cakebox 3 By the Shore of Lake Brienz - A Swiss Adventure in the 1960s

[Marly51]

Some 'Railway and Non-Railway' related memories of that Brienz holiday in 1963:

 

The youth hostel provided us with packed lunches every day and. being Easter, it always included a brightly dyed hardboiled egg and a 'blood' orange' (my first)!

Before this holiday trip our teacher took us on regular hikes in the Pentland Hills south of Edinburgh, to make sure we were fit for some of the walking she had planned for us in Switzerland. On one of our forest walks we came across metal grills, along the path routes, which provided ventilation to underground Swiss Army tunnels and we actually saw soldiers walking below!

We received  German language tuition for two months prior to the trip and somehow were fluent enough to chatter away with locals and shopkeepers. My fluency was obviously limited when I bought a rum baba from a cake shop in Interlaken and felt decidely woozy for the rest of the day. Considering our school was an ordinary Edinburgh Corporation primary school, we were not short of opportunites!  A highlight of one visit to Interlaken was the  visitor centre above the town, which we reached by rack railway. Here was a superb model railway, but not sure if it is still there today? I think this YouTube video might be that same model layout?

 

 

We found the Swiss people extremely friendly and one of the Brienz churches invited us to join them for the service on our first Sunday. Back then everyone turned out in their colourful national dress for church, which made us quite dowdy by comparison! It was a trip full of great memories!

Edited August 6, 2019 by Marly51

[Marly51]

More down time today after a morning in the garden, and now thunderstorms have begun again! With friends having had their computers and telephones fried in the past, we tend to be over cautious and just switch everything off.

 

Back to my drawing board with paper and a Pentel pen! Working out the basic details for the model of the hostel.  The model should capture the character of the prototype, although the footprint is smaller to fit with the Cake Box layout. The lower half of the hostel’s walls are rendered and painted white, while the upper half is faced with red brick. 

 

Card and paper will be used for the building and scenery. Two different N scale red ‘brick’ papers have been downloaded from www.clevermodels.net and www.railwayscenics.com, and an orange ‘pantile’ roof paper from www.scalescenes.com. I need to check out more details about Swiss roofing tiles? Not sure if I have got the pitch of the roof right yet? Swiss Mountain chalets have a very gentle pitch to allow the snow to settle and provide a layer of insulation, while chalets lower down on the plain have a steeper pitch to ensure rainwater run-off.

 

Swiss vernacular chalets ref: http://iaste.berkeley.edu/pdfs/03.1e-Fall91Giberti-sml.pdf

 

Once the hostel model has been built, the rest of the landscape above the lake shoreline can be formed and detailed.

 

[Sweet pea]

Marly51 your modelling skills are really amazing and I like the fact you take the opportunity to research an area before beginning to model. 

I look forward to seeing more of your cakebox.

[Marly51]

3 hours ago, OOman said:

Marly51 your modelling skills are really amazing and I like the fact you take the opportunity to research an area before beginning to model. 

I look forward to seeing more of your cakebox.

 

Hi OOman, yes -  I quite enjoy finding out more about the subjects I plan to model, which means I take longer to produce the actual CakeBox diorama, as you may have noticed? Other forum members just get cracking with their projects from the word “Go”! I still have a lot to learn and enjoy following some of the topics here on RMWeb. :)

[grow45]

22 hours ago, Marly51 said:

HIghlight of one visit to Interlaken was the  visitor centre above the town, which we reached by rack railway. Here was a superb model railway, but not sure if it is still there today? I think this YouTube video might be that same model layout?

 

 

 

The model railway at Heimweflueh is still there.  The other one at Interlaken West Station has moved Meiringen but was only there from the 1980s so you'd not have seen it in 1963.

 

Brienz is one of my favorite places in Switzerland so looking forward to seeing the end result. 

Edited August 7, 2019 by grow45

[Marly51]

3 hours ago, grow45 said:

The model railway at Heimweflueh is still there.  The other one at Interlaken West Station has moved Meiringen but was only there from the 1980s so you'd not have seen it in 1963.

 

Brienz is one of my favorite places in Switzerland so looking forward to seeing the end result. 

 

Thanks for the update! I’d love to revisit Brienz sometime! My only two later trips to Switzerland were for skiing holidays, which did not involve any train travel, unfortunately! 

[Marly51]

Made a start on the model of Brienz Youth Hostel last night. The walls are still in sections, as I build up the different layers, in paper and card. Although only the shore view will be visible, I have decided to detail all sides of the building, in case I want to use it for a larger model later. I like to give myself extra work!  Will post more photos later.

 

Edited August 11, 2019 by Marly51

[Sweet pea]

Great modelling Marly51.

[Marly51]

I think 2mm scale is about the limit for my eyesight, then see what modellers manage to create in Z gauge!! For painting figures and working on really fine details, I have to use my husband’s OptiVisor head magnifier, but think I need to find a better quality device. I also have an excellent magnifying lens, with a flexible arm and heavy stand, which I inherited from a studio many moons ago! These YouTube videos help me focus on setting the scene for this cakebox!

