Jump to content
 

BurscoughCurves

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    240

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by BurscoughCurves

  1. BurscoughCurves
    So where do I start….
     
    I have always had a passion for model railways; it is so true when people talk about being ‘bitten by the bug’! So now I am in my 30’s and have more time and money to procrastinate in whichever way I see fit, I feel I am ready to well and truly ‘come out of the loft’ so to speak!
     
    The only thing holding me back from my plans of a Havil Junction sized layout (!) is my temporary lack of space in my smallish apartment. I am hoping to resolve this issue fairly soon.
     
    For now though, I plan to get things started by creating a collection of buildings for my first attempt at a ‘proper’ model railway. It is going to be located in the West Riding of Yorkshire, near Leeds during the early-mid 1950’s. More of that later.
     
    I have started by kit-bashing a northlight engine shed, using parts from several ratio kits and various other supplies. The design is not far from the ratio one, although it does differ somewhat. First off it is four road and features an office and detailed interior. I want to get an atmospheric L&Y feel but I’m not holding my breath!
     
    I first drew the basic model up in a CAD package (Solidworks) and printed off the various sections 1-1 scale to use as working templates. I found this a big help; saving time and helping improve accuracy when marking out (I think!).
     

     
    I wanted the walls to have a realistic thickness to them so decided to line the interior with 5mm foam board. After temporarily assembling the various pieces of exterior and interior wall I scribed the interior brick courses directly into the foam board. I then gave the walls a coat of diluted plaster filler to roughen the glossy appearance before painting the black lower (6 feet or so) strip. What was this black section of wall actually for?? Was it to hide the floor level dirt? The scribing took some time but I am quite pleased with the results.
     
    I’m afraid the only camera I have at the moment is a camera phone so please forgive the terrible photography. If anyone would like to see more detailed images I’d be delighted to take some better images.
     

     

     
    When I was happy with the fit of all the wall pieces I glued the exterior brick embossed walls together and added some strengthening plasticard strips. I then sprayed the model with white primer, hoping to keep the white colour for mortar. I think I should have used grey primer as the white is far too white. I then attempted dry brushing for the first time; it takes time and patients doesn’t it?! After several coats of various red/ brown enamels I decided to start some of the interior details and making the small lean-to office.
     
    I want the interior to be fully illuminated so I also started to install the wiring and experimenting with the main ‘industrial’ lights.
     

     

     
    I used 3mm LEDs and split 5mm rubber grommets in half to form the shade. The LED fitted perfectly into the hole in the grommet. For the central support I then mounted a chain of these along a plastic ‘I’ section girder, drilling holes in the bottom of the girder and hiding the wire along one side of it. When painted black the wires are not obvious at all. I then repeated this technique twice but using ‘L’ girders for the other lighting strips. I hoped the LED legs would look kind-of like support cables and added a single piece of black cotton in the centre to look like an electrical cable. I’m not too keen on this though… I can’t decide whether to keep them.
     

     
    The images below show the main shed lights in-situ, as well as the unfinished inspection pits.
     

     

     
    The lean-to office is almost complete, I'll add more images soon;
     

     

     

     
    I’d better leave it there for now, I’m starting to bore even myself!!
     
    Pete
  2. BurscoughCurves
    Hi folks,
     
    Thought I'd add a little more detail of the inspection pits I have installed in my shed, after a kind comment from Jack Kerr (aka Jock67B).
     
    My original intention was to create my own pits but I liked the look of the chairs on the Peco kit version and I wouldn't have to worry about the depth being correct! I also don't like the look of the cut down sleepers on some layouts I have seen.
     
    I didn't want the concrete side-wall look so ended up lining them with Slaters brick plasticard after assembling 4 off of the Peco kit. Because of the plasticard thickness I had to create my own end steps; I copied the Peco ones supplied in the kit but I think the step height is too small. I can live with them though.
     

     

     
    Next I painted the side-walls a blue Engineering brick colour after reading about typical LMS inspection pits from a website (can't remember which one sorry...!).
     

     

     
    Next I started to weather the floors. I wanted to show some puddles and lots of dirt held within them as that's how they appear in most of the images I have found. I tried painting gloss black paint on the underside of some transparent plastic packaging and when dried cut out some puddle shapes and glued them onto the floor of the pits. I didn't want to go too over the top but think they look ok when the light is right. I plan to make more, larger puddles using a similar method but on glass for the area outside the office. I plan to have a 'recent downpour' look to my future layout!
     

     

     

     
    I'm afraid the photos haven't captured the look very well but hopefully you can see what I'm trying to achieve.
     
    I have also found two images of the illumination tests in the office building. I drilled three 3mm holes into the ceiling of the office building, one for each room. I then glued 3mm LED's into the holes and hard wired them together using their bent legs. There are several leads which run to this circuit, and for a red LED behind the fireplace, which run down the back of the building into the baseboard underneath the office chimney. The leads for the main shed circuits are sandwiched between the outer and inner back wall at one end, and within the columns at the front of the shed. I hope to get some fully illuminated images soon, whilst I test all of the lighting before sealing everything in!!
     

     

     
    Thanks for reading again, please advise me on my roof dilemma from my second blog!!
    Cheers,
     
    Pete
  3. BurscoughCurves
    So I've finally got around to updating my blog, I'm slowly getting there.
     
    I debated about the size of board I was going to mount the shed to, and decided to keep it small so it could be adapted to the future layout easily.
     
    I wanted the office interior to be detailed and spent a fair bit of time doing so. I was pleased with some of the results, and less so with others but soon realised that none of it can be seen once the roof is on!
     
    A glimpse of the inside:
     

     
    A general view of the main office:
     

     
    I printed some 1950's posters and notice boards. Note the Leeds United FA Cup poster in the corridor just visible from the outside (oh if only they knew what the future would hold!), and the British Railway posters hung up with a human hair. I think I had started to go crazy at this point! Each room is lit with a 3mm LED in the ceiling and there is also a red LED behind the fireplace. I will get some illuminated photos for the next blog.
     

     

     

     
    I decided not to use the Wills drain pipes and went for copper tube with wire wrapped around twice and soldered for brackets. I think this was the correct choice. I also made a chimney for the office and cut a section out of the roof to mount it.
     

     

     

     
    After looking at various images (the book 'Great Northern Engine Sheds' has been very useful) I wanted to recreate a brick shed floor with a slight camber. For this I used some 3mm foam board and rolled the edges. I then glued some slaters brick sheet to it and attached it between the inspection pits. It is very rough as I'm going to coat it in dirt and hide a lot of it:
     

     
    As the forecourt area is fairly short I cut down lengths of PECO code 75 track and removed the sleepers from about half of the lengths and threaded it into the inspection pit chairs. I painted the rail sides with a mix of humbrol 'leather' and matt black. I want to make the whole area look bedded in ash and dirt so have just started to build up the area between the rails with mounting card, and have just started experimenting in coating the surface in DAS clay:
     

     

     
    I have stippled (is that a word?!) the surface with a stiff brush and will decide on which texture looks best when it dries.
     
    I am really unsure about how to make the main shed roof. I have plenty of Wills slate sheet (which I have used on the office roof) but don't want an obvious join down the middle of the building. I think i'll try laying my own slates with some quality drawing paper (as per the excellent Sandside's Bacup) but wish I'd done this on the office roof aghh! I wonder if I could get away with overlaying paper slates onto the existing roof? Or perhaps it might not look as bad as I am imagining after weathering, please advise!!
     
    Anyways, enough for now, thanks for reading!
     

×
×
  • Create New...