Entry posted by jeff_p
311 views
On the last entry I had started filling in the gaps where the hills were going with pieces of Celotex cut (or broken) out of a full size board. We must have drawn some strange looks at the builders merchants when we bought it as we stood by a rather tiny car (only marginally bigger than a Smart for 2) with a 8'x4' sheet of this stuff leaning against it. The solution for us was simple: use a Stanley knife to score the board into 2'x2' sections and snap it into manageable pieces. Still filled the car up though.
Anyway.. Filling up the hills and shaping them worked well with this foam, it's light, tough but easy to handle. I was initially a little worried about sticking it down but polyurethane expanding glue is good stuff and, as long as you weight things down, expands out to get a good grab on the various pieces. Progress looked like this as this point:
.. and looking the other way ..
The bag of ballast in this picture reminded me to say "yes, I remembered to ballast and weather the track inside the tunnel". The tunnel itself was made using Das modelling clay formed round a buck I made from foam that followed the track line and defined the shape of the tunnel. I covered the foam in cling film first then molded the clay over it.
Took a couple of days to dry, but fairly light and amenable to tweaking and rubbing down. Not perfect, but I am learning as I go, fortunately. The tunnel itself is only about a foot long, so shouldn't provide any insurmountable problems in the future but only time will tell. I suppose that if the worst happens and I need to re-engineer that area I'll have to extend the cutting back towards the back board. I'd rather not, the curve pulls in tighter in there and it wouldn't look right.
A couple of cycles of paring back with a sharp knife and coarse sand paper, along with filling in areas that needed modification, resulted in some flowing hills and the feeling that everything was following some sort of plan.
The next step was to try and create a working surface to the new hills, something that would follow the shape well, be easy to put down and subsequently modify if necessary. I chose a rather old fashioned approach, and using something like 60:40 PVA and water mix, covered the hills in pieces of news paper, hundreds, possibly thousands of tiny bits of news paper. At least twice. This worked rather well to my mind, looking like this in mid application:
Applying the paper in pieces around the size of my thumb made it easy to follow the contours of the foam and once fully soaked there was some flexibility in the paper itself. The result is a light, smooth, hard surface that feels like it will be easy to work with. The final step, mainly to over come the "Dazzle Camouflage" effect of the print on the paper, was to prime everything grey so that the real shape of things became obvious.
The grey paint has done its job nicely, there are obviously a couple of places where the lines don't run into each other quite right, but we're happy with over all result. We now feel that another milestone has been reached, and that it's time to begin some "proper" modelling (eh? What have I been doing so far? 
).
Finally, we had to make sure we hadn't glued the boards together, so it was time to ease (pry!) them apart:
Hurray!
As can be seen in the pictures other modelling has begun; bridge at the left end, tunnel entrance at the other. Next major step is to draw out the edges of the platforms and build these up so the ballasting can begin.
Fairly soon I also need to finalise the detailed plan of the layout, small details like where the building are and how big they should be (indeed, what they are actually going to look like). A signalling plan needs to be established so that details about point rods and signal cables can be established (I don't want to have to chip out ballast between sleepers to get these details in place). Where is the signal box going? This is an area where my wife and I are most at odds; I like to plan things out and know where I am aiming and what the hurdles ahead are, she likes to evolve and develop ideas on a just in time basis. It's going to be a delicate discussion 
.
Next time there is the matter of the bridge and tunnel entrance, and (while I was doing all the above) building the crane kit from Cambrian.
Jeff.
-
3
1 Comment
Recommended Comments
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now