S7 scratch building

[airnimal]

Dave,thanks for the tips, but as I don't enjoy making loco's this chopper tank will probably be my last. As I have already soldered the spectacle rims in place I will have another go at my method before I cut out some plastic ones.

 

Tricky, thank you for confidence in my ability, some would say unfounded. I have two problems with a layout. The first is lack of space along with the curves of S7 and the second is my lack of vision. I don't have much experience with layouts only helping out a couple of times with other people's. I think even a small layout moving around a few wagons is all I will be able achieve. I have started a couple of layouts in the past including building a couple of baseboards around the walls bedroom at the age of 15.

 

I have a couple of different interests about layouts. One aspect that I like are goods yards with industrial buildings, and the second is a simple rural layout like the Cromford and High Peak Rly.

As I am now 67 and I scratch build most things time is not on my side. Whatever I chose, will it be the right choice and will it give me satisfaction.

Mike

Edited January 24, 2019 by airnimal

[Tricky]

I think you do have ‘vision’ because what you describe is very similar to me. Monks Gate is only 8’ long plus traverser and certainly isn’t built for its prototypical operational possibilities!! I agree you have to fit your plans to the realistic resources available but that doesn’t mean it has to be perceived as second-rate or ‘it will do’ in any way. You love the detail, like me, so if I were you I’d crack on and get some baseboards up! If you’ve got a spare wall about 11’ long we’re in business!

[airnimal]

Tricky, if I could build anything half as good as your Midland in Bristol or your other layout I would be well chuffed.

I blackened the buffers and coupling this morning instead of doing my household duties. I also changed my mind on the the spring arrangements because I didn't think there was enough room to use the Peco buffers as intended. So I drilled a hole in the end of the buffer rams and was going to thread the wire through that. But when I came to try and insert the wire I could not bend it enough without grief. So in the end I shortened both the buffer rams and the end collars and everything fitted prefect.

 

I will be going to the Bristol show on Sunday because I can go and visit my eldest daughter along with the rest of the family. I will be staying in Swindon for a couple of nights first. Not much on my shopping list but it will be good to catch up with old friends.

[Coal Tank]

This is stunning Mike

[airnimal]

I hope my new password works because I have been struggling to log in.

[ian@stenochs]

Hi Mike,

Yes it worked!

Ian.

[airnimal]

Not a lot happening this week. I found a old body that I made the master for over 20 years ago. Also on the clear out I found a couple of test bits that I made to see if I could build and paint when I start my intending layout. This weigh bridge hut was made from foam board and covered in Das which I am happy with. What I am not happy with is the painting. I attempted to paint this hut with oil paint without success, so I removed what I could and this is what you see here. I will have another go with some other paint but painting of anything is my  Achilles heel.

[Buhar]

The walls on that hut are not unlike the sandstone of our 170 year-old cottage in the textures and mix of colours, just a tad reddish darker and you'd be bang on (apart from the skew stones that is).

[Tricky]

You could always send it to me and I’ll have a go for you if you like...?

 

[Signalman Rich]

Thank you for providing so much inspirational work for me/us to see through all your posts.  Just a little comment on your potential layout in Scale 7.  I have found Jim Read's little layouts provided me with a track plan that I could live with for my little cameo layout Alma Street Quay.  Muckton has just one point and a traverser to save from building another point. His blog is at :  https://ogaugemicro.blogspot.com/p/pdfs.html       My little layout is 4' 8 1/2" by 21" with the front occupied by an inlaid broad gauge track let into the quay road, with the standard gauge behind that.  (if you still are a member of the 'O' ther site look on the 'My layout' feed for some photos of my little effort if you think it worthwhile).

 

I have experimented with watercolour for painting my buildings after reading a little booklet published by Pendon.  Perhaps an undercoat  of pale hue  for the mortar colour over the beautifully carved stonework in your model hut would allow you to try it out. I just use a small pocket size painting  outfit (second hand from my wife) as well as a 'freebie'  with just a few basic colours I was given when at work. Not quite up to the archive quality of paint used by the Pendon team, but useful enough.

