TEAMYAKIMA

Have been back working on the shop fronts..... the big modern block is now finished with just some juliette balconies to be fitted ... There are four varieties of shop fronts - all 3D printed. here are the two latest designs ... In this picture above the new design (#3) is in the left Here in the photo above the new design (#4) is in the middle....

Twickenham & District MRC's recent open day was a great succes and has now resulted in no fewer than six new applications for membership. One recent recruit from the open day is Maurice Phillips, seen here working on the club's 7mm layout Addison Road ... Addsison Road is without doubt TDMRC's biggest and most ambitious layout in any gauge and makes its full exhibition debut next weekend at the Farnham & District MRC's show on Oct 14/15. Last Friday the group (including Maurice) were making the final checks to make sure the layout makes a good impression on the day.....

The Addison Road group has gained a new member! Welcome Maurice Phillips - already working on the layout - part of the team!

Yesterday was in some ways a wasted day ..... I did a full day making improvements to the layout but ones that did not move us any closer to being exhibition ready. A good friend of mine from Twickenham MRC has been making some electronic 'bits' for me and then arrived in the post on Tuesday and whilst they are a bit of a 'sidetrack' it seemed rude not to fit them asap after he did all that work for me. Doing interiors in several hotel rooms is just too much work and so I've done a few bathrooms which have defused/opaque windows and so require virtually no detail other than a few walls and a LED. The hotel will eventually have nine such bathrooms and it will look a bit odd if they're all lit up all the time and so this gismo (seen at the top) will turn on them on in a random fashion.... .

Here's another!

There are a few things I've seen in China which I have wanted to include on the layout, but not too sure if people would believe them. Here is one of them! ...

The penultinate tenement is now finished after a few hours work today ..... weathered, porch and limited entrance interior added plus a few more air conditioning units... That just leaves the last tenement ......

The layout now has a name, and a logo ....

There is still plenty to do before my/our first exhibition in April 2018.However, yesterday I finally completed the last but one tenement all julliette balconies fitted and pavement textured..... just needs a bit more weathering and final detailing, but basically finished. This is a low relief block of flats that runs into the backscene at right angles. There's one more like this that is 75% done to this standard and then there is the 'biggy' - scratchbuilding the passenger depot/offices!

Some of the reasons that these window bars (juliette balconies?) take so long are .... 1. Super glue doesn't always stick instantly when you want it to. Sometimes it only glues in part .....as in this case .... 2. On the other hand sometimes super glue sticks things where you don't want them stuck ..... as in this case .... Then there is the double size issue ... first I make as in the standard size, but remove one vertical bar off each so that the resulting double set is the correct size Then I lay them side by side and glue a bar across in the middle to make them one piece. Then cut four short bars to fit at each end....

Hello Martin (and others) Many thanks for your nice comments and thanks on behalf of the group and the club. However, from TDMRC's point of view (and this holds true for most if not all clubs) we build layouts (in part at least) to attract new members to help build the layouts we're building and exhibit them. And in that sense the group and the club are slightly surprised that in the ten years since this project has only attracted one new member to the club - and he lives 99% of the time in Chicago, USA! Yes, the group has recruited existing club members from other groups within the club, but only one dedicated 7mm modeller has joined in all that time and it's a mystery to us all. So, this is an invitation to all RMwebbers who are reading this to come along one Friday night and meet the team and maybe join us - or come and see the layout at the upcoming Farnham MRC exhibition, the layout's first showing at a general public exhibition. If this layout is to have a long successful life on the exhibition circuit it needs to build up a larger operating team, so please consider joining us - we don't bite! Honest!

The last running session saw a new loco turn up ...... And at the last work session 100 3D printed got painted and fitted - weathering to follow! Then the new fascia turned up ......... and got trial fitted ...... two sections got as far as being lit up ..... And it transformed the look of the layout ..... And our member who lives in Chicago paid us a visit and brought a hut with him .....

Yes, it is that Bernard Myers, he was a keen railway modeller/collector as well as an artist and gave my club (Twickenham) a lecture back in the 1980's on painting backscenes and perspective.

I know nothing about the art world, but have some prints to sell by a semi-wellkown artist (recently deceased). I have never had them framed and I now see that they are individually signed in pencil by the artist, Bernard Myers, and that they are marked 'artist's copy'. Does that fact that they are marked 'artist's copy' have any significance with regards the value?

I've been doing other stuff and so haven't been doing any modelling for a day or two. Back to it now and apologies for the poor close up photos in some cases. Ok, here is where we were last time ...... Now find some random strips from the off cuts and super glue them on..... making sure that they are centred and parallel.. Make sure that each upright is firmly attached to the new 'top bar' and then remove the excess top and bottom .... Assuming I'm going to make them sit away from the window we need to assemble these very delicate parts... Fit them top and bottom .... Hand paint black (because I'm too mean to buy a spray can of black!) Weather ... Fit to building .....

That's excellent - would definitely go with that. However, it seems to me that the big problem is the starting off, if just running through a scene it seems near enough perfect it just looked a bit odd starting up.

Have been really busy with a domestic issue and so have had no time to do any more window bars, but here is how they come - laser cutt, very thin, very delicate ... Take one out ..... More later.....

I'm at work at the moment - I'll show how they're done when I get home.

I'm ashamed to admit that yesterday I worked virtuallu an entire day and the total production was six sets of window bars. The small square ones with straight bars are a doddle, maybe 15 minutes work, that's because that is the size and shape they are supposed to be. Then comes the bigger versions of those which are two of the smaller ones knitted together, maybe 30 minutes. Then we have the ornate ones which are bad enough as the small square version (at least an hour) because they are designed to fit a tall thing window not a short stubby one! They are a complete nightmare as a double (2 hours each!) Then there is fitting them to the building which took about 20 minutes - two of these were already made and fitted at the weekend. Part of the reason for the time taken is that these do not sit flat against the building as I hope this photo shows - flat against the building is quite a bit faster.

Here is an update on the last tenements with shops.............. I can't permanently glue them in until they're 100% finished, but pavements now installed, just waiting for four more shopfronts from my 3d printer friend....

And later in the day, back to working on the last set of shops ..... all signs done and just three more shop fronts to fit ...

Have today been making a mock up of a Chinese Coca-Cola truck - this is a first print at lowewst print quality just to see if it worked as a concept...

When I was playing with shop signs yesterday I found a really nice shop sign that I really wanted on the layout, but it was the 'wrong' shape for the building I'm working on at the moment. The current building suits short dumpy signs as every shop is one unit, whereas this sign was quite long and thin and therefore more suited to a double unit shop. So I looked around for an existing double unit shop that could do with an upgrade - and I found one! The previous sign........ The same shop with its new improved sign.....

Yesterday I completed some wiring - all electromagnets are now fitted with 'fire and forget' timers so that operators don't have to keep a finger on the push button whilst uncoupling. Then spent hours messing around with signs for the last set of shops. These shops are mid-range, not too posh, but not too basic either and then there is the question of getting them in the 'right' order. By that I mean getting them in an order that is artistically pleasing - a meddly of colours and shapes. After several hours, here is the final mock up .....

I'm working on several small projects at once at the moment - more of that later - but I haven't forgotten the hotel restaurant/cafe ....... here's where we are so far ....