Castle Aching

[runs as required]

Or, more quickly:

 

4/4.8 = 0.833 etc.

 

Which, interestingly, means that in terms of area, 00 is, very roughy, 0.64 that of S, which somehow feels good, because it resonates with 1/64th.

 

Should all layouts be built to comply with the golden ratio? And, have pyramids? And, chaps standing with their feet apart and arms held out to either side?

 

K

Annoyingly there is not a button to press for  "I like this very much!"

 

Nothing upset me more than staying up for hours honing the proportions of a design to have some bush builder say "I could only find this" or "I substituted this because I had it lying around".

It happens more around County Durham than it ever did in the deepest Dark Heart of Africa.

dh

.

[runs as required]

I duplicated the above post in error. Now having deleted it with Edit I see

You must enter a post

 

So I've got to think of something useful to post instead....Oh I know..:

 

A Real World question for you James:-

Having discovered the key 1913 deed proving access rights, are you considering seeking some form of redress from your neighbour for having denied you access and possible buyers ?

 

Because one thought I had about your property is that its location (close to P'boro and ECML), character, and plot size would make it ideal for the modern 'live over the shop' type of working typical of a lot of IT based operations.

My (solicitor) son lives near Oxford and that DB operated former GW mainline through Bicester. He has IP clients dotted around that area who work from home with about 3 or 4 sharing a common workspace on micro-engineering; control systems etc.

 

Like him they seem to go up to town perhaps once a week to meet clients, but spend their quality time back at the ranch reflecting/playing or on their computers. Typically the location might be an old vernacular farmhouse and mature garden, bereft of its farmyard barns (having been sold off as   house conversions).

Actually my son seems to do most of his document drafting and communicating on his iPhone while fettling his various car projects.

 

In short is it worth trying for a mixed residential business use outline permission with the neighbour agreeing not to object? It might assist the sale.

Edited July 7, 2016 by runs as required

[Nearholmer]

Does one actually need PP to use ones home for "working from home"? I think it is politic to tell anyone who holds a mortgage over the place, and insurers, but unless one is renting space out to others to work in, or changing the nature of what goes on in the house in a way that might affect neighbours (from loafing about in front of a laptop PC, to heavy engineering, for instance), I'm not sure it needs PP.

 

And, was the neighbour knowingly withholding, or neglecting to properly search for, relevant information, or were they innocently ignorant?

 

K

[Edwardian]

I duplicated the above post in error. Now having deleted it with Edit I see

So I've got to think of something useful to post instead....Oh I know..:

 

A Real World question for you James:-

Having discovered the key 1913 deed proving access rights, are you considering seeking some form of redress from your neighbour for having denied you access and possible buyers ?

 

Because one thought I had about your property is that its location (close to P'boro and ECML), character, and plot size would make it ideal for the modern 'live over the shop' type of working typical of a lot of IT based operations.

My (solicitor) son lives near Oxford and that DB operated former GW mainline through Bicester. He has IP clients dotted around that area who work from home with about 3 or 4 sharing a common workspace on micro-engineering; control systems etc.

 

Like him they seem to go up to town perhaps once a week to meet clients, but spend their quality time back at the ranch reflecting/playing or on their computers. Typically the location might be an old vernacular farmhouse and mature garden, bereft of its farmyard barns (having been sold off as   house conversions).

Actually my son seems to do most of his document drafting and communicating on his iPhone while fettling his various car projects.

 

In short is it worth trying for a mixed residential business use outline permission with the neighbour agreeing not to object? It might assist the sale.

 

Good idea.  In '90s the property had PP for a restaurant!.  Our neighbour would object in principle, however! 

