Good evening,
It's been a while since I posted a blog entry so thought I would add a little update. I have now almost finished the third rail on one side and painted it. I think a lesson has been learnt here as next time I will wipe down the top of the third rail as I paint as the peco track cleaner is a bit harsh on the third rail as the supports are only every 5 sleepers so it tends to bend it and loosen it. I'm also considering painting it a slightly darker shade as per the prototype, whi
Good evening,
Since my last post I have put together a second (and final) baseboard for this little project. A templot plan has been glued down to it and will be ready to lay the rest of the track work later on in the week.
Here is the layout which is 2.6m long and 32cm wide. I will be adding another strip of plywood to the first board so it mirrors the width of the second board.
Each board will have a basic fiddle yard at the end of it and will accommodate 3-4 trains. I'll try and put
Good evening,
Just before Christmas I bought the wonderful Farish 4 CEP in blue/grey livery. A superb model and I'd wanted to get one ever since I had a play with BCN Pete's model on his Paddock Wood bay layout.
I decided to buy some concrete sleepers and some flat bottom rail form the 2FS shop and set out to produce a mini diorama for the unit and hopefully run it. My wife has suggested on several occasions to model something more local alongside my Cornish work in progress layout so I
Good afternoon all,
Well, Grantham is progressing well and this week I have been laying the easitrac and soldering on the dropper wires as I go along. The two tracks to the rear, where the coal wagons are shunted along ready to be tipped into the coal pit, have been laid and wired in.
Next i have moved onto the track that runs in front of the coaling tower and I have laid the best part of both of the turnouts on this section with just a couple of bits left to finish.
The plan is to lay
Good afternoon!
Here is my latest entry with progress on "a little slice of Grantham shed" project.
I have finally put the baseboard together and fixed down the layout plan using Templot. As I'm still not great with Templot, I created the different turnouts and straight sections individually, printed them out and once the board was marked out, the pieces were stuck together like a jigsaw puzzle.
So here is the first photo, the whole layout is 120cm long by 22cm wide. The area to the
Good afternoon all,
First update on this project for 2014! Quite a few small bits have been going on and the model is starting to come together now.
First of all, I decided to make a start on building the handrails. Whilst there is no etched kit available in this scale to model handrail I set about making my own as it looked like they would all be different sizes anyway. Various techniques were tried and tested for making these. First of all, I blue tacked the parts to a pre drawn handra
Good afternoon,
With all the festivities almost coming to an end and the numerous visits to family and friends completed, I have managed to get a little modelling time in to progress the coaling plant. I wanted to make a little progress on the feeder floor and the chutes that deliver the coal from the tower onto the feeder floor and into the loco tenders have been put together. These were made up using 0.5mm plasticard and are slightly inaccurate compared to the prototype as the are supposed
Good afternoon,
I managed to get a good modelling session in last night and made a little more headway on the coaling plant.
First off, I finally found a photo on flickr here http://www.flickr.com/photos/40052043@N03/7720626360/in/photolist-cLfeeA which showed the top half of the Eastern face of the tower and once I had zoomed in on it, I managed to make out the two doorways that I thought were there on the middle and top sections. So, I then marked out the locations of these on the mode
Good evening,
It's been a while since I updated this blog with progress on my "little slice of Grantham shed" layout. I have been concentrating on getting the coaling tower structure nearer to being finished before starting anything else as, to be honest, I am enjoying progressing this structure as I would like it to be the main focal point of the layout.
I have added the top section to the tower, however, having studied a few more of the sublime photos on the excellent thread "returning
Good evening all,
Just thought I would update on the progress of my first and main structure for this mini layout. I have now added the sides to the top section and the base of the feeder floor, which was a bit of a nightmare to fit as I had to reposition the front two legs which were originally glued in place slightly too far forward.
Here are a couple of progress shots with my first strip of bullhead track now completed.
A ground level view.
A view of the Easter
Good evening all,
The Coaling tower is progressing nicely and I have now fitted the sides to the initial structure started earlier on in the week and have now cut out the middle section parts, assembled them and offered them into position on the tower. It looks pretty high now as the photos below will show. Also obtained this week was a copy of "Great Northern Engine Sheds - Volume 1" which is an excellent read with stock allocations, photos and also a 1956 trackplan. I am still lacking any
Good evening,
Some progress tonight. I have cut out the other side of the initial structure and measured and cut out the legs using 4mm square plastic strip. These parts have now been put together and the structure is already starting to take shape.
Here are a selection of photos, please excuse the poor quality but I am lacking my usual lighting tonight.
Looks like something out of star wars on the cutting mat!!!