 

Watercolour is quite forgiving and if you use a matt undercoat in oil or acrylic (or emulsion)  watercolour is easy enough to wipe off if it all goes pear shaped.. Might be worth a try?  You can produce superb rolling stock and locos so I am confident that you will succeed with your buildings and your layout. Mine took less than a year to be more or less completed, because it is so small.

 

Keep up the good work.

Best wishes

Rich

 

 

 

 

[Marly51]

20 minutes ago, Signalman Rich said:

Thank you for providing so much inspirational work for me/us to see through all your posts.  Just a little comment on your potential layout in Scale 7.  I have found Jim Read's little layouts provided me with a track plan that I could live with for my little cameo layout Alma Street Quay.  Muckton has just one point and a traverser to save from building another point. His blog is at :  https://ogaugemicro.blogspot.com/p/pdfs.html       My little layout is 4' 8 1/2" by 21" with the front occupied by an inlaid broad gauge track let into the quay road, with the standard gauge behind that.  (if you still are a member of the 'O' ther site look on the 'My layout' feed for some photos of my little effort if you think it worthwhile).

 

I have experimented with watercolour for painting my buildings after reading a little booklet published by Pendon.  Perhaps an undercoat  of pale hue  for the mortar colour over the beautifully carved stonework in your model hut would allow you to try it out. I just use a small pocket size painting  outfit (second hand from my wife) as well as a 'freebie'  with just a few basic colours I was given when at work. Not quite up to the archive quality of paint used by the Pendon team, but useful enough.

 

Watercolour is quite forgiving and if you use a matt undercoat in oil or acrylic (or emulsion)  watercolour is easy enough to wipe off if it all goes pear shaped.. Might be worth a try?  You can produce superb rolling stock and locos so I am confident that you will succeed with your buildings and your layout. Mine took less than a year to be more or less completed, because it is so small.

 

Keep up the good work.

Best wishes

Rich

 

 

 

 

Another fan of Jim Read! Would love to see your layout, Rich?

 

Marlyn

[Signalman Rich]

Mike, I hope you will not mind if I post one photo of my little layout to show how compact it is - the idea may be useful for your planned layout ? The buildings are almost all painted with watercolours. It is the first time I had tried using them on buildings and am so pleased with the subtle effects that I could never manage with oil paints that I suppose I am a little evangelistic about them!

Marlyn, here is a photo, inspired by Jim Read's layouts. The 'blurb' explaining about the layout is on the left and the shunting board that shows how trains are being marshalled is on the right.

This is my first attempt at posting a photo on this forum so I hope I can achieve it.

Best wishes

Rich

[airnimal]

Gentlemen, I am very grateful for all your input and offers of help. 

Unfortunately my ambitions and painting skills do not match in any shape or form. I am embrarrassed to say I went on a night school course  for water colour painting. I also went on a course at Dovedale models to teach me how to paint model buildings that have been covered in Das modelling clay. 

The results in my case were dreadful. I must say that it wasn't in any way the fault of the course or the teaching but      

my own complete lack of paint/eye co-ordination. 

I am sure most people can be taught how to paint, but in my case I am a lost cause, the equivalent to someone who takes about 30 attempts to pass there driving test. 

[Signalman Rich]

Mike,

Don't beat yourself up over the painting of buildings issue. Your superb modelling of wagons (and the ability to delicately weather them) shows that you are a good way there already. (If at first you don't succeed...... etc)   Besides, if you go for the country station approach on your layout you can make some of Mr Webb's series of 'pre-fab' wooden buildings like they had on the Red Wharf Bay branch on Anglesey. They will just require painting in the standard LNWR colours,  just as you do with your rolling stock. After making vans, like your superb L&Y one, making the little wooden buildings will be like making another, only without the underframes !  Your work is an inspiration to me and to many others too. Please keep posting your step-by-step descriptions with the crystal clear photos and explanations of your work. Your work graces the Forum and helps us to aspire to quality in our own work.

