Last night I laid the track for the inner circuit on the upper level. It is set back from the front edge by 1/2" You may also notice that the timber for the shelf has been given a coat or 2 of Ronseal Oak rubbing wax.
On the opposite side a small piece of track is placed where the outer loop will sit, this leaves just about 1.5" for some very basic scenery.
I'm quite pleased with how it has turned out and tonight managed to get it wired for action
Since my last post and the return to some modelling, I have been mulling over a couple of things.
1) How often to post blog entries.
2) How could I get a continuous run into the layout.
Number 1. Having not posted really for the best part of a month, coming back to it now, I have come to the conclusion that showing almost daily developments is hard to keep up for me and shows little progress in return for the readers effort to look. So I have decided this year to post perhaps weekly
Having had a Christmas break from modelling, mainly due to the extreme cold in the shed, but partly due to a reduced mojo, I'm easing my self back into it.
The last couple of days I have been doing a bit of ballasting on the front dummy track in front of the silos and adding colour to the buildings made so far.
I am also starting some experiments with ambient sounds. The plan is to load several mp3 files onto my blackberry that can be played in the shed through a set of speakers.
In
It must be a record for me ... 5 days without a blog update... As well as being VERY cold in the shed (its currently -4 with the heater on !) I have also just not really in the mood for modelling. These urges come and go I guess.
Tonight I managed 45 mins before getting too cold and loosing interest.
I have added a new track at the front of the silos.
I have toyed with this idea for a while but couldn't work out how to connect it in to the existing plan, it seemed like too big a
Once again the back garden is buried under about 6" of snow. It doesn't seem like 12 months ago, well perhaps it isn't quite that long. If it isn't snowing tomorrow I may well try a snow running session. In the meantime here is some video action from last winter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STKNLfh4E-s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmspaseTnBc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du615XwtY8E
All the above stock is still in the shed, might be fun to see the 20 or 25 in
Once again the back garden is buried under about 6" of snow. It doesn't seem like 12 months ago, well perhaps it isn't quite that long. If it isn't snowing tomorrow I may well try a snow running session. In the meantime here is some video action from last winter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STKNLfh4E-s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmspaseTnBc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du615XwtY8E
All the above stock is still in the shed, might be fun to see the 20 or 25 in
I have not done a great deal of modelling this week, partly due to other commitments, partly due to the cold weather and this last couple of days, due to the path down to the shed being buried under 6-7" of snow.
I have been tinkering with a paint job on the river push tug, sat at the dinner table.
I've blogged about this before, but I am still impressed by the photo stacking software available from Helicon Focus. I originally came across it on Chris Nevards blog and tried the "free" version which gives you a limited time to use the software. With my recent return to a smaller scale I found the challenge of taking photos that are all in focus hard, my compact camera has manual settings but even so I can only adjust the F stop to a maximum of F7.6
The basic principal of photo staking is
When you have a train barge ...
you really need a Push tug.. So out with the plasti-card my Dad had emailed me a site with lots of different types HERE
John
Its only light but it makes a difference, the weatherin process on 747 has started
and to mark the occasion here is a video of it in action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-mJ2HoiGV8
John
You may or may not have noticed that last nights weathering did not include any locos, thats because the plans include fitting ditch lights and i decided any mods would be easier to disguise with the weathering.
I ordered some Surface mount LEDs from Express models at the weekend and they arrived today. At first when i opened the packet, saw the resistors and then wondered were the LEDs were, all they had sent was a black plastic strip???
Then I realised that was the packing and it
Not looking for a worn out falling to bits look I have applied a light base coat to my cars tonight as the start of the weathering process.
Just noticed on the last picture the left end of the roof walk needs pushing down !
John
This afternoon I set to work on the building at the end of the downtown side of the layout. The plan was to make the straight track look like it carries on through the buildings, using a mirror. I will let you decide if it works ! I got a bit carried away a built more and more.
The mirror needed packing to get it square on to the rails.
Then I built the low relief building across the two forward tracks, with a corridor connection to hide the mirror top.
With the
Every now and again something unexpected goes wrong !!! In this case the PVA / Water for the ballast had found a joint in the MDF. Which caused the edges on both sides of the joint to swell.
The joint runs back to just behind the points which resulted in them lifting, all the track work was on the same level, not any more !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Luckily every thing had risen evenly which means stock can no longer unexpectedly roll out of the spurs everything runs well over it an
My layout seems to be a game of two halves, to borrow a metaphor from other peoples hobby. Work has mainly concentrated on the industrial town side or the right hand side of the shed. Last night I set to with some more vinyl tiles and some ballast.
How the evening started
Having read Octobers Railroad Modeller there is and interesting article at the back about freight yards that have roadways between every other track, so I thought that would make a nice contrast to the team track o
I have to say I don't really like the "as it comes" colour of peco track, made worse by using recycled point work that has a different colour. So having soldered all the wire links in place I let loose with the Railmatch "Frame dirt"
Track wired and painted called for a bit of running, with a couple of shots...
Caught this train leaving town
It had to slow to cross the street at the end of town
With a crewman stopping traffic, it proceeded slowly across the r
Looking at the last batch of pictures I realised the back scene's were a mess, with the remnants of former hills, and a very white look they didn't give the look of a sunnier clime.
So :
1 tub of dulux blue left over from the boys bedroom
1 tub of white poster paint
1 brush and 40mins of dabbing gives .. On the right
On the left
I think its made a significant difference, the shed certainly feels sunnier
While in an artistic mood I did some work on the stor
In my last post I showed some thoughts regarding how the layout on the right side of the shed may look. Well after my 3 days away on the girls camp and a full day yesterday at a wedding, last night I had some free time to play trains !
Here is what I got up to.
The buildings are just things I had in the "recycle me" box but they give the general Idea that there will be some low relief going on along the back behind the road
John
Last night was my last chance to go down to the shed for the coming week, I have a busy schedule coming up which includes assisting to run a 3 day church camp for thirty 12-18 year old girls that Mrs RJR is in charge of. I get to do all the lifting, carrying and back room jobs. Not to mention the preperation work before we go. So this will be my last post for a few days. At least there is WiFi where we are going so I can come on here and browse for some sanity/
Anyway...
A bit more struc
With a house full of teenagers this evening, the only sensible thing to do was retreat to the shed.... Got plenty done and have realised that getting pictures of these smaller scales is considerably harder than G in the garden. But I thing I'm getting the hang of it. No list of done this, dome that Ill just let the pictures talk
Favourite picture of the evening
John
Having been asked if I have tried using the 3mm Neodymium magnets, here is a video to show how they work.
You can just make out the magnet inside the rails as the couplers open/close.
They are much better on straight track rather than curves but I think that is a general Kadee thing, I should also point out that I haven't used them before so still need to master the "kadee shuffle"
The video is done using a loco and 2 boxcars, no editing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrbeP2Ue
Today I've had the house to myself while Mrs RJR is out with the the youngest who is playing netball, so after getting some chores done it was escape to the shed
The Barge.
Rails are glued onto the surface without the sleepers / ties using super glue. I've used this method before and its handy that the plastic sleepers can be slid off the bottom of the rail and clipped on the top to maintain spacing during gluing
Spacing to the next pair of rails is then done using 2mm (80thou
I've spent some time working on the float bridge tonight. In prototype terms its a lift bridge, hinged on the land side suspended at the water end by a gantry, the idea being the water end can be raised or lowered to suit water level I guess.
Anyway onto my construction. Firstly I glued some strips on the underside of the barge body to achieve a level and give it smoother movement. (the current water surface will be painted and varnished so not much extra thickness)
Then the float bridge c
