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Inspired by Brent June 1947


The Fatadder
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I made a start at lunch, though my figure painting ability is not that good!  the blue overalls will be painted this evening, followed by a couple of washes of weathering paint tomorrow.   Getting the figures off the spur was a little interesting, and did result in the loss of one shovel head.   

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Faces and white shirts painted so far, along with the dog. 

 

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The loco crew have now had their overalls painted, I wasn’t quite steady enough with the brush so there are a couple of shirts and faces that need a touch up, along with painting hair, boots and shovels etc. tomorrow. 
 

moving out to the layout, a few more jobs off the list.  Most of the cess is now complete, there are two areas needing work: the area next to the signals (which are now off layout for testing, wiring and in the case of the square post distant improving the post); while the area around the new buffer stop still needs ballasting.  (But technically that is east of the bridge and not in this phase of work).
Speaking of the bridge, I need to get the camera in there at funny angles and check there are no gaps between ballast and the retaining walls.  I think it’s ok, but better safe than sorry! 
 

Moving on to plaster, another area has been reworked to improve the angle of the bank, while the V trench alongside the bridge has been filled and blended in.   Lack of brown paint is now a stumbling block to starting grass laying (particularly with the dammed lockdown preventing easy access to source some.)

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So instead attention moved further forward, adding Treemendous dirt to the path and both river banks along with the island.  Looking forward to seeing how this comes out tomorrow.  I’ve also blended the Forrest floor mix ready to lay as a next step.

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finally the house, I need to work out the extents of the property’s boundary’s and what the garden should look like.  
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I have marked my thoughts up below, but really have no idea about a 1940s dwelling.

 

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red is the boundary, grey the road. 
yellow on the house is the back door

pink The toilet

blue the old Anderson shelter

brown the veg patch 

a path between door and toilet.

rhe rest grass.

 

the area between the house and (brown) path will be scrub and trees. While there will be a grass bank to the railway  

 

Thoughts?


 

 

 

 

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Privy at the end of the garden? That brings back some memories - my great aunt's house in the 1960s, the only one of our relatives who still had one of those. Taking a torch and a bucket of water down the path to use it in the dark evening. Luckily I never had to use it in freezing weather - my dad had tales of those times where he had to break the ice first before using the toilet. Not so long ago, this was the normal way of life for many folk...

 

Mike.

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Lunchtime figure paknting, finishing off the Hardy’s Hobbies crew.  Along with insalling the first crew in Berkeley Castle which appears to have lost its fall plate, hopefully it’s in the garage stock box...

 

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edit: I should add for my own benefit, I used a mix of approx 2/3 First Group blue 1/3 BR roof grey

foe the blue overalls, varying the mix slightly for each figure. They were given a wash of grey black, BR grey and light brown to dirty it up after as well

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Moving on from figures and back to signals.

 

Getting the first three signals installed is on the key tasks list as a dependency for getting the grass down.  Its a bit of a tricky one in that ideally I would lay the grass without the signals being in situ, given the risk of damage.  On the other hand I want the cess finished before doing the grass in order that the boundary between the two areas can be completed.   On Wheal Imogen the latter was the approach taken, here it may have to be slightly different given I only have access from one side (and have a long reach to the rear corner field.)   My current thougths are erring towards grassing the rear corner & left hand bank first, then installing the signals, then doing the right hand bank and the near banks.

 

In the mean time I am working on the signals off layout,  This includes reducing the size of the base where necessary (one of the round posts currently fouls a point rodding run).  A repaint on the round posts to get a white post, removing the ribs from the square post, and previously converting a spare distant into a Home (adding the sight board).   All have been tested, although it proved my 7.5v supply wasnt up to the job of moving the motors (all worked fine with a 9v battery).  So a new powersupply will need to be sourced (there must be one somewhere in a draw...) I had hoped to power it off the same 7.5v  bus as the Tortoise motors.    I also currently only have 3  switches, though I have a work around for some signals using the Tortoise integrated switches 

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I still need to decide on adding the safety rail at the top of the ladder, which looks a complete pain to fit (and I cant work out where it would go on the round post examples).  

 

Finally a spare Hornby driver has been fitted to 7427 finishing it off (though the loco still lacks a decoder).  This is the really old driver sat on crate figure they used to include with just about anything.  It’s had an arm repositioned and a 5mm lump of foam board put under it to increase the height to appear like the driver is standing.  As you can’t see the lower half!

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On our club layouts we tend to do the ground cover on the rear of the layout upto the boundary fence, then fit the posts, we don't fit the wire as from a normal viewing distance you shouldn't be able to see it. We then ground cover the railway side of the fence, then the reverse to the front of the layout, this saves dislodging the posts and also has the advantage of having different mixtures in different areas, breaking up the uniformity.

 

 

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There is finally some colour on the layout!

