Tweedale - August Update
Entry posted by awoodford
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This month's blog looks at progress on the Dale End sawmill scene, a method for creating low relief conifers, and the latest update from The Pits.
Dale End Diary
Dale End is the upper terminus of the line, situated at the edge of the extensive Tweedale Forest. The main industry is a sawmill, supplying pit props, sawn timber, and wood waste to other industries down the line. This month a start was made on the scenery for this section of the layout. Here are some in-progress shots...
9 August. An awkwardly placed support post for the layout's lighting rig has been moved, allowing the viewing window to be widened a few inches, which helps make things look less cramped. The whole scene is 12 inches wide by 12 inches deep. Ground work has started, with the station platform at the back and loading area for the sawmill at the front.
11 August. A revealing view of this end of the layout. My old woodwork teacher would be, ahem, 'turning' in his grave. You can see where the original layout was extended by 9 inches in the past, and where the support pillar has now been cut out to increase the size of the window, then extra bracing added to try and restore the structural integrity. What a mess. It also shows the lighting problem in this corner, with the light-fitting being 12 inches from the end of the baseboard. The whole baseboard was constructed from 25 x 6mm pine, as an experiment to see just how lightweight it was possible to go. It is actually quite rigid (possibly due to the boxlike construction), and for a home layout such as this it seems to work fine. It probably wouldn't be robust enough for an exhibition layout though.
13 August. The 'hills' have now been sealed with grey undercoat paint, and a few early mock-ups for the sawmill have appeared. It is not based on any particular prototype. I grabbed a load of sawmill images from the Internet, and will just pick features from them that appeal to me. I have a vague idea of what I want, but the details will be sorted out as I go along.
15 August. Let there be light. I've managed to squeeze in a 10 inch, 6 Watt fluorescent tube at this end of the layout, which has sorted out the lighting problem. A start has been made on card buildings for the sawmill at the front. A mock-up for the backscene has been propped up at the back. The conifers at the left are being constructed using the methods described in my previous blog. The wooden decking on the front platform came from a Faller embossed card sheet, purchased as an invaluable investment in the 1970's. I knew it would come in useful one day!
23 August. Painting the backscene was a job I kept putting off, for fear of mucking it up, but it was starting to hold up progress, so I've eventually been forced to get on with it. It was with some trepidation that the first blob of paint was applied to the pristine surface of the expensive watercolour paper, but it seemed to work out ok and I'm happy enough with the result. It was carefully cut out around the outline and glued to the sky background. The grassy ground cover is made from a paste of scatter material mixed with dilute PVA glue and spread on like plaster, then sprinkled with chopped up plumbers hemp. Its a method I've used for years but is rather outdated now in these days of static grass.
29 August. This is how things stand to date. The buildings are gradually taking shape. The roofs, chimneys and cyclone are still in grey undercoat and need painting and weathering. Foliage needs to be added to the trees on the left. The most obvious things still missing are stacks of timber. It looks like the mass production of pit props is the prospect for the coming month... what fun.
Low Relief Conifers
This is something of a supplement to my previous blog on cardboard trees, and shows how the conifers behind Dale End station were constructed. Cardboard cores from rolls of toilet paper were used, which gave the trees a built-in convex shape.
1. With a bit of canny cutting, four trees can be obtained from one tube.
2. A Christmas tree like shape was cut from the card.
3. A bamboo skewer was glued to the back. This was mainly to add strength to the tree, but could also serve as a trunk if extended.
4. The tree was painted with dark green poster paint (green mixed with black).
5. Foliage pieces were glued on, starting from the bottom and working towards the top, with pieces overlapping slightly like tiles on a roof.
6. I found the foliage looked an unnatural green under the fluorescent lighting used on the layout, so it was toned down with dark green poster paint, using a 'poor man's spray gun' - paint flicked from a stiff brush by dragging a finger across the end of the bristles.
News from The Pits
In order to appease Health & Safety's Chief Tutting Officer, road signs have now been installed approaching the level crossings, and the fencing has been painted white. The sign on the far side of the crossing looks like a hazard in itself - if a passing pedestrian doesn't clout his head on it, the next vehicle entering the yard will probably demolish it. The 'end of shift' on the platform is still awaiting its train home. A recent visitor remarked "Oh look, a choir." Then someone else reckoned they look like mourners at a funeral. Heh. It would seem the sign on the platform and pithead gear on the backscene are not clues enough. Perhaps I should give them pickaxes and pointy hats like the seven dwarfs.
Cheers, Alan.
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