Castle Aching

[Old-sparky]

Chaps,

 

Can I suggest a compromise? Romanesque, with round bits too.

 

I was literally walking past this as I read uax's post.

 

Norfolk is OK with the liturgy as practised here, I think.

 

Kevin

[Edwardian]

If all the year were holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to play. 

 

How those words take me back!

 

We 'did' Henry V as our history play at A level, which meant, of course, becoming familiar with both parts of his Old Man.  I was a lazy student, but those words, coming as they did from a character with unrealised potential, struck a chord and motivated me sufficiently to gain some A levels.  They helped again at degree level when, after 2 years of late hours, sloth and decadence, I had to motivate myself somehow to get some form of degree.

 

What did not motivate, because it was at the time deeply gratifying to me, was the conclusion of one of my Tutor's periodic dressing downs; "all in all you are a grotesque hangover from the Nineteenth Century".  One of my proudest moments.

 

Turning to matters ecclesiastical, clearly the ancient, or potentially not-so-ancient, fabric of the Parish Church is proving controversial. My original idea had been to base it upon St James, Castle Acre.  It is now clear there are 3 contenders, oh dear!    

 

As to Romanesque, Kevin, did you mean architecturally or liturgically?

 

Liturgically it won't answer for the Parish Church, of course. 

 

I am sure, being Norfolk, there is an ancient recusant family in the vicinity.  I don't want them too near, or Father Brown, active in England at this period, would be sure to visit and narrative determinism would result in an unfortunate murder.  

 

Although, by 1905, we are living in more enlightened times, according to Thornton's Ecclesiastical History, in the Eighteenth Century the house of the great Norfolk Catholic family of the Acton-Tichingfelds was frequently attacked by their Protestant villagers.  Later historians consider that the villagers' motivation was, at least in part, economic, as the Acton-Tichingfelds had taken advantage of the Enclosure Acts to gain a monopoly over lavender cultivation in the district, by which means they were able generate considerable wealth through their sales of mixed dried, naturally fragrant, plant material to provide the interiors of the day with a pleasant aroma.  They cite as evidence for this theory the battle cry of the local Church & King mobs; "No Potpourri!"

 

I did consider a Norman/Romanesque revival style for the station building, but felt that was just too improbable. 

[ChrisN]

I hope the work goes well and is lucrative for you.  On the subject of Silhouette cutters, Silhouette v3 is free and once the file is made is ready for the cutter.  I found it fairly intuitive although I am sure I could do things better, (Andy G could testify to that although he did cut a file of mine).

[runs as required]

I can't agree that High Victorian High Anglican hard edged Romanesque is right for CA. It is for up and coming London suburbs like Hornsey or Streatham. Perpendicularised 'Norman' seems more typical of E Anglia..

 

The fascination of Norfolk churches for me is that they are 'palimpsests' in which overlaid traces can be discerned of all sorts of whims and fancies over the centuries, including spats of destructive iconaclism.

Here's Little Snoring we visited a fortnight ago - something of a puzzle because its C11 round tower is detached from the main church. The gable mark and arch to its original nave can still be read on the tower's east face, but its roughly contemporary  porch looks to have somehow migrated northwards to adjoin the later C13 church nave and chancel (note the motley collection of window styles).

The dovecote structure on the top of the tower is early C19. Inside are much more recent traces of the part the little church played adjacent to a WWII bomber base.

dh

[Old-sparky]

Hmmm......... I hope nobody took the picture I posted earlier too seriously. It was taken a lot, lot further south than Streatham, and the liturgy, as well as the architecture, is pretty deep Roman.

 

I do like that church in the above, though - it is a real history in stone.

 

And, while Shakespeare is under discussion, did he have anything to say about gigantic signal failures? Just that me and mine are currently held prisoner by network rail, after a long day travelling!

 

K

[Edwardian]

Hmmm......... I hope nobody took the picture I posted earlier too seriously. It was taken a lot, lot further south than Streatham, and the liturgy, as well as the architecture, is pretty deep Roman.

 

I do like that church in the above, though - it is a real history in stone.

 

And, while Shakespeare is under discussion, did he have anything to say about gigantic signal failures? Just that me and mine are currently held prisoner by network rail, after a long day travelling!

 

K

 

I assumed it was in Italy, Kevin.  I would guess it to be a church built in modern times, Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century, in the Romanesque style. 

 

 

I can't agree that High Victorian High Anglican hard edged Romanesque is right for CA. It is for up and coming London suburbs like Hornsey or Streatham. Perpendicularised 'Norman' seems more typical of E Anglia..