 

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first up the bank at the rear of the layout here needed some attention to fill the small gap between the backscene and the bank.  
once the plaster was semi dry, an application of ground down Treemendous forest floor was glued to the slope

down to the river.  The rest of the bank is now ready for the application of grass.

 

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the field I the other rear corner has had the same finishing to the joint between hill and backscene.  Along with the forest floor added to the slope to the river.  

 

Ash has been added to the road, this is still a thick layer as it has yet to have the excess hoovered up.  As I have rather a lot of this free material (and can easily get more) I’m probably a little wasteful with it.   
Moving forward to the house, the garden path has been added along with mud for the veg patch.

 

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moving on toward the river and there is a lot of brown!  The Treemendous forest floor has been glued down to both  banks  and the area above the path, all of which will eventually get covered with trees and bushes.   What’s left in white will get a covering of static grass 

Even after blending the forest floor was a little on the big side.  So I will need to go over it once dry to remove the larger lumps.  
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Another view of the same area, (prior to adding the ground cover above the path.). There are two more trees ready to be glued in place at the rear, one either side of the river.  But the grass will need to go down first.

 

The question is whether or not to paint the ground before applying the grass.   Probably a good idea to do it, but if I had some brown paint I’d have done this a long time ago...

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34 minutes ago, KNP said:

Nice area for photographs to.....

That was the plan, having the cutting between the road bridge and the river should give a good scenic brake, hiding part of the curve.   
 

the layout should eventually have 3 zones between natural scenic brakes, here between the cutting and the end of the layout. The core station between the two bridges, and finally (if it comes off) the cutting leaving the

station at the London end to a heavily compressed distance into the tunnel.


 

tonight I think I’m getting the static grass out, so long as this heavy rain stops!

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Not a lot more completed this evening, getting out to the layout (with the big box of static grass and the flockit) I realised I had some painting to do.  I wanted to paint the upper facia and the first few inches of the fiddle yard before applying grass in order to avoid the line of white between the two areas.  
 

so other than cleaning up yesterday’s work (along with the inevitable touch ups on bits where there wasn’t dense enough coverage) I added two banks either side of the road, and used the last of a roll of modroc to fix an unfinished slope between the yard entrance road and Hawkes store.  The first four areas to receive grass as all hovered so hopefully will start tomorrow...

 

i did have a look at the dodgy slip (it hasn’t fixed itself strangely). The problem is that there is a whole layout stored under it so there’s a lot of work to clear access.   And scenic work at the other end is more interesting...


a bit more worrying is that the first coach I tested did not want to go through, but the previously tested B Set was fine so I think it must have a tight back to back). I suspect it’s going to always be temperamental.

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There is now grass on the layout, at least there is the base coat down on 3 areas.  It should have been 4 but I was running out of glue after the near left area, so switched to the near right rather than the rear right.

 

I finally managed to open the 4lt bottle (which had a ceased lid) so had the glue available to do the largest area.  But decided against leaning over wet grass to work on the most awkward  part of the layout, so went to watch the 2nd half of the rugby instead.

 

While applying I put down paper over the track / areas not being grassed.  This captured a lot of the waste fibres, and allows for the instant reuse.  The whole lot needs to be hoovered still to capture the ref of the fibres that didn’t take, then I can do a few minor touch ups.  
 

there was a bunch of tree material in the flockit, presumably from the reuse of fibres on Wheal Imogen.  This made for a nice bush with a bit of rubberised horse hair.  Plugging one of the gaps at the back of the layout.

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2 hours ago, The Fatadder said:

There is now grass on the layout, at least there is the base coat down on 3 areas.  It should have been 4 but I was running out of glue after the near left area, so switched to the near right rather than the rear right.

 

I finally managed to open the 4lt bottle (which had a ceased lid) so had the glue available to do the largest area.  But decided against leaning over wet grass to work on the most awkward  part of the layout, so went to watch the 2nd half of the rugby instead.

 

While applying I put down paper over the track / areas not being grassed.  This captured a lot of the waste fibres, and allows for the instant reuse.  The whole lot needs to be hoovered still to capture the ref of the fibres that didn’t take, then I can do a few minor touch ups.  
 

there was a bunch of tree material in the flockit, presumably from the reuse of fibres on Wheal Imogen.  This made for a nice bush with a bit of rubberised horse hair.  Plugging one of the gaps at the back of the layout.

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What a difference a day makes!

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Hopefully over the next couple of weeks I will have the platform surfaces done and the bank at the rear of the station covered in grass as well as the end.  It makes a such a massive difference! It will be good to get the remaining loco fleet photographed actually on the layout with a scenic background!

I had another look at the double slip , I think the clearances are right on the wire through the slip hence any narrowing of gauge and it details.  I need to get the motor working and test run all 45xx plus the two panniers to ensure they will actually work, it will also need a test of the freight stock, although the curve through the route from the yard always worked better.   I still massively regret building this one piece of track as 4 attempts later it’s still giving me nothing but problems.  
I know I should have got this working 100% before starting on the rest of the layout.  But if I hadn’t the rest would still be bare boards now and the point still wouldn’t work...

