Now I've completed the tunnel mouth and have the track and track bed laid, the next stage is to add wire droppers and finally paint and ballast the track. My build method has several major differences to the norm. Because of my confidence in Templot and trust that it will all come together, I'm building modules one at a time, which are linked together as we go along. One of the major benefits of this order of construction is that you get a whole variety of jobs every few hours, rather than having weeks of woodwork, followed by weeks of tracklaying and finally an eternity of the most tedious job ever, ballasting!

I know there have been many articles on ballasting via the diluted PVA method, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get acceptable results. Thankfully Capt Kernow came to the rescue and I'm now a happy fella with no fear of ballasting, in fact I enjoy it.

The Capt's method is totally different to the norm and really suits my way of construction. You can sit down at the kitchen table and achieve a very good result with a glass of wine in hand and some relaxing music in the background. Last night I ballasted both of these boards using this method in 1hr 40 mins. There's about 8' of track in total and that's on par for my speed of this method. 4' an hour may not sound a lot, but once done, it's finished.

So here's the process in pics.

First stage. Spray all track and base with red oxide primer.

I add droppers to every piece of rail as I go along. Rather than solder wire directly onto the rail, I'll cut out one sleeper and replace it with a pcb one. Soldering the rail in essence adds a cosmetic chair and the wire is then soldered into the same cosmetic chair. Not perfect I know, but once the rail is painted and ballasted, the electrical connection fades from view.

This pic is slightly controversial, in as much some modellers believe it is sacrilege to mark the rail surface in any way. I've found that scraping the rail surface literally minutes after painting, easily removes the paint from the rail surface without marking the rail. The secret is having the end of a metal rule at a very shallow angle to the rail and not applying too much pressure. A quick vacuum up of the scrapings and on goes the rail colour.

As explained, I'm actually using a dark brown emulsion paint. Be careful not to put too much on your brush as nooks and crannies can fill with paint, but most will be hidden once the track is ballasted. As the paint dries these large blobs of paint will normally contract and disappear, but don't worry too much as ballasting will hide them. Strangely enough I find the slight filling around the chairs captures the way oil and timber preservative can often be seen on older trackwork. The paint in this pic is still very wet and the amount of infill will reduce dramatically as it dries.

Next stage is to mask down the sides of the cork trackbed, about 10mm from the edge and add a second strip covering the end of the sleepers. This will create a useful shoulder to retain the ballast when we come to do the centre and edges later.

Liberally paint on neat pva and sprinkle the ballast in place. After about 20 minutes or so, peel away the masking tape.

Now the fun begins. Pull up a chair, pour yourself a drink and relax. Take a small paint brush and dip it into a pot of pva and paint a good dollop between the ends of each sleeper.

I do about 12" at a time and then sprinkle on the ballast. Repeat that process on the other sides. The beauty of this method is that you don't have to wait until the mix goes off. It's just a continual process.

The final stage is to do the middle section. Same process as before.

On with the ballast again and job done.

So there we have it. There's no right or wrong ways of doing any of these jobs and this is just an alternative method to the norm that suits my construction methods.

Here's a photo I took in the late 60's of the builder's merchant yard in Epsom I worked at. The bins containing sand were originally coal bins and the coal siding was behind where the bricks were stacked. (the rails were still there)  The Pelican loader was I believe used to unload coal wagons.

Here's a photo of the same yard (at the bottom of the page) showing the the bins from the other side and some others in about 1948/9 scanned from a book called "A century and a quarter"which was a special publication for employees of the company. Not sure about copyright here although some are credited to a Mr. J. McKeown who was possibly an employee of the company.

11 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

The OCD has kicked in nicely there. A great little win though.

Thank you, although I refer to having OCD I’m not officially diagnosed but you have to wonder 

There was no way I could paint the strips straight and even (and be happy with it) so this was the obvious solution.

I had them 3D printed by Tim @cwrailways and the signs are by trackside signs

No affiliation with either companies, just a satisfied customer

11 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

The road surface now looks spot on by the way!