 

I can see it working, however, and it could potentially be done in such a way as to avoid change of use; if it is still a case of people running a business from their home.  We both ran our consultancy businesses from it; the broadband was fine, and has since been further upgraded.  There is no problem with mobile coverage.  Utilities are cheap; electricity is on a smart meter and water is on something ridiculous like a £2 a month.  You can configure the place in a number of ways, with, what 3 receptions, plus office, sun room and games room downstairs.    Dining room big enough for a Board Room table! Oh, and bags of off-road parking on nice crunchy gravel for their stylish retro-Fiats, or whatever trendy people drive these days!

 

I suspect we have a modest damages claim, which might go into the mix for leveraging a deal.

 

 

Does one actually need PP to use ones home for "working from home"? I think it is politic to tell anyone who holds a mortgage over the place, and insurers, but unless one is renting space out to others to work in, or changing the nature of what goes on in the house in a way that might affect neighbours (from loafing about in front of a laptop PC, to heavy engineering, for instance), I'm not sure it needs PP.

 

And, was the neighbour knowingly withholding, or neglecting to properly search for, relevant information, or were they innocently ignorant?

 

K

 

If it's your home and you are running an office rather than a retail premises or anywhere the public comes to, I believe not.  If sections of the house were being used as dedicated office space, you might have to pay non-domestic rates to the Council;

 

The idea of a group of young IT hipsters turning it into a 'creative space' might be more problematic, unless they buy it together and live in it!

 

There is nothing innocent about our neighbour.  However, the deed was part of the title to the adjoining farmland, so neither in his title or mine, so he may have been unaware of it. 

 

I can drive anything like up and down his precious lane, including, so the deed sayeth, a traction engine!  Anyone who wants to pay us a visit in a traction engine is most warmly welcome!

 

If only I had a full-size brace of Fowler ploughing engines!

Edited July 7, 2016 by Edwardian

[runs as required]

Good idea.  In '90s the property had PP for a restaurant!.  Our neighbour would object in principle, however! 

 

I can drive anything like up and down his precious lane, including, so the deed sayeth, a traction engine!  Anyone who wants to pay us a visit in a traction engine is most warmly welcome!

 

If only I had a full-size brace of Fowler ploughing engines!

I'm sure RMweb can come up with a 'meet' for  1:1 scale live steam models

dh

[Nearholmer]

Ah, well, as it happens, I know a man who can. Only a single engine, but that might suffice.

 

He has a mischievous sense of humour, and a well-honed ability to deal with truculent parties in English, Scottish or French vernacular, as occasion demands; I've seen him in action with groups as diverse as football crowds and the NUR, and he is formidable, even without a traction engine.

 

Its a long old chuff from Buckinghamshire, where he lives, but I can put out feelers, if you want.

 

K

[Metropolitan H]

Ah, well, as it happens, I know a man who can. Only a single engine, but that might suffice.

 

He has a mischievous sense of humour, and a well-honed ability to deal with truculent parties in English, Scottish or French vernacular, as occasion demands; I've seen him in action with groups as diverse as football crowds and the NUR, and he is formidable, even without a traction engine.

 

Its a long old chuff from Buckinghamshire, where he lives, but I can put out feelers, if you want.

 

K

I take it you are referring to AB of Chesham. He doesn't have a traction engine - he has an Aveling steam-roller, plus living van etc. It will take a few days and bags of coal to get from his place to P'boro area.

 

Chris H

[Edwardian]

He doesn't have a traction engine - he has an Aveling steam-roller, plus living van etc.

 

This gets better and better!

[Nearholmer]

You're right, Chris, I should have remembered.

 

K

[Caley Jim]

E.g. 4mm scale is 57% of 7mm scale, so, if I have a scale drawing in 7mm I can print it out at 57% of the original to achieve 4mm. 

Sorry to drag this thread kicking and screaming back to modelling matters.

 

Rather than faff about trying to reduce a drawing to whatever scale you're working in it is much easier to create a 'scale rule' and work off the drawing, especially if the drawing is to a larger scale.  I would never dream of trying to work off a 2mm~ft drawing.  You can use a simple drawing package to draw a line of a specific length, then divide that up into equal divisions, each of which represent 1mm in the scale you are working in.  Print that near the edge of a sheet of paper, cut the paper close to the baseline and you can then easily measure off any dimension you want in your working scale.

