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Hi, Are you going to make a porch for the summer house so that you can attach the fiddle yard during our BRITISH SUMMERS? ha ha :nono:

 

I reckon I'll have too given how wet has been of late.

 

Actually I have a second cunning plan; there are a further pair of doors at the end of the summer house so that I can do a different layout. I am not ready to start this yet but I will be in a few months time so watch this space for "son of Portchullin" whatever that might mean!

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That is a nice rake of wagons Mark, can you give us a few details of what they are?

 

They are mostly Parkside Dundas kits; the near being a Palvan and then a couple of BR standard vans both ply sided and timber sided. There is an insulated one at the rear and I can't quite make out the others!

 

The Parkside kits are a very good place to start building up a van or wagon collection for this era. They are easy to build, easy to make to P4 standards if that is your want and they do make very good models with only a moderate amount of care.

 

Even better for me, the Kyle line's frieght traffic by this time was largely relatively small packages that went in vans so the trains were van trains or BGs/CCTs etc. I remember one of the owners of Parkside chatting to me when the layout was first exhibited (with very few vans) and he knowing siad to me that I would be needing more of their products and he was right!

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  • 2 weeks later...

A reminder that Portchullin's next outing is at the Farnham & District's show this weekend. This is at the Connaught Leisure Centre, Aldershot and details can be found here: http://farnhammrc.org.uk/

 

I hope you are right. their website seems to state it was last weekend

Saturday 8th 10:00 to 17:00. Sunday 9th October 10:00 to 16:30
which has probably confused the public no end.
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A reminder that Portchullin's next outing is at the Farnham & District's show this weekend. This is at the Connaught Leisure Centre, Aldershot and details can be found here: http://farnhammrc.org.uk/

I remember going to the Farnham show when it used to be in the Maltings in Farnham Town, that was a few years ago when I lived down south. Have a great weekend, Andy.
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I suspect that the main page with directions is from last year

 

Maybe, but it is a bit careless as the first place I went to after checking out the trade then the layouts. Not everyone lands on the home page of a site - or is interested in the goings on at a club which often gets posted there. I usually go to this show, sadly other things have come up to interfere with normal weekend activity. Still hope everyone that goes has a good time. I have seen Portchullin a couple of times now and is well worth seeing if you haven't yet.

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I hope you are right. their website seems to state it was last weekend which has probably confused the public no end.

 

Thank you Kenton, this page on their website is indeed wrong; although the rest of their website is correct with regard to dates. I will alert them and seek that they change it although whether it makes any difference making a change so late on and on a page buried within the website is debatable.

 

I can confirm I have not had any vicious complaints from the show organisors querying where I was Monday & Tuesday, so I feel fairly safe that it is this weekend..............

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a page buried within the website

 

Not at all "buried" I got there by selecting the page from the menu - 2 down from the page you linked to with the heading "Exhibition" - quite a natural progression from what's there to where is it. Anyway I hope you enjoy the show.[Ed]. if we keep posting it will keep bumping this up the VNC, once again this show seems to have missed the RMWeb calendar.

Edited by Kenton
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Hi Mark,

 

Have seen your layout before, but had a few teething problems then. Saw it again today at Aldershot and it's fantastic!

 

Given me some more inspiration for mine now!

I'm sure it's been asked a thousand times, how do you do your weathering?? Its brilliant and I'd love to replicate it!

 

Thanks in advance

 

Matt

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Have seen your layout before, but had a few teething problems then. Saw it again today at Aldershot and it's fantastic!

 

I'm sure it's been asked a thousand times, how do you do your weathering?? Its brilliant and I'd love to replicate it!

 

Thank you for your comments Matt. I think it is fair to say the layout did not behave as well as it could have been - the reasons for this are mentioned in my MRJ article which I nearly titled "how not to do it"!!!!

