Just a series of shots showing the baseboards as they start to creep along the back of the shed. The main basebaords are made from 3 inch strips of 12 mm ply, two are glued together to form L girders and two of these girders form the sides of each section. Single 3 inch strips then span between these. The track will be laid on 12 mill ply boards with 6 mm mdf stips along the sides, (just like Eastwood blog - sort of). Part of the trackbed has already had this treatment, which explains the earthq
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
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
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
Having discovered that my brickwork should have been white, I got my spray can out and whited out the brickwork again. Once completely dried I gave this a wash over with diluted black enamel, varying the mix so as not to give a variation in colour. Areas were washed down with more white spirit (like the front of the columns) to add greater variety.
Have also started building both attic pavilions. The arched heads were done with a 10 mm flat drill to make sure there were equal. Ordinary drill
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
Not much modelling to report as over the last week or so we've been moving house. This house at least is ours (well mainly the bank's) and so I can start proper modelling.
Well I could if I actually had somewhere to build the layout.
For the time being the railway is all in boxes in storage, whilst I save up to build a big shed at the bottom of the garden.
Site of the new shed (hopefully)
Till then and once the house has stopped looking like a furniture repository, I can c
Heres a few photos of the concourse as mocked up.
Its made from 80 thou plastic sheet, supported beneath by 80 thou strips cut 10 mm wide. On top of this will go scribed paving to bring it up to the level of the building and metcalfe cobbles for the road surface.
And here's one of the main entrance to the GWR offices
Well, back to work
Rovex
I've started work on the back of the old hotel at Snow Hill, unfortunately I've found very few photos of the back wall of the concourse (plenty - well enough - of the ticket office side and the two side walls but not the back) so i'm winging it a bit, but at least I know what the back wall looks like above the glazed roof
By the way the plasticard is that blue colour, I've not painted yet
Rovex
Just a few photos to show progress. The main front has been built up and glued in place, along with the main concourse entrance and one of the other decorative porches. The central entrance to the old hotel has been started and I've started building up the porticos on the ends (well one at least). I'm simplifying these - the original had three rows of columns, This would have looked a bit squashed on the model and so I've gone for two. I've also decided to remove some of the detritus that had co
Building work continues a pace. The shells of the East and West pavilions have been fashioned and work has started on the front of the central section. The following photos show the ground floor cut out and glued in place. This piece has been scratch built from a large sheet of 80 thou. It has been scored to match the ground floors of the end buildings. The floor of the passage way has also been scribed to represent Victorian Paving slabs (3ft by 2ft). Three porticos will need to be built one fo
The Vollmer kit has now arrived for the station hotel (honestly I've got far too much time on my hands) now how do I turn this into something with a passing resemblance to Snow Hill
The ground floor needs extending, so I've sliced the pieces in half and inserted some plasticard, scribed to carry on the stone courses. I've also spliced one side vertically and glued it either side of what was the main entrance to one of the buildings. All the cut sides were then glued to some 40 thou to g
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
Whilst I collect the bits and pieces necessary to have a go at bashing together a Saint class loco, I thought I'd pull out the articulated stock. These are ca couple of photos of the job so far - as u can see not much progress made. This is one half of the set - brake, third and compo, the rest is a mirror image, its been rested on the bogies for the moment. I really need to decide how close to put them and this will depend on the eventual radius of the layout when built. Still a lot of work to
I've posted this here as well as in the topic on the Hornby Saint and hope the administrators will forgive me the duplication, on reflection it seemd more appropriate here on my blog.
I think I may also have to change the blog title if thats permitted, since I seem to be straying from the title topic, how about "building all things GW"?
Anyway I've been doing a bit of thinking and am wondering whether I can make a hash at a model of a Saint as follows.
Bachman Hall - rewheeled with c
Not a GWR coach at all - but it didn't seem worthwhile starting a new thread for one picture. I'd asked elsewhere about problems with the old Hornby Saint - and wow was that a case of lighting the blue touch paper and retiring.
Anyway it stirred me into having a go at knocking up a Star (Saint to Star? Don't ask) I can't claim any credit for the process as its all detailed elsewhere on other threads - have a look at the thread on the Hornby Saint for the links.
This is based on the old A
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
Having sanded and filled the sides for the centenary brake third and being quite please with the result I thought I'd have a go at the brake composite using the same cut and shunt methods of which more in a mo.
The brake third has now had its grey undercoat, this highlighted those areas which needed some more filling and I think it now looks quite smooth. I tried taking a few close up shots but there are so blurred I couldn't tell whether it was smooth or not from the photos, so I've not bot
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