Best wishes

Rich

[Jol Wilkinson]

1 minute ago, Signalman Rich said:

Mike,

Don't beat yourself up over the painting of buildings issue. Your superb modelling of wagons (and the ability to delicately weather them) shows that you are a good way there already. (If at first you don't succeed...... etc)   Besides, if you go for the country station approach on your layout you can make some of Mr Webb's series of 'pre-fab' wooden buildings like they had on the Red Wharf Bay branch on Anglesey. They will just require painting in the standard LNWR colours,  just as you do with your rolling stock. After making vans, like your superb L&Y one, making the little wooden buildings will be like making another, only without the underframes !  Your work is an inspiration to me and to many others too. Please keep posting your step-by-step descriptions with the crystal clear photos and explanations of your work. Your work graces the Forum and helps us to aspire to quality in our own work.

Best wishes

Rich

Did F W W design them? The "origin" of the prefabricated buildings is something of a mystery.  When I tried to research where they were made some years ago, with the help of Richard Foster, author of the book on LNWR Signalling, we drew a blank. Earlstown or Wolverton would seem to be the likely places  to manufacture the timber parts but we couldn't find any proof. Were they made as prefab panels, or component parts to be assembled onsite? Or did the LNWR provide plans and employ local contractors to produce them? Whichever, with the help of Jack Nelson's excellent book and the Grand Junction moulded parts, it is possible to recreate them easily in 4mm..

[bgman]

On 04/02/2019 at 12:41, airnimal said:

Gentlemen, I am very grateful for all your input and offers of help. 

Unfortunately my ambitions and painting skills do not match in any shape or form. I am embrarrassed to say I went on a night school course  for water colour painting. I also went on a course at Dovedale models to teach me how to paint model buildings that have been covered in Das modelling clay. 

The results in my case were dreadful. I must say that it wasn't in any way the fault of the course or the teaching but      

my own complete lack of paint/eye co-ordination. 

I am sure most people can be taught how to paint, but in my case I am a lost cause, the equivalent to someone who takes about 30 attempts to pass there driving test. 

 

It doesn't present itself as a lost cause to my eyes, if you have managed to achieve a nicely detailed building to that standard then I would suggest you carry on.

 

Whether it be one or thirty attempts to get it looking correct for yourself at least you have stepped forward and made a start.

 

Perhaps its worth making a small sample to try out different techniques on and when you're satisfied then apply them to your lovely little model.

 

Keep notes of what you do ( always worth doing ) to refer back to.

 

If not happy at any stage then maybe put it to one side and walk away until you feel happy to make a fresh start.

 

G

[Marly51]

On 3 February 2019 at 21:14, Signalman Rich said:

Mike, I hope you will not mind if I post one photo of my little layout to show how compact it is - the idea may be useful for your planned layout ? The buildings are almost all painted with watercolours. It is the first time I had tried using them on buildings and am so pleased with the subtle effects that I could never manage with oil paints that I suppose I am a little evangelistic about them!

Marlyn, here is a photo, inspired by Jim Read's layouts. The 'blurb' explaining about the layout is on the left and the shunting board that shows how trains are being marshalled is on the right.

This is my first attempt at posting a photo on this forum so I hope I can achieve it.

Best wishes

Rich

Thank you, Rich - beautiful micro layout!

Looking forward to seeing how your layout develops,, Mike

 

Marlyn

Edited February 5, 2019 by Marly51

[Signalman Rich]

Mike, sorry if my comment has inadvertently taken attention away from your excellent thread., However.....

 

Jol Wilkinson,

Thank you for your comments and expertise.  I am sure that I remember reading that they were designed by FWW but cannot remember where. Perhaps it was in that early British Railway Journal article on the Red Wharf Bay branch. I will see if I can find it again. The origins you write about re: Earlestown and Wolverton are interesting. Perhaps some drawings may yet surface in an archive with FWW in the corner?  I also remember reading that at least some of them  were 16' by 8'. Am I dreaming that? It is surprising that one has to question concepts that one takes mentally as gospel and that are firmly fixed in mind, but when asked for chapter and verse are difficult to confirm by references. Am I right about the sizes?  With your comprehensive knowledge of things LNWR could you confirm, please?