 

With regard to weathering, here are a few of my techniques:

  • some of the wagons (particularly the r-t-r finishes) I have merely weathered with neat acrylic paint (burnt sienna and a dark grey). Put it on with a stiff brush and then do your best to take it off again with the brush. Most of it comes off but it gets caught in the nooks and crannies. This can be repeated to darken the colours and if you do it too heavilly then the use of cotten wool buds with water will take some of it off or if you want it all off then use enamel thinners.
  • washes are also an effective technique - I know lots of people who use the game workshop acrylic ones but I get on better with enamel ones. You need to be brave as the impact of the thinners is to darken the colours but this lightens a lot when it dries. I find that multiple layers of washes work best; some darker and others lighter.
  • I also use my airbrush; sometimes to give an overall splodge of grunge and sometimes for more subtle affects. One I use in particular is to give the affect of the washers missing the roofs of the locos. I use masking tape but deliberately make this rise higher than the top of the sides of the body; however I do not push the masking tape against the surface. This gives a soft line as the demarkation between the sprayed and not area - looking like where the brushes touch but only lightly against the sides of the loco
  • brush applied highlighted areas; either local bits of dirt or chipped/missing paint
  • the use of a fibre brush to remove weathering or distress the paint surface below

In reality, I tend to use a number of different techniques on most of my items and often rub attempts off. You never get it all off and this seems to add to the general patina!

 

I have had a few failures, some average results and some successes; so do not give up! That leads onto my final technique, which is to pay for it - One of my locos and a few of the coaches have come from Craig at the "Art of Making Dirty" (http://www.the-art-of-making-dirty.co.uk/7.html). Cheating I know, but nicely done and a useful way to jump start your stock of weathered vehicles.

 

 

Oh! I can feel Scottish ideas running through my head!

 

Go on, give in. You know it is right..........................

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  • 3 months later...

Portchullin's next outing is this Saturday (16th Feb) at Tonbridge. Details of the exhibition are here.  If you are visiting, stop by and say hello.  The layout has had a fairly comprehensive rewire and all of the signals should be going for Tonbridge.  They have proved to be a bit of a heartache but will make a difference to us at least when they are going.

 

After this, it will be a month’s rest and then we are out at the London Festival of Model Railways at Alexandra Palace. This is on the 23 and 24th of March and details can be found here

 

After this, we have Wigan on 15 & 16 June, an unconfirmed invite for Hartlepool in July and then Warley way off in November...........

 

post-7769-0-34930800-1360797410_thumb.jpg

 

Thanks to Andy Y for the photo!

Edited by Portchullin Tatty
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  • 1 month later...

Good to see Portchullin at Ally Pally this weekend. It's the first time I've seen it running with steam. Here's a few photographs I took, some doctored, some not.

 

post-8259-0-11286200-1364221669_thumb.jpg

 

post-8259-0-63956300-1364221670_thumb.jpg

 

post-8259-0-55743400-1364221671_thumb.jpg

 

post-8259-0-37765500-1364221672_thumb.jpg

 

post-8259-0-38649700-1364221673_thumb.jpg

 

Hope you like them Mark.

 

All the best.

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Hope you like them Mark.

 

All the best.

 

 

I do thank you!  

 

Good to see you too and I am sorry that the steam stock were misbehaving a bit - I am blaming Brian Hanson because he always says nasty stuff about the kettles.  I really must get this stock properly tested!

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  • 2 months later...
  • 4 months later...

Slightly prompted by a comment on an early post, I have completed a BR (S) utility van; which I think British Rail called NQVs.

 

This was made from a Parkside kit, with a chassis from Masokits.  The former were so simple that you hardly need instructions but the other was less so and it was a bit of a pain to find that it came with only quite limited instructions – I wonder if I did not get the full pack as Masokits are normally fairly good?

 

100_2677compress.jpg?w=604&h=325

 

The other things that I changed with it were to avoid the use of the really grotty buffers from Parkside and used some very good Lanarkshire Models buffers – but I have managed to break a drill bit on one, so I may be stuck with one end being unsprung.  I also changed the rather poor handrails over for 0.45mm wire.  I have not done the rainstrips yet, but looking at this picture I am going to have too!

 

So it should be to the paintshop tomorrow.  Hopefully by the time I have finished it will look like the one in Paul Barlett’s photo

 

It should be done for Warley, which is Portchullin’s next outing.  Stop by and say hello if you are going to be there............

 

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The instructions that came with my Masokits chassis were spot on. There is a generic sheet that covers general principles and a sheet specific to each variety of chassis. For this one, there was also a supplement for the corrected V hangers.

 

Funnily enough, I broke a drill bit in one of my LMS buffers as well. They must use a heavy duty alloy for these up in Burnistoun Works ;)

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