 

James, I'd be happy to draw one up for you and send it as a pdf.

 

Jim

[Edwardian]

Sorry to drag this thread kicking and screaming back to modelling matters.

 

Rather than faff about trying to reduce a drawing to whatever scale you're working in it is much easier to create a 'scale rule' and work off the drawing, especially if the drawing is to a larger scale.  I would never dream of trying to work off a 2mm~ft drawing.  You can use a simple drawing package to draw a line of a specific length, then divide that up into equal divisions, each of which represent 1mm in the scale you are working in.  Print that near the edge of a sheet of paper, cut the paper close to the baseline and you can then easily measure off any dimension you want in your working scale.

 

James, I'd be happy to draw one up for you and send it as a pdf.

 

Jim

 

Thanks, Jim, that is kind and I will happily take you up on the offer and give that a go.

[Caley Jim]

Thanks, Jim, that is kind and I will happily take you up on the offer and give that a go.

You're welcome.  I'll try and get it done over the week end.

 

Jim

[runs as required]

Scale changes

One of the best bits of kit that ever came my way was from a delightful old Greek owner of a drawing office supplies about 50 years ago who, after taking a liking to me, explained how to use and dashed me a pair of these proportional dividers.

They are absolutely brilliant for precision changes of scale (and you can read off the actual proportion change on the scale if you want to do it backwards by trial and error).

dh

[runs as required]

I do have a scale ruler somewhere, but generally speaking I simply use the imperial side of a steel ruler (Rabone Chesterman, of course) which conviently has scale inches on it (64ths).

No, I don't count all the inches, I just use the fact that 1/16" equates to 4" on a model, and move in groups. Certain dimensions are quickly absorbed: 12' is 2.1/4", 3/4" of an inch on the ruler is 4' on the model, etc. It is surprising how quickly one gets adroit at the very undemanding mental arithmetic.

This is what we all do when we don't have access to a Scale rule.

 

Teaching new architecture students, it was always a delight for me to see in the first few days how students realised that using their new scale rule they could actually sketch out directly to scale doors, furniture, rooms (and one another) they had measured up in pairs with a steel tape and recorded.

They marvelled that they needn't resort to mental arithmetic using a rule (which has to change according to the scale you need to best fit on an appropriate sized sheet).

A few days later they'ld be able to sketch out freehand (on a pad of tracing paper perhaps over a sheet of squared paper), plans and sections by eye that were roughly to scale. They would enjoy checking one another with their scale rule how accurate they were on, typically, door sizes!

I recommend this simple sketching roughly to scale skill is ideal for a model maker - to check against now and again with their home made appropriate paper scale.

 

A few weeks later they would be excited by the fact they could input their measured data into a CAD programme full size. Many would enjoy the possibility that within a week or so they could be speedily loading their favourite football stadium (an ideal repetitive copy and paste task) into the CAD programme full size yet have it print out at A4.

 

By year 2 they were streets ahead of me

 dh

 

Ed you know the old adage: if you can't do it; teach it!

Edited July 8, 2016 by runs as required

[Caley Jim]

Ed you know the old adage: if you can't do it; teach it!

Or, if it's to do with computers, ask a 10 year old!

 

Jim

[Donw]

This is what we all do when we don't have access to a Scale rule.

 

Teaching new architecture students, it was always a delight for me to see in the first few days how students realised that using their new scale rule they could actually sketch out directly to scale doors, furniture, rooms (and one another) they had measured up in pairs with a steel tape and recorded.

They marvelled that they needn't resort to mental arithmetic using a rule (which has to change according to the scale you need to best fit on an appropriate sized sheet).