 

The fascination of Norfolk churches for me is that they are 'palimpsests' in which overlaid traces can be discerned of all sorts of whims and fancies over the centuries, including spats of destructive iconaclism.

little snoring.jpg

Here's Little Snoring we visited a fortnight ago - something of a puzzle because its C11 round tower is detached from the main church. The gable mark and arch to its original nave can still be read on the tower's east face, but its roughly contemporary  porch looks to have somehow migrated northwards to adjoin the later C13 church nave and chancel (note the motley collection of window styles).

The dovecote structure on the top of the tower is early C19. Inside are much more recent traces of the part the little church played adjacent to a WWII bomber base.

dh

 

That is splendid.  I can only assume that they built the church and it fell down, all but the tower, and that, in order to provide sound foundations, they had to rebuild slightly to the side.

[Old-sparky]

Edwardian

 

Very close. Built in 1883, but in France, although within easy striking distance of Italy. I have sneaking suspicion that the architect may have designed a couple of churches in London too.

 

Kevin

[Edwardian]

I have a confirmed sighting of Nearholmer, in the vicinity of Paltry Circus, so I assume that there will be no further incognito visits to Norfolk!

 

[sighs with relief]

[corneliuslundie]

No need to spend modelling money on Photoshop. Gimp (which I use)  and other free programs do most of thge same things pretty well. Others may be able to advise on which is best for what you want tyo achieve, as my demands are mostly publishing related.

Jonathan

[Poggy1165]

Not sure if this has been mentioned but there is a wonderful site Norfolk Churches. Health warning - I once went in there to look for something and emerged ten days later. But there should be plenty of inspiration in there.

[otherplanet]

Depending on your experience with 3D modelling software. TinkerCAD is very good for for the uninitiated. You build your shape by creating simple parts and then merge them together. It's not a powerful Cad package. But is very intuitive. You can create models ready to 3D print. Best of all its free.

The same autodesk123 website also has more advance tools including 123 catch which I think is the 3D scanning app that was mentioned earlier in the thread. Although my personal experience with that was unsuccessful. Others appear to have achieved reasonable results.

[runs as required]

Not sure if this has been mentioned but there is a wonderful site Norfolk Churches. Health warning - I once went in there to look for something and emerged ten days later. But there should be plenty of inspiration in there.

Lovely site - with a timely Health Warning - a morning has vanished in delving, though I'm whiling away time before a hospital appointment.

Detached church towers fascinate me (not least as towers, for bellringers, benefit from being tied to an adjacent nave to limit the sometimes alarming sway induced by heavy bells - a bit like a bad riding outside twin cylinder loco).

Nearly forty years ago, after I'd just got paid, I blued my money on a John Piper coloured lithograph of West Walton, Norfolk I fell for passing by a Newcastle dealer's window.

I've been a lifelong admirer of Piper's extraordinary coupling of eye and theatrical artistry as a topographic artist.

But my subsequent actual visit to West Walton (in extreme NW Norfolk) was very surprising - the tower turned out to be scarcely related to the church, unlike in the print. Simon Knott in his web site write-up makes this point very well.

[The little black and white chapel on the right is from a John Betjeman book I got as a school prize. Piper did a wonderful series of collages for JB's survey of Non Comformist Architecture. This one is on a sheet of music manuscript which seems appropriate for a chapel.]

dh

[Fenman]

...

But my subsequent actual visit to West Walton (in extreme NW Norfolk) was very surprising - the tower turned out to be scarcely related to the church, unlike in the print. Simon Knott in his web site write-up makes this point very well.

...

 

West Walton is a very strange set-up: the church is interesting enough, vast and flooded with light, a typical Fen cathedral with a rather fine angel roof. But the tower is very odd indeed - not just at a considerable distance from the church, as you wrote, but also because it's extraordinarily hefty: it has the feel of some sort of fortified secular urban feature. Vast and heavy. Some locals believe that Fen churches generally had massive towers so the entire local population could retreat there when their flatlands were overwhelmed with floodwater. I think that's a bit fanciful.

 

Luckily, Castle Aching is in the rolling countryside some way to the east of the Great Ouse, rather than in the river "valley" or the flatlands to the west. At least, I think it is - the geography does have a disconcerting habit of moving around!

 

Paul

[Edwardian]

Lovely site - with a timely Health Warning - a morning has vanished in delving, though I'm whiling away time before a hospital appointment.

Detached church towers fascinate me (not least as towers, for bellringers, benefit from being tied to an adjacent nave to limit the sometimes alarming sway induced by heavy bells - a bit like a bad riding outside twin cylinder loco).

Nearly forty years ago, after I'd just got paid, I blued my money on a John Piper coloured lithograph of West Walton, Norfolk I fell for passing by a Newcastle dealer's window.