Best wishes

Rich

[airnimal]

A little bit of slow progress on the small ballast wagons. I have made all the small latches on the end of one wagon, the other 2 will  have to wait untill I return from Australia. I am going shortly to help our middle daughter do some decorating and I will  get a week of cycling in as well. 

Thanks to Rich for the positive feedback, it all helps to encourage me to keep going when I make such a hash of things. I saw your layout at the Swindon exhibition last year and and enjoyed it very much. I would like something similar only a bit bigger with a bit more in the way of trackwork. 

The little hut was only a test piece and wasn't intended to be used on a layout. I also made a few other bits to see if I could paint models covered in Das clay. None were successful as can be seen from these bits but I will keep going.

[Caley Jim]

What's wrong with these test bits?  That last shot of the field wall captures the essence of the prototype well.  just the right amount of weathering, lichen and moss.

 

Jim

[Jol Wilkinson]

16 hours ago, Signalman Rich said:

Mike, sorry if my comment has inadvertently taken attention away from your excellent thread., However.....

 

Jol Wilkinson,

Thank you for your comments and expertise.  I am sure that I remember reading that they were designed by FWW but cannot remember where. Perhaps it was in that early British Railway Journal article on the Red Wharf Bay branch. I will see if I can find it again. The origins you write about re: Earlestown and Wolverton are interesting. Perhaps some drawings may yet surface in an archive with FWW in the corner?  I also remember reading that at least some of them  were 16' by 8'. Am I dreaming that? It is surprising that one has to question concepts that one takes mentally as gospel and that are firmly fixed in mind, but when asked for chapter and verse are difficult to confirm by references. Am I right about the sizes?  With your comprehensive knowledge of things LNWR could you confirm, please?

Best wishes

Rich

Rich,

 

the only reference I have to hand is the Jack Nelson book. The cross section drawing shows the depth to be about 11 ft (no dimensions but has a scale of about 5.8mm = 1ft). The front view shows the panels are about 6' 6" wide. So a four panel building such as shown in a drawing of Glasson Dock would measure  26ft wide by 11ft deep. It is difficult to imagine anything much smaller than a two or three panel building, for a separate platform waiting room.

 

Earlestown and Wolverton were the two location where timber was most used in their products, so it would seem logical that is where the sectional building components were produced. Studying  the detailed cutaway drawing in JN's book makes me think that the station buildings were not built from pre-fabricated panels but more likely from pre made components supplied for assembly on site. The "panels" are separated by 7" x 6" upright (7" X 7" on corners). Separate pre assembled panels would require their own outer uprights so would show as two separate pieces of timber.

 

Jol

[Signalman Rich]

Jol

Thanks for your detailed reply. I too have Jack Nelson's book but have never taken a ruler to the drawings to gauge the exact scale. They are wonderful drawings. I only wish that my drawing efforts were anything approaching the quality of his precise work.

 

However, in my comment on buildings for Mike's intended layout I had in mind the 'garden shed' types, that form a collection of buildings on lesser used lines like the Red Wharf Bay branch. (There may be some photos on the closed station website -  I must have a look)  I have  the BRJ stashed away and will look for it later. The photo I am thinking of is of a 2-4-2 tank with the two converted trailers used on the branch at Pentraeth on opening day. I am sure it is in one of my LNWR books, but have not been able to find it yet. It shows the collection of sheds, some sideways on, some end on to the platform. That would explain why I wrote about the 16' x 8' dimension. I will have a look for both later when my wife gets up. Sue has to rest her spine in the afternoon after all her surgeries and my magazine collection is in a cupboard in the bedroom.