A few days later they'ld be able to sketch out freehand (on a pad of tracing paper perhaps over a sheet of squared paper), plans and sections by eye that were roughly to scale. They would enjoy checking one another with their scale rule how accurate they were on, typically, door sizes!

I recommend this simple sketching roughly to scale skill is ideal for a model maker - to check against now and again with their home made appropriate paper scale.

 

A few weeks later they would be excited by the fact they could input their measured data into a CAD programme full size. Many would enjoy the possibility that within a week or so they could be speedily loading their favourite football stadium (an ideal repetitive copy and paste task) into the CAD programme full size yet have it print out at A4.

 

By year 2 they were streets ahead of me

 dh

 

Ed you know the old adage: if you can't do it; teach it!

 

The same applies to the plans of the telephone network added to a digital map of the country as the actual dimensions. I can remember when we would walk the route with a chain to work out cable lengths joint box spacing etc. Now it is probably more accurate to do it on cad.

 

There is a perticular advantege in using a scale rule for modelling in that the dimensions make sense to you. E.g. a 3ft wide doorway is something I can visualise but a 12mm one does not mean anything. I have one that covers 2mm,3mm,4mm,7mm and 16mm. very useful

Don

Edited July 8, 2016 by Donw

[Caley Jim]

Thanks, Jim, that is kind and I will happily take you up on the offer and give that a go.

I've now sent James a pdf with 'scale rules' for both 'S' and 7MM scales.  If anyone else would like a copy, let me know, or I could post it here for you to download.

 

Jim

[Edwardian]

Indeed, Jim has kindly done so. 

 

I did mange to snatch some brief time to finish off my first round of metal figures.  Aidan Campbell children and Mike Pett Supercast flower seller.

 

Now, I have to say that these children, while no doubt beautiful in the eye of maternal love, otherwise might be best viewed from a distance.  The girls in particular are, well, rather plain.  I do, however, think that the boys might do; one looks like some latter day Artful Dodger and the lad with the toy yacht is a nice touch. 

 

The flower seller, is, of course, Mrs Cobbit from Trumpton (Nostalgia fix here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IaIfqq69nw).  I purchased her originally to sell flowers on the station forecourt at Fenmarch in 1897, but by 1905 she had evidently moved to Norfolk, and may well set up on the station forecourt at Achingham in due course.  

 

I also took a scalpel to a plastic Dapol passenger.  I thought I would see if I could make him more Edwardian. With a scalpel I took off the crease to the front of his trousers (front creases in trousers were a relatively new innovation and not, I suspect, to be  seen in a workman's hand-me-downs, and, anyway, I doubt they're pressed!).   I also cut-away his coat lapels so that they start higher, which I felt to be a more Victorian style.  Finally, I used a smidgeon of Greenstuff to suggest a waistcoat.  

 

I include a picture of the Dapol chap between two of the Aiden Campbell workmen to show the very marked contrast in style between the two ranges.

[Donw]

I like the figures. I thought they were 0 gauge at first.  The Dapol chap looks  at bit  dominated by the rather burly chap on either side. Being of small build I have felt like that myself. The famous photo of Brunel against the Great Eastern Chains shows how smartly Victorian gentlemen were turned out     The absence of any intended creases is notable. In  fact I would hesitate to guess when the clothes last saw an iron.

Don

[simon0r]

I came across these beautiful colour photos taken in Brighton in 1906. They might provide some inspiration -

 

http://mashable.com/2016/07/03/otto-pfenninger-early-color-photography/#UPFX6xyZikqt

[BG John]

I came across these beautiful colour photos taken in Brighton in 1906. They might provide some inspiration -

 

http://mashable.com/2016/07/03/otto-pfenninger-early-color-photography/#UPFX6xyZikqt

Lucky there won't be a beach on either of my 1905 based layouts, or I'd have to model exposed bums, and even total nudity!