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8 hours ago, The Fatadder said:

Hopefully over the next couple of weeks I will have the platform surfaces done and the bank at the rear of the station covered in grass as well as the end.  It makes a such a massive difference! It will be good to get the remaining loco fleet photographed actually on the layout with a scenic background!

I had another look at the double slip , I think the clearances are right on the wire through the slip hence any narrowing of gauge and it details.  I need to get the motor working and test run all 45xx plus the two panniers to ensure they will actually work, it will also need a test of the freight stock, although the curve through the route from the yard always worked better.   I still massively regret building this one piece of track as 4 attempts later it’s still giving me nothing but problems.  
I know I should have got this working 100% before starting on the rest of the layout.  But if I hadn’t the rest would still be bare boards now and the point still wouldn’t work...

 

It's a pity that as far as I'm aware, no one makes a 00 mint or block gauge for testing point work.

 

 

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I originally made  the mistake of using the C&L gauge to set all the flange ways not knowing they were too fine.

 

the bit where there is an issue is the gap between the ends of the to slip rails.  Which I don’t think I’d have ever thought to use a gauge for

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8 minutes ago, The Fatadder said:

I originally made  the mistake of using the C&L gauge to set all the flange ways not knowing they were too fine.

 

the bit where there is an issue is the gap between the ends of the to slip rails.  Which I don’t think I’d have ever thought to use a gauge for

Ah, that's one of the real challenges of 00 double slips. I had to move the ends of the switch blades further from the vee than on the template, to where the gap between the closure rails was about 5mm, to get enough room for the switch rails:

 

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A little work before I head outside, I can’t resist applying new transfers when they arrive.  Today I received a packet from Railtec and one from Precision Labels.  The latter has a set of destination boards for the B Sets for Brent and Kingsbridge.  These are self adhesive and hopefully should be a simple fit now they are cut out.  Something that would be rather handy as a 3D transfer I think.  Will see how they look once I get to

the layout.

 

it also included a set of transfers for Improvised No1 giving transfers to fix the end of one of the B Sets and complete the Improvised gunpowder van.  It looks like the varnish reacted as there’s a bit of bubbling in a few places.  I am hoping to hide it in the weathering...  first it needs more varnish to get back to a mat finish

 

Now back to the layout.

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The grass is now down on the other field, a lot more wastage on this one that will hopefully be good for reuse. Mostly because it was harder getting the grass to stick to the steel bank.  Fortunately I think now there is a base layer it should work better when I add more fibres.    
 

two more trees and a couple of bushes have been added to the rear of the bridge (with more bushes to follow)

 

tomorrow the plan is to clean up the loose fibres and see how much rework is needed. My logic is to then add the fence posts, bushes etc before adding grass fibres in additional lengths / colours.

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I need to find a source for some Devon Red cattle to finish the scene (and for that matter adding to the cattle dock). 
 

likewise some sheep for the other field (not to sure on the breeds that were common in the area back then)

 

the Kingsbridge destinations on the B Set

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The next jobs: 

-Tidy / rework the grass base

-Glue down platform surfaces 

-Add safety cages to signals and install /wire up 

-Add bushes /trees to the valley

-Finally move the point motor for the slip backwards by about 2mm so it engages both ways.  I really wish I had done this at the time when I still had better under baseboard access...  and of all the jobs here, it is clearly the most important (and the one that will be put off!)

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And a final update for the week, 

 

the two square post signals now have a rough approximation of the safety loop fitted and awaiting paint.  The round post is a little more tricky, where Dapol have sort of included the safety cage integrated with the top of the ladder, but missed of the platform.  My thoughts are tending toward the fix being a complete new ladder assembly.  Though for now they will do, I think the ultimate end game with these with a hand built model.  But for the time being the Dapol ones are better than nothing.

 

some trees and bushes are now installed (the former modified to be removable while working around them).  Still a lot more to be added here, in particular I want to add a fair few ferns to the ground cover.  Berkeley Castle crosses the Avon with the up Riviera 

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I’ve been trying out a hedge between the front of the house and the road, but I wasn’t convinced.  I think I will add a wall instead.A44F9449-F59C-4798-9F0D-34C86481B810.jpeg.90e982bb1d0b1d0d0d617c1b6dad3c82.jpeg

 

the goods yard has been tidied up, and scrub added to the bank between the entrance and the raised area 2C98CA12-02CE-439E-92BC-9BFBCF2FBBEF.jpeg.7fc2b03f58b75b5ccbaa94af8bde5d32.jpeg

 

 

I have also been looking at that dammed slip and may have worked it out.  So will write a little more on that later on... 

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