Thank you, I’ve finished titivating it now I’ve got it to a stage I’m happy with it (I’m my own worst critic)

It isn't very hard to put a bit of texture on to a smooth plastic surface guys. Just flood the area with solvent, MEK, butanone or plastic weld, yes I know they are the same thing really, then bounce a stiff 1/2" or 1" paintbrush on it for a while and repeat as often as it takes to get the effect you want. Just bounce it end on mind don't let it drag. Use a cheap brush and cut it down to make it stiffer if you feel the need. It will work, trust me, I've done it many times.

Regards Lez.

Making progress on the sibling.

Work continues on track weathering.

A return to more temperate conditions has tempted me back into my study and to ease myself back into the build I've started by making a few wall lights to grace the walls of the goods shed and Power House. I make these from soft copper wire, bits of insulation cut from thin electrical hook-up wire, bell-shaped jewellers findings and tiny glass beads. With a coat of paint they look acceptable for industrial type fittings and only take a few minutes each to make.

Thanks Steve. It isn't my original idea, but it works very well if you can find some threshold strip with the right pitch of corrugations. I described the process in a bit more detail in this post from my 'Far Wittering' thread.

For the light railway look I'm aiming for, I fancied having a small corrugated iron building as the station, located at the station yard entrance rather than on the platform. This follows the original designers intentions also. One of my all-time favourite films is 'Oh, Mr Porter!', which was filmed at Cliddesden on the Basingstoke to Alton line, and I found that a card model design download for this actual building was available from http://www.amodelrailway.co.uk/shop/index.html for a very modest sum, so one was duly acquired. Having started it I'm not too happy with the way the corrugations are modelled, so I've decided to use the design as a template and clad it with scale corrugated sheets. The plastic offerings from the trade are too thick so I'm having a go at making my own by using a door threshold strip as a former, rubbing some foil from a takeaway container with a finely pointed stick. The corrugations are just 1mm apart, which is exactly to scale. I have to say though, crouched on the floor in a doorway is not the most comfortable way of modelling, so tomorrow I'm off to B&Q to buy a new strip I can fix to the bench!

On 28/04/2021 at 05:43, Mikkel said:

If that's mundane then I like mundane. Very well observed. How did you do the chalk marks?

White art pencil from Caran D’ache.

StaySafe

I think that I have found the colour combination I need for Easton. Railmatch Sleeper Grime for sleepers, Vallejo Brown Beige for railsides and Woodland Scenics Gray Blend for ballast. Areas of discolouration from oil, brake dust, coal and ash (where appropriate) will be achieved with washes and pigments.

This piece was done in too much of a hurry (excessive excitement) so the ballast scratched off the paint from sleeper tops and rail sides. I think that the former could have been prevented by using enamel rather than acrylic and the latter could have been prevented by simply waiting longer than 2 minutes for the paint to dry.

A little bit more done with ballast and track colouring this afternoon. I tried some Mig Productions/Abteilung 502 Black Smoke pigment and Dark Wash on two small sections of ballast. I think that the pigment is too strong, but quite like the effect of the Dark Wash.

Only the centre of the track was coloured because that is how it looks in my reference photograph.

I thought that the Dark Wash might be a bit too dark for places where discolouration was only slight, so played with a few grey colours to find something suitable. I decided upon AMMO by MIG Panel Line Wash Deep Grey.

I have found a good few black and white photographs from books, websites and my own collection (Brian Jackson, Colin Caddy and Lens of Sutton purchases) that show up the track in the station area very well. These were taken from vantage points on both the Reforne bridge at the North end of the station and the footpath bridge at the South end. I think that because this area had relatively low levels of traffic, there wasn't too much heavy discolouration.

Final decision made about ballast/track colourings, then.

The process will be:

Airbrush the trackbase with Railmatch Sleeper Grime and leave to dry for 48 hours.

Paint rail sides with Vallejo Beige Brown and leave to harden for another 48 hours.

Apply Woodland Scenics Grey Blend medium for running track using PVA mix at 70/30 water/PVA.

Apply Woodland Scenics Grey Blend fine for other trackwork using same glue mix.

Leave for several days for everything to dry and cure.

Apply Mig Dark Wash and Panel Line Wash Deep Grey to areas where locomotives stand for any length of time.

My working sample is this concoction:

The ballast will have to be laid freehand because the use of the spreader device scratches the paint off the sleeper top surfaces, where particles of ballast get dragged underneath the device as it is moved along the track. A bit of a nuisance, really, but never mind.