A couple of views with the legs in place which was a night
Good evening,
I have put together a track plan today which is fairly close to the prototype. I want to keep it as simple as possible as this will be my test bed for building easitrac turnouts, in readiness for the 7 turnouts that I need to build for my Par layout. The layout will be 120cm long across two 60cm boards. 40cm to one end will be allocated for the fiddle yard which will be very simplified as it will only need to hold locos and some coal wagons which will be shunted onto the layout
Good evening,
A small amount of progress has taking place over the past two evenings. As I have already added all the measurements scaled down to the plans found on the LNER website, I have now made a start on drawing out the various parts on a 1.5mm thick sheet of plasticard. I chose this thickness, as the structure will be relatively high, I would like it to be durable and not be too flimsey. However this thickness is a nightmare to cut out and takes a while for the knife to go through eac
Good evening all,
It's been a while seen I have added a blog entry, so thought it was time to pick up on this. This particular one is another "off Par station" subject, after having almost finished my class 90 upgrade, I decided that I would like to build a little home for my Dapol A4, purchased a while ago as I have always loved this loco. I currently run this loco on Par as a specials working, but thoughts have turned towards a mini layout set in it's own period late 50's.
So ideas hav
Good evening all,
Before I embark on the complete change of track on Par, I thought I would write a quick blog on a little ongoing project that has been progressing slowly on my workbench for the last couple of months.
There are a trio of Cornish "Lizzie the Lizard" branded 37's that I want to model for Par. I have already done 37207 "William Cookworthy" and I would like to add 37181 and 37185 too.
So up first is 37181. I wanted to model this loco as she was in the mid 80's and thank
Good evening all!
I have finally been able to get somewhere close to finishing this structure for Par station and I am rather pleased with the results. The mesh has fitted in well, albeit seriously tedious to fit, and I have finally painted the model, and added the lamps using wire handrail for the supports and wheel axle bearings for the lamps. I have also made some lamps out of rounded off cocktail sticks and painted them white. ( I have yet to fit these ).
I have also decided to take
Good evening all,
I'm getting a little more confident with these MIG powders now and have spent the last few nights weathering 2 MK1 GUV's, a MK1 BG and a MK1 CK.
I have used a combination of black smoke and Vietnam earth around the door hinges using a wet brush to allow it to run into the door grooves. Then a mixture of Vietnam earth, industrial city dirt, standard rust and black smoke to weather the sides to a varying degree. The roof has also been weathered using a mixture of the firs
Good afternoon,
I spent a few hours yesterday trying to make some progress on the footbridge for Par station.
I have now cut and attached some of the sections of mesh to the bridge (mesh courtesy of devondynosoar), and fixed them in place. I have ordered another section but it seems that most suppliers seem out of stock of this item so I can't progress any further until it is received.
I have also made some progress on the footbridge sides as the undersides needed trimming back to al
Good evening all,
My second entry this week! I must admit, I have been fairly busy modelling over the past few days and the layout is starting to show some progress now.
I have decided to get the platforms down on board two. The edging is Peco and as you will see from the photos, I have used card to strengthen the centre and also used as the platform top as I feel it provides a good texture to paint onto. I still have to scribe the paving onto the island platform which I will do later on
Good evening all,
I have decided to spend a bit of time weathering my Farish class 37 number 37206 and having bought some MIG powders about 6 months ago, it has taken me this long to pluck up the courage to have a bash at using them.
I have already weathered this loco but I was just missing the smoke streaks on the roof.
I have used the "Black Smoke" pigment to create some smoke stains on the roof using some photos from Flickr as reference.
On the box it recommends using a drop of turp
Good evening all,
Having received a parcel on Friday from the 2mmFS association packed full of easitrac, I decided to spend this afternoon threading the rails onto the sleepers. It has taken me approximately 45 minutes to an hour to thread both rails onto the sleepers/chairs to build a 550mm section. Thankfully the layout is small and it's not for my Par layout! I'd be here for days threading away!! However, the resulting trackwork quality and appearance is well worth the effort and patience
Good afternoon all,
First of all, a happy new year to you all.
I made my annual visit to the Warley exhibition in Birmingham last November and decided to join the 2mmFS association having been inspired by the 2mmFS layouts and boxfile 2mmFS layouts on this website. My thoughts were to attempt a small project involving the easitrac system.
Having previously built a swiss layout in N scale, I decided to model a swiss themed 2mmFS layout as the sleeper spacings seem fairly similar (plea
Good afternoon,
No modelling today but thought I would put boards 1 and 2 together and test a bit of stock on this section and take a few posed photos to show the progress to date (not as much progress as I would have hoped for!).
This exercise was beneficial as I have discovered that the sides of the footbridge are slightly too low over the main running lines (hence the card spacers to adjust the height), so tonight I will be removing these and filing them down.
The station building h
Good evening all,
I have been making some progress over the last week or so with the footbridge for Par station. I have still to find a suitable mesh to complete the side railings on the steps up to the bridge and I am hoping that I will find something that will work well when I visit the Warley show at the NEC in Birmingham in a couple of weeks.
The footbridge ends are now complete, the second end being a complete nightmare to build as the structure somehow would not glue together strai