 

Mike,

Thanks for your kind comments about my little cameo layout. I understand why you are working on stone walls for your prospective layout if it is to be based on the Cromford and High Peak. I am sure you will sort out a technique based on your samples. They look very good to me.  Of course if you decide to go with an industrial scene then brick paper / plastikard bricks / embossed card bricks may well be your new best friends!   My favourite industrial view is of  'Chopper' tank number 2250 with a train of early four wheeled stock passing some old industrial buildings in Birmingham. You probably have seen it already. ( page 29 in LNWR - Pre-grouping Railway  Scene No 3   Edited by O S Nock,  published by  Ian Allan  1980).  Leeds MRS made a model of the buildings and there were some drawings they produced in (I think) an old RM from the 1960s.
 

I hope you have wonderful time with your family in Australia and enjoy the relaxing cycle rides.

 

Best wishes

Rich

[Nick Holliday]

 

3 hours ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

Rich,

 

the only reference I have to hand is the Jack Nelson book. The cross section drawing shows the depth to be about 11 ft (no dimensions but has a scale of about 5.8mm = 1ft). The front view shows the panels are about 6' 6" wide. So a four panel building such as shown in a drawing of Glasson Dock would measure  26ft wide by 11ft deep. It is difficult to imagine anything much smaller than a two or three panel building, for a separate platform waiting room.

 

Earlestown and Wolverton were the two location where timber was most used in their products, so it would seem logical that is where the sectional building components were produced. Studying  the detailed cutaway drawing in JN's book makes me think that the station buildings were not built from pre-fabricated panels but more likely from pre made components supplied for assembly on site. The "panels" are separated by 7" x 6" upright (7" X 7" on corners). Separate pre assembled panels would require their own outer uprights so would show as two separate pieces of timber.

 

Jol

There is some information that may be relevant in LMS Architecture by Anderson and Fox.  

The first is a comment that the concept might date from 1862, with Gravelly Hill station, including a drawing, but the design was subsequently  improved.

There is a note that the other types of standardised building were based on an eight by eight foot module, with 8, 16 and 24 foot versions.

Finally there is a drawing of Burnage station, described as an example of the final development of the smaller type of wooden building. This has an internal dimension of 7' 6", overall outside 8' 4", and consists of three modules, two 20' 6" long, one 15' 7" and at the end there is an open toilet block. The longer modules are split into three almost equal panels, the shorter has two, slightly larger ones. There is one constant, all doors and windows are 2' 11" wide, the solid panelling varying as required. It is very clear that these are modules, as the drawing shows double verticals at each junction between them with substantial bolts top, middle and bottom.

[Signalman Rich]

Nick,

Thank you very much for the reference to Anderson and Fox and their information and the window / door dimensions particularly. I have been thinking about a small halt with one siding as an extension of my Cameo layout and your info is invaluable.  Reminder to self - "another must have book to source!" 

Jol,

Regarding my post about the Red Wharf Bay branch and its buildings.  I found the British Railway Journal  (issue Number  1 October 1983) with the article with lots of photos, including each of the stations that have the garden shed type of building. My Memory! The size of the buildings were 15' x 7' according to Roger Carpenter not 16' x 8'.  I must admit that seeing one of the modules listed by Nick was 15' 7" long did give me pause. There is a couple of photos on Google images for Pentraeth station. One is this photo if the link works:   https://www.peoplescollection.wales/items/8153   That shows clearly the collection of smaller buildings on the platform. Ceint halt also had one of the darker painted 'huts.'

Mike,

Hoping that my comments and the ensuing extras from Jol and Nick have only helped if you do decide to go down the country station route.

Best wishes

Rich

Edited February 6, 2019 by Signalman Rich
"one is this one" did not make sense hence "photo if the link works"

[Jol Wilkinson]

Nick,

 

you probably know the excellent Warwickshire Railways site which has some photos of Gravelly Hill and drawings of the station buildings in the Birmingham New Street to Lichfield section.

 

Rich,

 

there are also some interesting wooden buildings on the Napton and Stockton station (in the Leamington to Weedon section);

 

https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/naptonstockton.htm

 

Flecknoe Station (on the same line) has some good close ups of this type of building . Do these look like the ones in Wales?

 

The GH and N&S types quite look different, the GH being rather mode substantial and in the style of the usual LNWR timber station buildings. the N&S do look rather more like garden sheds!

 

Jol