Paddy802

So I've not added to my blog recently but have been busy. The major scenic work is complete and I'm just adding little bits here and there. This means I can get on with weathering stock and locomotives. Meanwhile an idea is growing in my mind for my next layout. The wife says this one has to go first which is fair enough as I live in a small house, but this will be some time away, I'm thinking O gauge!!!! I've took a few photo's of how it stands at the moment.

Just found this Blog. That is an awesome piece of modelling! Paddy

Hi Jim No worries, I'm not on the web to often either. Sort of dip a toe now and again lol. Paddy

It is sad news. Hopefully there isn't going to be a decline in the kit and detailing companies as time goes on, it will be a sad day when we have to make do with the RTR models as they are from the bigger companies. I've noticed as time goes by and some of the older modellers retire from the scene that the younger modellers are missing out on lost knowledge. I watched 2 you tube videos on weathering the other day and in both they didn't know what the sand filler caps were! I certainly am no font of knowledge but I try and read up on the locomotive I'm dealing with. Or in the case of this locomotive some one else did the research and I just read the magazine article!!! Thanks for the kind comment and the info. Paddy

Hi Jim, the figures are from 'ModelU' it's the company that scans and 3D prints real people, they have a web site where I bought a big heap for my loco's. They come unpainted and are 3D printed red plastic. Non of them are scans of me just the readily available figures of the web site.

I recently had 2 weeks summer holiday to take care of the little Imp's that run riot round my house, and as we weren't going abroad this year, I thought between the day trips and the endless DIY tasks I'd get a lot more scenery done to the layout and thus hopefully have all the ground scenery complete! Instead I did very little. However what I did do is detail and weather my Crosti 9F which I impulsively bought a few months ago, I found an article in a model railway magazine on detailing the Crosti 9F, so armed with this I acquired Alan Gibson pony truck wheels, some fine brass wire and a Britannia detailing pack. I used the article as more of a guide, I re soldered new rungs in to the ladder which was soul destroying, after this I decided to just fit the Britannia cylinder drain cocks as I didn't fancy soldering up some of my own. I was unable to get the brake gear from mainly trains as recommended in the article as the web site has closed ( as the company may have but I'm not really sure??) so had to forgo fitting the fitting of brake gear, which is very annoying as its an obvious feature that is missing. Probably the most hassle was the steam lance pipe work which I just couldn't get to shape and snuggly fit, also there is always the threat of a gluey mess on the boiler, I followed the pictures carefully and noticed that in the article it went into the boiler just before the 3rd boiler ring from the front, so I followed this, then when I looked at a photo of the real thing it seemed to run the full length of the boiler above another small pipe, which meant taking off the old steam lance fitting I'd made, filling in the small hole I'd drilled in the boiler to accommodate this and re shaping and carefully attaching a new pipe the full length of the boiler, I cut it in places so that it looked like it was going behind the other pipe work that is molded to the boiler. There was few more details I added and changed, front steps, 3 shackle coupling etc. It ain't perfect by a long way but its a railroad model and I'm no expert on Crosti's (also I'm far to young to have seen one!!), I still think its a bargain especially with sound and saves me making the choo choo noises!

Brilliant Model, with a beautiful paint job to finish it.

Thank you Paul.

About midweek I decided to do some weathering, so I sat down and decided to tackle my Crab! Firstly I wanted to renumber it, making it a Dumfries engine, I used Fox transfers 10" cab side numbers and smoke box door number and also replaced the shed plate with a 247 Developments shed plate. My layout isn't really based on anywhere so I've decided to renumber some of my locomotives to the local area of Carlisle and south Scotland, as my wife is from Dumfrieshire and I'm a Cumbrian ( I acquired her on a Reiver raid, I only went on it for some sheep!! ). Over the next few days I did a bit of airbrushing and brush painting and finally finished it tonight. The crew are from Modelu, they are just the ones available from the website and aren't scans of me as I fear I'd make the scanner crack! Not the best photo but zooming in show's the shed plate better. Apart from that I haven't really done much modelling to the layout, just a few bushes here and there.

Just a video and a few piccy's whilst out walking the dog. I got an excellent video of a Royal Scot in the siding by the footbridge but I was heard saying how awesome it was whilst using bad words to emphasise my Awe!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOR61WDgI4E

Hi Usually they are grey depending on region, I'm sure GWR would have had a more elaborate paint scheme and a conical top sometimes. The Base seems quite high but there may have been a small square for track side positioned water towers of this sort. Although I have seen pictures of them on the end of station platforms, the sock piping that is replicated by the black rubber on the model often dangled but a few feet from the floor. Hopefully the above image may be of some use. Cheers Paddy

