and tear.
Weathering has been done with some Humbrol white weathering powder and some old cars weathering powders, mainly black, brown and rust. The leadroof was first washed with the white powder and white spirit. Lead tends to whiten as it ages and then it was given a wash of the black and whiote white spirit. This took the edge of the white and added the soot.
The sides were done in a mixture
Thanks for all the kind comments to my last Blog entry.
Having had my two nephews (4 and 7) and their mum stopping with us for the last week the opportunities for modelling have been limited.
Anyway with them packed off back to Leeds, I've been catching up by mass producing chimneys and roofing the central portion of the hotel. The roof has been made as a separate unit so that it can be lifted off to allow me access to the building to finish making all those windows. I've installed some
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
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
Having got a tad bored of drilling little holes in my 70 ft stock in order to attach grab handles I've put them to one side - I'm very easily distracted as well which doesn't help. I've done a bit more work on the BSL Centenary all third, it's has door hinges, handles and door handles fitted and the roof has been cut to size and the requisite vents added. Now needs masking for the blood to be added. The photo shows it next to an airfix composite to give an idea of the actual differences in the c
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
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
Well this 3d printing malarkey is something that can cause the brain to melt and dribble out of your ears. I have been playing around with a model for the overall roof columns. The hope is that if I can succesfully design one than it can be amended to create the other two types.
So having beavered away, I then have to convert it to a "dae" file, then download another programme and convert it to an "stl" file, then downlaod another programme , because Shapeways doesn't like the design - somet
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
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
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
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
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.
Apropos of nothing in particular I was wondering why Hornby decided to model the 57ft GWR collett composite coach and get the compartment dimensions wrong. For those not in the know it is supposed to have four first class compartments and three third class. Now, whilst the division in the corridor side is in the correct place in the coach one of the first class compartments is actually the wrong size. Its got third class dimensions.
It has occured to me that this coach shares the same chassi
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
I've been in Leeds for the last couple of weeks doing some 12 inch to the foot modelling - that is decorating my old house in an effort to make it presentable to potential buyers.
My partner and I have found somewhere we want to buy here in Redditch but we need to sell the old homestead first. Hopefully all will go smoothly and as soon as I'm allowed I can start building a layout to run these trains on.
Anyway having got back last Sunday I've been busy building the two dining cars for th
Last week I finally took the plunge and ordered the results of my CAD doodles. I sent for one roof pillar and enough canopy parts to make up some three sections.
I decided not to buy the valance sides and having designed a roof and failed to upload it properly decided from a cost point of view that these bits could be more readily constructed from plasticard.
When the items arrive I shall post the results.
For the last few days I have been playing with the roof column to make a piece
Impressed with what can be acheived with 3D printing I have been having a play over the weekend with "Sketchup" a free 3D drawing programme that can be downloaded off the interweb.
I had intended to use the ratio canopy kits to produce the extensive canopies that covered the bay platforms at Snow Hill. Each one being approximately a metre long (or more) in model form. However the work needed to beef these up was concerning me, and I wasn't sure that they would look high enough.
They also
With quite a lot of the track down, I've been knocking up the platforms (well roughly at least). Nothing spectacular in the methods used. Paper template and a pencil held against the biggest coach.
The photo shows the platforms 1 to 6 (I think - it doesn't help that at some point the platforms were all swapped round). Platform bases are 12 mm ply and topped with 2mm plasticard scored to represent paving slabs. Later I'll build up brick walls to cover the edges of the ply, with suitable wirin