John Piper.jpg

I've been a lifelong admirer of Piper's extraordinary coupling of eye and theatrical artistry as a topographic artist.

But my subsequent actual visit to West Walton (in extreme NW Norfolk) was very surprising - the tower turned out to be scarcely related to the church, unlike in the print. Simon Knott in his web site write-up makes this point very well.

[The little black and white chapel on the right is from a John Betjeman book I got as a school prize. Piper did a wonderful series of collages for JB's survey of Non Comformist Architecture. This one is on a sheet of music manuscript which seems appropriate for a chapel.]

dh

 

Buildings!

 

Beautiful, that Piper print, David.  A thing to treasure and never tire of.

 

It will be some time before I arrive at the church board.  I have ample time to be lost in the Norfolk Church website.

 

I have Photoshop (the Mem has it for work), just need the time and effort injection.

 

Yes, as Paul says, the geography is slippery, but, gently rolling hills at Castle Aching.  The flat lands leading to the coal staithes, moribund hotel, and forlorn grounded coach-body holiday chalets by the sea at Wolfingham, are another matter!. 

 

Coaches!

 

Mike Trice has put a lot of effort into his Inkscape tutorial.  Though I rather dread it, I will persevere, hopefully this weekend.

 

I should probably try to master Silhouette next.  Whilst I realise there are differences, my naive hope is that once confidence is gained using one such program ....

 

I am starting to wonder whether I should just cut the bl**dy things out by hand!  If I could print my 4mm scale plans onto 10 thou plasticard, I jolly well might, as that can't be any slower than converting the drawing to a cutting file!

 

One problem is finding or making the right bits and bobs, particularly axle-box/spring assemblies.  Mike Trice does them for GN in 3D (an expensive medium), but these days there is a dearth of such things generally, and nothing GE.

 

Wagons!

 

I have been thinking about these, and the gist I just posted on the Colourful Wagons topic:

 

The most numerous GE wagon of the period by far is the Diagram 17.  It is remarkably similar to GNR standard opens of the period, and, indeed, to its predecessors.  However, these GE and GN types are of the typical 9'6" w/b ilk.  I can scratch-build the sides.  When I met Jonathan Wealleans recently, he made the suggestion that, for more than one wagon, resin casting from 1 end and 1 side was sensible.  I am seriously considering that.

But what about the underframes?  The only source I know for user friendly and inexpensive wooden u/fs for the period is Cambrian.  Plastic kits, perfect!  But they are not 9'6" w/b.

My best idea, so far, is to use Cambrian Kits C34 RCH u/f and extend them.

 

I think I can find buffers.  Mike Trice does the GN ones and I think I can find something close enough to GE, probably MJT.

[BG John]

Coaches!

....

 

I am starting to wonder whether I should just cut the bl**dy things out by hand!  If I could print my 4mm scale plans onto 10 thou plasticard, I jolly well might, as that can't be any slower than converting the drawing to a cutting file!

 

One problem is finding or making the right bits and bobs, particularly axle-box/spring assemblies.  Mike Trice does them for GN in 3D (an expensive medium), but these days there is a dearth of such things generally, and nothing GE.

Some big advantages of persevering with the Silhouette are:

• You can cut as many sets of sides as you want, to produce a rake of coaches.
• If you damage a part you've laboriously cut by hand, it's a long job to repair or remake it, but you can get the machine to cut another, while you put the kettle on and recover from the anger/frustration.
• You can keep adapting the drawings for other types of matching coach, without having to redraw anything that's the same as you've already done.
• You can make all the fiddly little bits like springs and axleboxes too. Mike said he doesn't know if he'll do them for the current project, but someone, and it could well have been Mike, did a tutorial on making bogies some time ago that included such things.

 

Wagons!

 

But what about the underframes?  The only source I know for user friendly and inexpensive wooden u/fs for the period is Cambrian.  Plastic kits, perfect!  But they are not 9'6" w/b.

As I posted in the other topic, Ratio do a pair of 9ft wooden solebars; their product No 570. You should be able to cut the solebars in half and add a bit in the middle for longer wheelbases.

[Nearholmer]

I know I've become a right old slacker these days (slacker, please note, not any faintly similar-sounding form of degenerate), but I do find it amusing to see how you chaps worry about 3" on the wheelbase in 4mm/ft scale; you do realise that is 1mm don't you? Barely more than the thickness of a folded tax demand.

