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About this blog

UK outline train ferry terminal project in n gauge loosely based on modern southern region prototypes borrowing heavily from Dover Western Docks, Admiralty Pier, Folkstone Harbour, and a little bit of Harwich. Imagine if the channel tunnel hadn't caused the train ferry to close and instead the two complimented each other and built international traffic upto the present day. 'Seahaven' is my realisation of that idea. 

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Entries in this blog

Underneath the arches...

Various odd jobs around the layout today. The first was an attempt at painting the Dock which utterly failed. My paints were cheap rubbish which I could do anything with so will have to invest in some better quality paints and try again. So with a quick change in plan I set about giving some relief to the railway arches which will form the base of my station.    (thin strips of balsa cut out to the arch shape and overlaid on the 5mm ply to give a bit of shadow and then a further
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Fiddling with fiddly balsa...

Having got the basic shell of a station building I wanted to give a bit of detail and shadow relief to the structure.    (starting with the picture windows. In order to get the thin balsa strips to bend enough I had to cut against the grain to allow the grain to bend for me)    Having got the window sills and frames I then turned my attention to the first floor roof which needed a bit of filling. I wanted a lift shaft at the end of the station to give a bit of height. T
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If it doesn't move, paint it...

So this week has been spent carrying on with the train ferry getting copious layers of paint on to try and get a decent finish. Having already applied the blue (4 coats) I then started with the white. This took 5 coats of paint to fully cover the ply, balsa, and blue paint over spill. The moment of truth came when removing the masking tape. Had all that resin prep been worth while and were there any bleeds of paint under the tape?      Pleased to report it all went pretty we
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The ferry painting completed...

Managed to get the train ferry funnel completed with a single top coat of black. Will need to do a bit of touching up but basically it's done. I slid in the vehicle deck to get some shots. Just some signage, transfers, and some handrails to finish it off then on to other things   Funnel masked and painted   Masking removed after a few hours and the vehicle deck slid into position   The rear of the ferry where all the tyres hit the deck from the lin
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Transfer window complete...

Have completed the ferry painting I then wanted to try putting on the transfers. I had created the designs on Microsoft publisher having copied the ferry logo off a downloaded jpeg. Unfortunately the jpeg quality wasn't good enough quality just to scale it up so I redrew it using the block shape tools in the software and tries to get the colour as close to the original as possible. I had purchased some transfer paper off the Internet and printed off a sheet.  (transfer paper printed o
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Painting some buildings...

Having completed the ship painting and decals I concentrated my efforts on the first set of buildings I had constructed. The station would need several coats of white paint to cover the balsa and in between that I painted the portakabin and security kiosks.    (first layers of white going on with the other buildings getting their first coats)    (the portakabin and kiosks painted up)    Five coats of white paint later and I was ready to paint the roof of
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Steel and concrete...

And so my baptism into the dark arts of scenery painting has continued on and off over the last few days. It has been focused on the Linkspan structure and trying to get the concrete to look like concrete and the steel bits to look like steel! Easier said than done when all I have is some cheap acrylics bought off the Internet and just need to keep on mixing and reapplying layers of paint until I'm finally happy.    One thing I have learnt is that you can never have too much white pain
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Paving the way...

Another new experience today using DAS clay. Never used it before so took a few tips from some entries on the forums here as well as some YouTube instructional videos before setting off.    I've seen lots of US railroading videos using woodlands scenic liquid plaster material to create roads in n gauge. Looked a bit messy and fiddly to me having to mix up the right amount mask off areas and make sure everything was dead level to prevent leakages. The effect of the plaster was effective
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Tidying the tarmac...

So today was trying to make the best of my clay road surfacing which hadn't come out as I wanted. Firstly I came out with the sandpaper to smooth the surface down as best as possible.    There had also been some shrinkage down the sides of the road overnight as the clay completed dried out.    (clay coming away from the kerb)    In order to fill these gaps out came the balsa filler which did a good job of filling this ready for painting.    My
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Coming together...

Some times modelling can feel like a very slow process with very little to show for large amounts of time spent fiddling around. Then one day suddenly everything seems to come together to start looking as one might have hoped.    The past few days have been a slow process of trying to get the road surface looking right and introducing road markings. Lots of wrong turns smudges and lessons learnt. Today has seen a bit more progress in the right direction.    First job of the d
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Mixing the civil engineering...

So today was a lot of bits being done round the layout to complete minor bits and bobs whilst waiting for the pva glue water to dry out. The video I watched said the layer of pva would take about 1 hr to dry. Try about 24hrs! So I had plenty of time to do other things   First job was marking out the precast concrete units for the bridge abutments. Having completed this all the lines were weathered to tone them down a bit   (all lining complete)    (some
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Stop Go...

So today the self adhesive road markings arrived from scale model scenery. Having read the instructions which seemed straightforward enough I gave it a go. Tried out one of the cycle lane logos first as a test which with a bit of help from a craft knife and a strip of masking tape. This all went well so tried a 'stop' white lining for the Linkspan. A few minor issues with trying to get the various letters to unstick themselves but in the end all was well. Having managed both stop white lining de
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Railing against the machine...

A chance to do a bit more detailing this evening. I wanted to get some railings on the ferry. Using the same laser cut scale model scenery key clamp handrail as used on the Linkspan.    (handrails starting to go on)    (and another view)    Once both sides were safely railed up I painted all this white.   (finished railings)    (all painted up)    (rear view)    Not sure how long these will last b
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Paving the way...

Did a bit of work around the station this evening. Produced some brick walls to the rear of the viaduct to represent the rear of the structure. I also used some modern platform paper to complete the finish of the platform surfacing.    (paving paper done from scale model scenery. Like the look of the tactile paving)    (brickwork parapets 'laid' along the backscene)    I also have had time to do a bit of bodge wiring. Whilst my father is a retired electr
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