There is a fair bit of track to do, so this won't be done for a while to come. And there's some weathering that needs to be done as well. You'll all have time to discuss other things while I'm getting on with it.

Chimney pots.

During the construction of the terraced houses (page 40) I had to think about chimney pots. There is a good selection on the Modelu website and I had treated myself to some a few months ago. I wonder who else finds a treasure like that and thinks, "I need some of those for when I build (insert project name here)".

Because I have a tendency to rush ahead sometimes and say to myself that I'll come back and finish that later, the pots were placed on the model in an unpainted state. Although the grey resin colour matches the rest of the structure I have not been able to find photographs of chimney pots that colour, so they still need to be painted.

When I was working on some Modelu figures for Pendon Museum shop displays, I used pigment to colour one woman's dress and it seemed to work fairly well.

I rummaged (yes, I can write that here, I checked) through my pigments box and found a selection of red/orange/brown pigments and tried them out on some chimney pots. The surface of the resin is smooth and shiny so I applied a layer of Testor's Dullcote first and waited 5 minutes for it to dry. The pigments were applied with a filbert brush and here is the end result:

I originally thought that I would choose to use the one that looked most suitable, but I now think that I could use all of them, just to indicate the variability of tone that we find in the real thing. What do you think?

I know I'm going to sound like a stuck record to some of you but Sketchup is really wonderful, IMHO. It's intuitive but also extremely powerful after you've got to grips with the simple stuff.

The basic workflow is that you draw in 2D and then extrude into 3D. You can orbit around your object and zoom in and out using the mouse wheel so it's easy to look at any face and start drawing on it. It becomes second nature.

Thus, you don't need 2D views - the program projects your 2D drawing actions onto the 3D model and so all your work is done in just one window.

The online version is free: https://app.sketchup.com/app

Create a new file, You'll see 3 axes and a simple representation of a person - this is just for scale.

Choose the rectangle tool from the left hand side and draw a rectangle on the ground.

Choose the "push/pull" tool from the left hand side, click on the rectangle and drag upwards. You've got a block.

Scroll the mouse wheel forwards and backwards to zoom in and out. Hold the wheel button down over the block and move the mouse and you can examine your block from all sides.

Draw a rectangle on one of the faces and use the push/pull tool to push it in or out.

You're away!

There are tools for measuring things to get exact sizes and tools for doing all kinds of clever things to make detailed and great looking models.

I have no connection to Sketchup - I'm just a happy user.

3 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

Back on topic ( Was there one at some point?)  What was the source for your sheep @phil_sutters? 

It would appear that I need quite a few for my layout! 

https://www.serious-play.co.uk/collections/animals-and-people - they are mainly wargames-focussed, but they do have stuff in 4mm & 7mm/1ft scales. The sheep are £3.49 for 8. 2nd class postage is free - 1st is 50p. I saw a negative review after I ordered from them, but I have had two satisfactory and rapid mail-order deliveries. The products are unpainted resin and there are occasional faults e.g. with a foot missing, but nothing that a peg of brass wire and some thick glue can't remedy. The main bodies and heads are nicely detailed. The pigs' snouts are too long in my opinion, but a few strokes of a file and a drill into the new end for nostrils quickly sorted that. But I shouldn't be telling MrWolf about little piggies!

I hope everyone is well at the moment. one bonus of more time at home is more time for modelling.

We’re finally prepping for the track to go down. One of the Jobs that needs to be done first is the hard standing/catch pit for the cattle dock.

We have chosen to do a brick one very similar to the one at Shirley (Solihull)

This is is now ready to go down although the rails are just temporary and need to be slid out. it will eventually have the full length rails slid through and sleepers either side

On 29/12/2020 at 22:27, Ian Morgan said:

EZ Line for rigging. It is a latex filament and stretches out of the way when knocked, and is easily fixed at each end with superglue. Apply with a little tension and it keeps it all straight. Brown to represent rope - other colours available, e.g. green for copper OHLE.

 

This is on my 2mm scale Clyde Puffer.

 

 

Bill Bedford handrail bending jig. Similar offerings available elsewhere, like Eileen's Emporium.

 

Thanks @Ian Morgan for the advice Re-EZ line, I'll have to investigate it!
 