 

K

[Edwardian]

Some big advantages of persevering with the Silhouette are:

• You can cut as many sets of sides as you want, to produce a rake of coaches.
• If you damage a part you've laboriously cut by hand, it's a long job to repair or remake it, but you can get the machine to cut another, while you put the kettle on and recover from the anger/frustration.
• You can keep adapting the drawings for other types of matching coach, without having to redraw anything that's the same as you've already done.
• You can make all the fiddly little bits like springs and axleboxes too. Mike said he doesn't know if he'll do them for the current project, but someone, and it could well have been Mike, did a tutorial on making bogies some time ago that included such things.

 

As I posted in the other topic, Ratio do a pair of 9ft wooden solebars; their product No 570. You should be able to cut the solebars in half and add a bit in the middle for longer wheelbases.

 

JCL did a bogie tutorial.  Query whether laminated plastic card is sufficiently robust?

 

Thanks for the tip - I envisaged something similar with the Cambrian wooden frames. 

 

It was pointed out, I think by Simon, that early pattern square grease axle boxes should be fairly easy to fabricate from plastic card.  This would leave plastic moulded kit axle boxes readily adaptable.

 

Things like compensated chassis, to me, appear to be unnecessary extravagances.  If the track is laid level and I can set metal wheels squarely in bearing cups and weight the stock, surely, that should suffice?

 

Given that, I do not really want to go to the expense of brass W irons and separate axle-box/spring components.  I just want to stick bearing cups into the back of injection moulded solebar/W iron/axle box assemblies and stick the thing together with plastic cement!

 

Getting them square will not be as easy if I have to insert 2mm long fillets in each solebar, however!

 

If I have a choice

[BG John]

I know I've become a right old slacker these days (slacker, please note, not any faintly similar-sounding form of degenerate), but I do find it amusing to see how you chaps worry about 3" on the wheelbase in 4mm/ft scale; you do realise that is 1mm don't you? Barely more than the thickness of a folded tax demand.

 

K

Especially those who then run them on track that's 2.33mm, or a scale 7 inches, under gauge!

[BG John]

Things like compensated chassis, to me, appear to be unnecessary extravagances.  If the track is laid level and I can set metal wheels squarely in bearing cups and weight the stock, surely, that should suffice?

 

Given that, I do not really want to go to the expense of brass W irons and separate axle-box/spring components.  I just want to stick bearing cups into the back of injection moulded solebar/W iron/axle box assemblies and stick the thing together with plastic cement!

 

Getting them square will not be as easy if I have to insert 2mm long fillets in each solebar, however!

 

If I have a choice

I don't think compensation is necessary in OO. I probably won't use it in future EM wagons either. But I need to for P4 broad gauge, as far as I know.

 

How about fitting the cut original parts first, and getting each one square with the axle, then filling in the gap afterwards? That's effectively what you'd do if the W-irons were separate mouldings. The Ratio ones are separate, but have locating tabs, so you could remove the tabs and attached them in a different place, although you'd then have to alter the bolt detail on the solebar.

[Edwardian]

I know I've become a right old slacker these days (slacker, please note, not any faintly similar-sounding form of degenerate), but I do find it amusing to see how you chaps worry about 3" on the wheelbase in 4mm/ft scale; you do realise that is 1mm don't you? Barely more than the thickness of a folded tax demand.

 

K

 

Welcome back as your True Self.

 

Err, not 3", but 6" or 2mm, given that donor u/fs are either 9' or 10' and we want 9'6".

 

That's 0.3mm more than the distance that troubles an E-Emmer and a length of discrepancy sure to melt the brains of a Proto-Fourer!

 

Do you model Course Scale because you can't count?!? [insert smiley face]

[Nearholmer]

I take it all back.

 

Somehow, I got it into my head that there was a 9ft 3in option available from the trade in there somewhere.

 

And, no; because I can't read, it would seem.

 

K

 

PS: it occurs to me that a 10ft wheelbase on one side, and a 9ft on the other, would, on average, be absolutely correct.

Edited September 7, 2016 by Nearholmer

[jwealleans]

When I met Jonathan Wealleans recently, he made the suggestion that, for more than one wagon, resin casting from 1 end and 1 side was sensible.  I am seriously considering that.

For an open wagon, I'd probably just build it as one piece, with the solebars incorporated. I'd also use a rocking brass W iron at one end, not because you'd need it at once but to cater for any imperfection or distortion which might develop in the resin.

Edited September 7, 2016 by jwealleans

[Edwardian]

No, but he might model in coarse scale because he can spell...

[insert much bigger smiley face]

 

I can't believe I did that!  Serves me jolly well right!

[Nearholmer]

And, I let it pass, because I was embarrassed by my own folly!

 

K

[Edwardian]

And, I let it pass, because I was embarrassed by my own folly!

 

K

 

Kind of you.

 

But who is embarrassed now?

 

[groan]