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 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 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 afternoon all,
I have managed to progress board 3 of the layout (or the London end of Par station) over the last week or so. Ballasting has taken place and the track has been painted.
I first painted the rails in Phoenix "rusty rails" colour, then a week wash of track dirt to take the sheen off the sleepers and blend the rusty rails a little. The ballast is a 70/30 mix of Woodland scenics buff and brown. I used this successfully on my swiss layout and having studied the many photos
Good afternoon,
This will be the second blog for me in a week!! Not bad going !!
Just thought I would update on the progress of the station building. I have now strengthened the structure with some extra card along the centre of the building which has now made it a little more sturdy.
I have also made the doors from artists paper. As these doors are panelled, I first cut out the panelled areas and then glued a second sheet of artists paper behind to represent this, and they have now
Good afternoon all,
Not much progress has taken place over the last few weeks but I have managed to get the stone papers cut out and attached to the cardboard base structure. Thank you Pete and Tom for your tips on how to produce the stonework in my last entry, I used a good photo of the station itself and then cut part of the stonework from the photo, and copied and pasted it several times to get a strip of stone work. Then this was printed onto good quality paper and I carefully measured a
Good afternoon,
Having had the day off work today, I have managed to finish the basic construction of the station building for Par.
When I was down in Cornwall last week, I dragged my fiancee down to Par to measure the station building so as to make the most accurate model possible. I checked permission with the station staff first.
So permission granted, and a half hour later (with a very embarrassed wife to be!!) I had my measurements.
The main structure is made of 1mm thick card
Good afternoon,
It's been a while since I wrote my last blog and since then I have got married, found out my wife is now pregnant with our first child, and I've also changed jobs. And all that in the last 6 weeks!!!
Since the wedding and honeymoon, I have been making some good progress with the layout and in particular the station building for Par.
Since my last entry I have completed the windows, attached the roof and layered strips of thick paper to represent the tiles, made the ch
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,
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 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,
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
Good evening all,
While the station canopy dries from being painted I have decided to move onto my second structural project, the footbridge.
This is definitely my biggest challenge to date and my first scratch built structure that is to be entirely in plastic. Last time I was in Par, I decided to take numerous shots of the footbridge in order to make as near to accurate model as possible.
Ok, so some L-shaped plastic strips in 2 different sizes, 0.5mm and 0.25mm thick plasticard and a
Good evening all,
I haven't updated my blog on this layout for a while due to my busy work commitments but I have made a little bit of progress in that time. I have dismantled the layout into the three boards and have decided to work solely on the eastern end (London end) of the layout.
I have painted the rails and intend to do my usual watered down sleeper grime wash over the top to take the sheen off of the sleepers. I will then ballast and dry brush over the rails.
The platform ed
Good afternoon all,
It's been a while since i've been able to post a bit more progress on my layout. Work commitments still getting in the way of the project, but i've managed to make a little bit more progress over the last few days.
I've laid some of the very realistic ratio concrete trunking which i was initially going to build from thick pieces of card, but having sampled the ratio product, I decided to use it instead. I still need to paint it and add some weathering though.
Prog
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 morning,
I have been meaning to post something about my layout for quite sometime now.
Just a bit of background, I have been modelling the swiss scene for many years and have decided to model china clay operations in Cornwall for my latest project. Par was chosen as a prototype as I have never modelled a prototype location before. A visit to Par was tied in with a holiday in Cornwall during July 2010 and many pictures were taken. The great thing with this particular station is that
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 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,
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 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 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,
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 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 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