On 30/12/2020 at 00:21, Schooner said:

Very very nice! Congrats, the layout's taken a real leap forward  

 

1) Check out ship modeller's forums - there are RMWeb equivalents out there (although obviously not quite as lovely)

2) Don't panic  You already have the tools, skill and patience to make a good job of it; 1:76 is a fairly small scale for maritime modelling and the gear on barges is (comparatively) simple; it's also pretty staunch:

...and that's on a small up-river barge! It does, however, mean that the lay of the rope and wire will be obvious on the model, which might make something like EZ Line less convincing...

3) Thames sailing barges must be about the best documented and least variable sailing vessels, bar none. There's not only an embarrasment of documentary references, but loads of the real things left and working so you can go and look at/chat to them when you're out of Tier 4. Excellent choice of prototype:

The kind of information you can get from the above (open in new tab and zoom) just isn't available for many other types of craft. It's a treat!

4) It could be worse...

 

Whose barge model is that btw? Looks good  

 

Excellent stuff, as ever. Looking forward to the next update.

 

Schooner

 

 

@Schooner, thanks for the informative post and pictures of Thames Barges, they'll certainly get me started. Do you have any advice on which Ship Model forum's are best? 

The model itself is from: https://www.vintageminiaturemodels.co.uk/, it's a fairly nice kit to put together, although requiring some filling. I'm not really a huge fan of resin, although perhaps that comes from inexperience. The kit leaves a little bit to be desired in terms of the rigging, sails and masts, which is the area I've now got to, and am looking for the best way to proceed. All it came with was the tubing for the masts and templates. The picture below is from their website from a customer, and shows what is technically possible (although how I get there I am not too sure..!)

On 30/12/2020 at 08:57, Northroader said:

You’re in London, I haven’t been for a while (guess why) but I’m pretty sure there’s a Thames barge kicking around the St Catherine’s dock area.

Good idea @Northroader, that's this weekends cycle ride sorted!

23 hours ago, TeakDB said:

Excellent progress, and It really starts to come alive with the rolling stock added! For handrails I bought the dcc concepts 4mm handrail jig ruler as I like the idea of two tools in one.

 

Fortuantly SR freight is very easy to paint so I look forward to the next update! I'd also caution you to look closely at the provided roof for the lbsc covered goods as I found that mine weren't cut straight and had a big too much overhang on each side- although yours may be fine.

 

David

Thanks for the warning, the roof on my LBSC Van has long been lost in the mist of time, so if you could send the dimensions over for this that would be much appriciated @TeakDB
 

1 hour ago, Schooner said:

Oh, and I'd also suggest reaching out to @bgman, creator of truly beautiful scratch ship models of relevance to both of us - including a Thames barge and their West Country relations (sort of), the Severn trow and Tamar barge.

 

Thanks for the tip off and exquisite photograph of the ship and rigging... It looks like I've got some research to do!

Hope everyone has the best New Years possible given the circumstances.

On 29/12/2020 at 20:11, LBSC123 said:

I've also been working on a Thames Barge, which can be seen below. I'm not far off painting this, but need to do some work on the rigging. Any ideas on this greatly appreciated! 

 

 

I found that upholstery thread is strong and yet flexible. I used Gutermann's mid brown  CA 02776 on my Highbridge wharf SDJR coasters.

My favourite tree ‘leaves’ is Woodland Scenics Blended Turf T45 as it gives you multi shades.

Hello All

Been playing with some bits of Wills vari-girder for a while now to see if I could get a realistic finish on them. Tried salt weathering for the first time, experience as follows:

Painter rusty brown colour, dried then sprayed with hairspray, then sprinkled with table salt randomly, dried, then over the top with grey.

Then took a toothbrush to it under running water to chip some of the salt off exposing the brown underneath.

Decided then that although the effect was good, the brown was too uniform so dabbed some small patches of other Humbrol browns. I think this is where I might tweak how I did it next time. The effect was a bit 'blobby'. Next time I might mix up all sorts of varied browns blobbed all over first, then salt, then grey so different browns are exposed.

Then wash over with Humbrol dark brown wash.

Fairly happy with the effect. Not quite finished yet, but close to it has a good texture and colour.

Will get in place soon. In other news single tunnel mouth is now in place and ballasted on incline.

