brylonscamel

My father's distillery office has been neglected, what with the virus restrictions, furlough, redundancy and an attempt at a career change! However, the little turret has been on the desk for a while and caused a proper headache when I tried to decorate it with tiles. 1) tried to mark out and scribe the tiles 2) failed on #1 and skimmed it with clay to try again 3) tried to mark out and scribe the tiles 4) failed on #3 and tried to fit strips of tile cut from 100gsm paper 5) failed on #4 and cut individual tiles to fit All I can say is that I take my hat off to roofers. This is clearly a tricky thing to do with flat materials on a narrowing, curved structure! I had to bodge all sorts, starting with a very wide tile and slowly narrowing the tiles as I progressed up the roof. Real roofers - which I patently am not! - trim their tiles and end up with narrow tiles and single nail fixings by the time they're finished. This is ours - in a coat of primer and the hope that the little ridges formed by the overlapping paper will be less obvious when it is all painted and weathered. I'll use a bit of clay to create the lead wrap that seems to finish the turret at the apex...

At last - some human activity on Caledonian Basin. A couple of Modelu figures that a wag on the Facebook groups suggested as Jack & Victor from a scurrilous TV show 'Still Game' So - welcome, Jack and Victor ... Some mixed results trying my hand at layering a photo so that different points of focus can be united into one (reasonably) sharp image. I think it is pushing what is possible on a mobile phone camera - and the middle ground looks a bit weird ..

Cheers Colin - I thought it worth finding some different angles on the model. I had avoided pointing a camera overhead until I ballasted the track as it did look a bit naff otherwise!

Hi Matt - they are simply scribed into the sheet styrene with the end of a needle file

I have been distracted by domestic and work upheaval lately and both my fathers layout 'Braeside' and this little diorama have been thoroughly neglected. One of the things I managed to do in the middle of this was reproduce a section of arches, based on the ones at 'Caledonian Basin'. here they are in the raw:

Absolutely marvellous - it'll be a joy to see this at an exhibition - next year hopefully! Thanks for documenting it all so thoroughly.

It is indeed a 21 and although they were a disaster in operation, I find the look of them strangely appealing in solid green. Not that we are slaves to prototype but the old GNoSR routes out of Aberdeen were where these locos were most often seen, based at Aberdeen Kittybrewster. I also believe the rebuilt versions found themselves largely in Glasgow Eastfield after Kittybrewster closed at the end of steam. I'll get my anorak!

I had an email from Dad today - the photo evidence suggests he's been splashing out on stock again. Not that I'm complaining - and he's done a splendid job of using the little photo track that I donated a while ago!

.. risking some smutty crinoline!

I'll add another big thumbs up to the model making stories that you post here. It's lovely to see it all come together with the video conclusion. An interesting wagon and load, executed with panache.

It's OUR SECRET!

After trying a cone method - and failing to get it spot on - I tried stacking a load of card discs on top of each other and coating with clay. This is the result, with a flare to be added next ...

Is that a consequence of me being a bit chatty on Facebook of late!? Thanks for the comment - little Caledonian Basin has given me so much pleasure and challenges over the last couple of years! Wouldn't swap the time for anything else. PS I'm now following JS Models on Facebook and look forward to seeing developments!

Welcome back - your comment was pivotal to making it all work. If I had stuck with the weird relationship between house and embankment I'm sure I'd be unhappy with the model. I might have ripped it out eventually but a lot of spent effort was saved and the unusual arched embankment is one of the nicest features - and true to the prototype

To be honest I'm happy just to have a plain old willy-nilly superlative! I did set out with the intention of making better models and I've learned so much from this one project - including the use of clay - your comments on the cobbles are much appreaciated.