I am working on a new roof for the coal office. I have succumbed to the point of view that says, "a viewer sees more of the rooves than anything else" so I have decided an upgrade is in order. The tiles are 2mm wide which makes them 12" to scale. I have tried to make some of them slightly uneven to make it look more natural by slipping some by 0.1, 0.2 or 0.3mm. This is the effect so far:
I still have the ridge tile, painting and a new sign to do.
If this wor
Here is an attempted wide angle focus stacked image to get good depth of focus close up. Unfortunately the wide angle does not focus so well at this range around the edges. My eyes are not what they were either so my judge of focus may be impaired, however I think it is all in better focus than any of the images that went in to it.
It is similar to the last photo I posted but is actually completely new.
Following up on Long Grass, here are some shots of the messy business of laying the grass. Looking back at my inspiration again:
I see a greener layer under the straw coloured grass.
With anything that is not stuck down removed, I marked out the boundaries of the grass lightly with a pencil, making clear the areas that should remain as path. I then started by laying a short green layer first painting the area to be grassed with PVA and then using the Flockit t
In my last post I said I was aiming for long grass in the foreground. These were my inspiration shots from a walk in late summer:
Armed with a mid-green for the base at 1mm and a straw colour at 6mm, here is how I got on. First a close up attempting to show the detail:
A wider shot:
One thing I learned is that it is not easy to get a photo that reflects the actual colour of the grass. It looks a bit more vivid in the photos
A new picture for no better reason that it is a Friday. Not a train in sight!
Below is a photo I took of some long grass during a cross country walk in the summer . It is my inspiration for what might go in the foreground in the above image.
My latest little investment is shown here. Despite appearances, it is not a phaser! It is a small vacuum cleaner for cleaning up the layout, amongst other things. For years I have struggled to clean the layout with a larger vacuum attachment. It works but it is easy to break something along the way. This is rechargeable via USB, quite small (it is sitting on n gauge track) so easy to manipulate, and works really well.
My 9 year old daughter has a new name for the fiddle yard. We have talked about the "hand of God" descending on our layouts for years. The fiddle yard is the natural home of the hand of god so it has now become known as "The Yard of God" in our house thanks to our daughter Eleanor!
My inspiration for model railway trees dates back to the 1970s. We always believed that, no matter how good the track, stock, buildings and scenery were, model railways were always let down by the trees. There did not appear to be a good way to build a realistic tree. Then I saw Pendlebury by Bert Topping in a couple of magazines of the day. There is a picture of one of his trees here on rmweb. Page down through the post. As I remember it, his methods involved blitzing (using a blender) dyed, fr
After a long hiatus I have finally got round to another post.
I often find that some of the layouts that stand out at shows are those that are well lit. I think it is particularly important in small cameo layouts. I am also struck by how much layouts of this type look similar in dimensions to home aquariums. Home aquariums always seem to be well lit. This set me thinking.
So I visited my local aquarium supplier with the dimensions of my layout noted. In addition to seeing
So pleased to find this reproduction of the 1973 Grafar (Graham Farish) catalogue. The models were so basic compared to the amazing ready-to-run that we get today but in 1973 when I was still a child, making the first move in to N Gauge, this was the first I saw of what was available. It was very exciting at the time. I ended up with a 94xx pannier which, despite the original plastic chassis worked very well; it ran reliably for years and had excellent slow speed performance. I also got a Hall (
My most recent project is not very ambitious: a coal merchants office for the yard. It is based very closely on the Scalescenes kit, however I modified the window to suit a prototype I found on the far right of a picture of Kings Heath Station, just because I liked it. I realised having completed the build that it is quite similar to a OO gauge kit given away by Metcalfe on the front of the Railway Modeller a couple of years ago. The brick work is just the Scalescenes original however I put the
I came across a model I made some time ago just for interest when I did not have a layout: Stamford Engine Shed in N gauge based on the Prototype Kit:
I scanned in the original Prototype kit and then used The Gimp to replace all of the brick surfaces with a Scalescenes equivalent. The roof tiles were replaced using the same technique with a home made slate paper made from a photo of the roof of the school at the Beamish Museum. The water tank sides were drawn from scratch
In control I explained how the underside of the layout is wired. Now for the controllers and control panel.
I decided on two controllers. This is perhaps more than necessary for a layout of this size but I wanted two controllers to get optimum control of different loco types. I find that the older locos and some recent ones respond better to PWM feedback controllers. I used the now defunct ECM controllers on earlier layouts many years ago and found them to be highly effective. The mo
To yard crane or not to yard crane. That is the decision facing me now. Am I going to start building this yard crane today and, if I do, will it have a place on the layout?
I opted for DC rather than DCC for a number of reasons including:
I have a number of older locomotives that would be more difficult to chip
I felt that DCC was unnecessary on such a small layout – although I am now in two minds and I ended up over-engineering the DC anyway!
I chose cab control as described in Wiring the Layout Part 2 (my copy is about 40 years old but I do not think cab-control has changed much) mainly because it is what I had done before on a pre
Last year I was asked a question about how I intended to actuate the points. Unfortunately I missed that question and so have only just responded. Apologies to Jack Benson for that. Here is the explanation I promised. I am using stiff push/pull wires under the baseboard as shown here:
The other components in the design are choc-box connectors. The brass insides of the choc-box connectors are used as joiners for the wire to allow the system to be re-configurable (see 1). T
More on weathering cows. The cows were weathered using Modelmates Mud Brown weathering liquid. It is very easy to use. It is water soluble but dries like ink. To weather the cows I just painted it on and then let it down with a wet brush until I had the colouring I wanted. The cattle dock is weathered using the pastels method. Perhaps I need more cows in there?
It is not every day that when I am asked what I have been doing that I am able to answer "weathering cows". I had that opportunity today so I grabbed it with both hands.
My original plan included the possibility of a cattle dock. The time has come. The cattle dock is going in the original planned location at the back to the right.
I want to make most of the features on the layout either scratch built, or made from less familiar kits, in the hope that it will look a litt
I was pleased to get a comment from Mikkel on the subdued colours I had used on the engine shed. Despite not achieving his amazing standards I thought I would share how I do it. Subdued colours are something I am aiming for on the layout as I always like the layouts with subdued colours at shows. On the engine shed I used The Gimp to subdue the colour of the printed Scalescenes Red Brick, however on the other areas and all over the rest of the layout I use pastels. I have two sets that I rely on
A quick run down on materials used for the engine shed.
Outside bricks: Scalescenes Red Brick TX01 with the colour dulled down using The Gimp
Inside white washed bricks: Scalescenes Painted Brick TX05
Guttering: Ratio Guttering & Drainpipes
Doors: Ratio Doors with the arched tops removed with a razor saw
Roof: York Modelmaking Slates N-Tiles01
Windows: Scene-Setters Glazing Bars 3x4mm - I got these at a show. They are not currently
After a long hiatus for the summer progress has continued a little. The engine shed has been largely finished for some time but I put the internal white washed bricks in this week to finish the job. The engine shed will be adjacent to the coaling stage, to which I am adding coal now!
It is not modelled on a prototype. It is however in the GWR style with similarities to Tetbury without the water tower, or a shorter version of Wallingford.
A view looking insid
The coaling stage is built from the excellent Poppys Woodtech laser-cut wooden kit. Despite the small scale the kit goes together very easily. The fact that it is real wood makes painting and weathering easy. I used a combination of water colour and pastels. I just need to get some coal on it now.