[Nearholmer]

Those Brighton photos are am absolutely amazing resource, and it is good to know that my small daughter and nephew, who insist on running round the garden, and trampolining, in the buff have historical precedent on their side.

 

All of the figures are beautifully painted, Edwardian, but I personally prefer the more realistically proportioned Dapol chap over the slight caricatures; you've done a great job of making him look plausibly in-period.

 

On ironing: I think that, for the most part, only shirts and blouses were ironed, and that heavy woollen outer clothes didn't actually get washed hugely often, let alone ironed. If you ponder trying to dry about five kilos (one pair of trousers or skirt) of wet wool cloth, in a small house, in the winter, one can see why. There were little "prinking tongs" ( IIRC on the name) that were used for both ironing the fiddly bits on ladies low-ruff blouse-collars, and straightening and curling hair, and other tiny irons for fiddly bits.

 

And, Brunel was in his "site clothes" in that famous picture. My guess is that he scrubbed-up a bit better for board meetings etc.

 

And, may I interest prospective customers in The Excelsior Bench Wringer, which, among its other qualities, appears to have the ability to knock about thirty years off a woman's age?

 

Kevin

Edited July 10, 2016 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

Those Brighton photos are am absolutely amazing resource, and it is good to know that my small daughter and nephew, who insist on running round the garden, and trampolining, in the buff have historical precedent on their side.

 

All of the figures are beautifully painted, Edwardian, but I personally prefer the more realistically proportioned Dapol chap over the slight caricatures; you've done a great job of making him look plausibly in-period.

 

On ironing: I think that, for the most part, only shirts and blouses were ironed, and that heavy woollen outer clothes didn't actually get washed hugely often, let alone ironed. If you ponder trying to dry about five kilos (one pair of trousers or skirt) of wet wool cloth, in a small house, in the winter, one can see why. There were little "prinking tongs" ( IIRC on the name) that were used for both ironing the fiddly bits on ladies low-ruff blouse-collars, and straightening and curling hair, and other tiny irons for fiddly bits.

 

And, Brunel was in his "site clothes" in that famous picture. My guess is that he scrubbed-up a bit better for board meetings etc.

 

And, may I interest prospective customers in The Excelsior Bench Wringer, which, among its other qualities, appears to have the ability to knock about thirty years off a woman's age?

 

Kevin

 

Great that you get a younger, prettier housemaid with the Bench Wringer!

 

I came across these beautiful colour photos taken in Brighton in 1906. They might provide some inspiration -

 

http://mashable.com/2016/07/03/otto-pfenninger-early-color-photography/#UPFX6xyZikqt

 

Stunning pictures. Both because the natural candour and the colour.  Many thanks.

 

I have been admiring some of Edward Linley Sambourne's Edwardian ladies.  I'd better get mixing that Greenstuff.

[Edwardian]

A young Edwardian woman (hopefully!), converted from a 1920s Preiser aircraft passenger.

 

The skirt is made from masking tape, a technique suggested to me by the gentleman behind Ravenscar Pier, who had to evolve ways of making Edwardian ladies in the pre-Stadden era!

 

Hat is paper, section of sprue and a masking tape ribbon.  I have attempted an Edwardian blouse with Greenstuff.

 

I should probably add that ChrisN of this Parish is an influence here, and I may well have absorbed some of his ideas, too!

Edited July 11, 2016 by Edwardian

[ChrisN]

A young Edwardian woman (hopefully!), converted from a 1920s Preiser aircraft passenger.

 

The skirt is made from masking tape, a technique suggested to me by the gentleman behind Ravenscar Pier, who had to evolve ways of making Edwardian ladies in the pre-Stadden era!

 

Hat is paper, section of sprue and a masking tape ribbon.  I have attempted an Edwardian blouse with Greenstuff.

 

Excellent, and very clever.  I look at layouts where all the figures are the same as all the other layouts so a new idea and way of doing it is always welcome.  You can never have too many different figures.