All for now. Apologies for being a bit photo heavy tonight.

Rich

Good Evening.

Have been having a bit of a disaster over the last couple of nights. The points I moved beneath the bridge have failed already. Not sure exactly why, but got an intermittent electrically dead section in the middle of the first left hander. Varies between full track voltage (seems to be about 14.4V according to my very old multimeter), about 11.2V (which stops everything crossing it and leaves it sat buzzing, and 0V dead. Serves me right for trying to cut corners. I suppose I haven't really lost anything other than time, but still annoying to have to dig up and start again. Grrr.

A diversion then. Work has also been going on in parallel with the bridge itself. I have a couple of plate girders made with the Wills Vari-Girder packs, at least one with brick across the top, and a couple with stone balustrade on the Sydney Gardens bit. Don't have a lattice girder, and found myself looking at one at Broadway Station on the GWSR recently wondering why. Problem is - a great deal of internet searching didn't reveal one that I particularly liked. The only ones I could find were laser cut wood and, although a great innovation, were far too chunky. So I thought I'd make one. How hard can it be?

1. Make a template on the computer to check what it looks like. Nothing fancy, just some squares turned through 45 degrees.

2. Stick template to work bench with masking tape facing sticky side up around it. 

3. Then all I need to do is get some (a lot!) Plastruct strips. Well I would have done, but even my rudimentary maths realised that this would be a bit pricey. So I thought I'd just cut strips out of an A4 sheet of plasticard. All I'd need to do is cut about 70 all exactly 1.2mm wide. Then, one layer on template, then the second on top one at a time with steel rule to align. Tiny brush + MekPak = headache!

4. Once all in place some slightly thicker and wider bits to frame.

5. Leave for a day to harden and then very carefully trim edges, lift and fit framing to other side. Cut length-ways to give two sides.

6. Knock up some abutments with some Wills sheets, and (surprisingly) it looks something like I thought it would.

Won't rush to paint it as obviously I have to rip up the points underneath it first! I think it is resilient enough for small people to push cars across it. Idea is a disused track bed that is being used as an access route to the signal box on the upper level. May be space for the odd piece of civil engineers junk too.

More soon I hope. Off to my local exhibition tomorrow (Hucclecote, Gloucester) with Thing 1. Backbreaking lifting but good rehearsal - trying to decide if he's old enough for Warley this year.

Rich

Happy New Year everyone!

So the first bit of progress this year, is to tone down the ballast on the trackwork. This was done using the 'New Junction' method from YouTube, as I don't currently have a compressor for my airbrush. 

The jist of it is, using Acrylic Railmatch Sleeper Grime, use a brush to sparingly coat the ballast with it, leaving me with a subtle hint of weathering of the ballast. I plan to so some more to it using blacks and more browns later on.

Here's a link to the YouTube video...

Good Evening All,

Well work on the tunnel area has been ticking along as time allows. Not sure I've fully mastered the compass cutter yet but I've still got all my fingers so not going that badly. A few photos.

Tunnel mouth. I've taken to edging them with strips cut from the Wills arches pack. I take the big one, cut them into three strips and then nick the inner edge with a stanley knife to allow me to vary the radius to suit. Not my idea - if you want to see it done far better check out the Ellerby thread here.

Then stuck on.

Then thoughts turned to the retaining walls either side. These are just to the left as you walk in the room next to the removable bridge section that allows the main lines to loop around the room. First go with compass cutter. Radius dictated by Wills arches - no point in making it harder.

Much measuring and checking.

Some off cuts for bracing and to make it easier to stick the arch interiors in.

And then the back on.

Fairly happy so far, although extraordinarily time consuming. I'll do the one opposite to match and see if I get any faster at it now that I know the measurements. Not sure I can see myself doing it in longer lengths, but as this is quite a confined space and n a curve scratch building was probably the best option.

More soon, thanks for reading.

Rich

I buy mine from Stephen Webster Plastics Iain....they call it HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene Sheet)  and it comes in various sizes, colours and thicknesses. I use the white in matt finish on both sides for ease of marking out. They deliver to your door, it's very convenient. I have no connection other than as a satisfied customer. The only thing they don't sell is the clear Polystyrene, so I get that from B&Q.

Peter

I used the same motive power one plus had these printed