Hi Tom I was looking up methods for ballasting on google and found an image which blew me away, so I followed the link : http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/26947 I varied my method slightly, I still used Mosaic dark grey tile grout (There is even an excellent concrete colour which I also bought for possible future uses). As I'd already started ballasting the traditional way with fine black cinder ballast which is found in most model shops, I wanted to maintain consistency, so I still went ahead and ballasted in fact covered any area that was to be ash and cinders with the 'woodland scenics' fine cinder ballast. I then drenched it with Surgical spirits that I'd put in a fine mist spray bottle, I got both the bottles and the surgical spirit from Sainsburys pharmacy section (Top tip when asked why you need 3 bottles of surgical spirit by the pharmacy staff, do not say for cheap drinking like I did.. oops). I then secured the ballast with the old 1/4 PVA to 3/4 water mix (roughly) and a drop of washing up liquid method. I also found that keeping the surgical spirit at hand meant that if I had any glue mix that wasn't sinking into the ballast a quick blast from the surgical spirit helped the ballast to absorb it. I then left it over night till dry. When it came to using the grout I put the grout on dry (in powder form) you don't need a lot and a teaspoon was used for this, along with an old paint brush to spread it about, once I'd got an even spread I then used a larger spray bottle of nothing but water to drench the grout. I will say make sure that all areas which you don't want grouted are clear before this stage (a slightly damp brush is good for this) and also keep a good distance away from the grout with the water spray as if to close the pressure blows it every where, whilst still damp I pushed an old truck with quite big flanges along the track I'd just grouted. The grout drys really quickly so within a few hours I was hoovering up loose bits and cleaning the track, I obviously kept all turn out ties free of ballast and grout so they could still move. I had two practice goes on two lengths of spare track, one method being the above and the second being that I mixed the grout first in a bucket and splodge it on before spreading it about, the second method would be good for concrete, compressed and hard standing but it had a bit of a shine to it that I didn't like, but I'm sure sanding would rectify this, I didn't fancy sanding 7 feet of base board though (The hoover filters couldn't take it). I bought the grout from the same dealer as mentioned in the link : http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mosaic-Tile-Grout-for-professionals-Flexible-Anti-mould-External-use-/262184851327?var=&hash=item3d0b6f577f:m:mB-wgBMUYiUUfxT5hIniu9A I still had enough grout left to fix a few tiles in the bathroom as well. I will also say that nearly every rail forum discussion (especially the American ones) I read about using grout said avoid this method, but I found it was both quick and easy and a little bit of tidying up round the point work isn't really the end of the world. Hope this helped. Cheers Paddy

Thanks for the positive messages, I think I'm at the stage that is most enjoyable as a modeller now, to be honest its all been enjoyable, bar the tiling of roofs!!!! I've picked up a lot of skills with this layout that mean I'd be more confident and probably save a lot more money when the time comes round to building another layout.

Recently I've been busy, having got the wiring for my layout lighting done as well as quite a lot of ballasting and also creating some model buildings. I've been ballasting the conventional way with small fine black cinders, letting it set then covering this ballast with dark grey grout whilst dry and in powder form then spraying with water, lots and lots of water. On the wiring front I'm ashamed to say that under my base board is a web of wires, which is fine as in my head it all makes sense, should some other poor soul ever need to do some rewiring then I'm sure it would be the equivalent of a punishment from the pits of hell. Most of my yard lights are from RMLectronics and I was mightily impressed as no other ready to plant lights even compare, unfortunately the main man has gone in to retirement so i decided not to permanently fix them to the board as I may want to use them on another layout in the future ( I have to many new layout plans running round my head ), so with this in mind I fixed pieces of plasticard to the layout with a 6mm hole in it and cut to the size of the lamps base, the lights slot nicely on to these and are removable once the wires are disconnected from the choggy blocks. Not realizing that I'd killed two birds with one stone as removable lights make track cleaning far easier. Oh almost forgot I finished the sand house and have also finished my scratch built crew mess. Further more I repainted the Bachmann Diesel refueling point. On top of this I made an impulse locomotive purchase, as I haven't bought a loco in a very long time. The yard office is a Townstreet structure as is the Sand house, in fact when I started I had a Townstreet engine shed and coal hole but a Godzilla sized cat made short work of these!!! With all my new lights, oh and water cranes which I also have got done I thought I'd attempt some atmospheric photo's (I hear its all the craze) using nothing more than my Samsung mobile device, although I don't really have the eye for photography, that's more my brothers domain with his big flash camera's. Finally my impulse buy. I had saved a few pennies and was happily trotting on down to my local model shop with the full intention of buying an Webb coal tank, I haven't bought a new locomotive in some time and was hoping to impress Mike the store owner with a decent sized purchase, instead of the usual balsa, plastistruct and slaters sheets. My excited beady little eyes spotted the little Tank Locomotive on the shelf in the display cabinet, I was just about to shout for assistance but my eye wandered to the top shelf... and there sat a huge Tender Locomotive further more it had sound (Ooooooh), it was the Railroad Crosti 9F, now I can almost hear the "Doh's" but for a railroad model it is pretty darn good, yes there is a lot of tweaking to be done, the front steps as an example but over all on inspection it impressed me enough to buy it. As it was set a bargain price as well, I bought it and I'm not ashamed to say spent the next few hours at home playing with it and letting the sound decoder make the noises for once instead of me! Its not the only impulse buy I've made so here is a picture of the beast with my other random purchase I made a few years ago. Both a tad out of place in such a small depot, but hey ho.. I see, I like, I buy.

Thanks Jim, I am mightily impressed with your layout, its very atmospheric and well thought out with excellent modelling. Thanks for the tips with regards to the water, my layout is in the conservatory so the preferable high temperature is no problem!! Cheers Paddy