 

 

[Marly51]

Ingres Pastel Paper

 

My daughter is clearing out some of the art materials she no longer uses, since finishing Art School. This A5 pad of Ingres Pastel Paper has a lovely range of muted neutral colours, which are ideal for anyone modelling in paper or card. I have found it very useflul for both scratchbuilding and kitbashing download paper kits.

 

 

 

 

[Marly51]

Following on from my previous post... Strangely enough one of the pages in this pad had my daughter’s visual for a first year project, which she ended up making in a boxfile, I think? I seem to remember it had the solitary house with  a line of telegraph poles crossing an empty landscape, and a black and white photograph of a forest as a backdrop. Could be almost Alpine?

 

Edited August 13, 2019 by Marly51

[Marly51]

Found her model! She couldn’t remember the ‘brief’ apart from there having to be at least two/three elements which were recycled or recyclable. The photograph was one her dad’s discarded prints, from some experimental work he did years ago. Think the abstract hill is various plastic tops covered in paper, telegraph poles from cocktail sticks and wire staples and corrugated card for the little cabin. It just needs a little circuit of HOe track!

 

Now I must get back to my own model....

 

PS The little models my daughter experimented with were usually intended as possible backdrops for short stop-frame animations. Now she is a an Illustrator for digital games, which is another ballgame entirely! 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2019 by Marly51

[PaulRhB]

I like the tree idea  

[Marly51]

 

We’ve had so much rain, that our grass is nearly a foot high, so spending a lot of time outdoors in the garden, which means I am usually pretty tired at the end of the day! This stage in building the hostel is a bit fiddly. I have used some ordinary white tissue for the curtains/window netting, just fixing it with the tiniest drops of glue at each corner, then painted the back of the tissue  with white acrylic. The window can then be  backed with a small piece of black paper or the window area on the wall painted black. I have purchased some platform fencing, from Model Railway Scenery, to cut down for the hostel balcony.

 

Once I start putting the building together I will build up the foundation and the remaining scenery. The shoreline has been detailed a little more using two grades of ballast. I will spray paint the whole base with gray, then paint on the foundation colours for the lake area and rest of the landscape.

 

 

Upper floor walls are a reddish brown brick, so this will be formed in the same way as the ground floor, with window openings, window detail, then each wall elevation finished off with sills, shutters, etc.

 

Edited August 14, 2019 by Marly51

[Sweet pea]

Hi Marly51 your daughters little layout looks really good even though it’s not finished, I think she takes after you when it come to great modelling. It would look nice with a small track.

Anyway back to your own layout which is coming along nicely, look forward to seeing the building built.

[Marly51]

Hi Kevin - Thank you for your kind comments! I just added a PS to that post, because her model will never see a railway track! She experimented with quite a few modelling techniques at Art School and would only have ever used this model as a backdrop for an animation, rather than a completed diorama. She has helped me in the past and will be creating two custom illustrated back-scenes for the larger layouts I have on the go! 

 

All the best, Marlyn

[Marly51]

With holidays and visitors, model making has slowed down to a standstill, over the last fortnight! Second floor of the hostel elevations with 17 tiny windows completed last night, so I can finally assemble the building and get on! Window shutters, sills and other details still to be added.

 

 

Edited September 3, 2019 by Marly51

[Sweet pea]

Great modelling as always Marlyn, will look forward to seeing the cakebox develope.

[Marly51]

This roof tiling ‘lark’ is a slow process! Can’t wait to get going with the scenery and rail embankment! For the window shutters, I found a section of pre-printed ‘green’ on some cereal box card, and a green pen from a cheap ‘poundshop’ set was the exact match to touch up the edges!

 

 

 

 

 

[Sweet pea]

Very nice work Marlyn, your work always inspires me.

[PaulRhB]

I hope you are inspired to include this into a layout next  

[47137]

On 27/07/2019 at 16:59, Marly51 said:

Sadly the ‘E-z Water’ has not worked.  The beads were fully melted, having been heated on the gas hob for over 5 minutes. It poured quite easily, but hundreds of tiny bubbles appeared, as I poured it into the lake area.  The  meniscus, PaulRhB warned me about, appeared too high for such a small model and I did not think I could disguise this edge successfully. I was able to prise the ‘plastic’ water off once it set. The base of the lake will be remoulded, then I’ll use my varnish or PVA method instead.  

 

(I still have 3/4 of the ‘E-z Water’ pack left and might experiment with it at a later date.)

It didn't work for me either - same problems and I scalded myself with the stuff too! I did have some success with Woodland Scenics "Realistic Water" but when I went back to its bottle some months later it had set solid. So I only used a small part of the product. This was for water about 1-2 mm deep. I was pleased with the effect but expensive for what I achieved.

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/55633-thread-shed/&do=findComment&comment=704237

 

- Richard.

 

[Marly51]

4 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

I hope you are inspired to include this into a layout next  

 

Maybe Paul! I am not fixing it permanently to the base, so that is always an option!

 

[Marly51]

53 minutes ago, 47137 said:

It didn't work for me either - same problems and I scalded myself with the stuff too! I did have some success with Woodland Scenics "Realistic Water" but when I went back to its bottle some months later it had set solid. So I only used a small part of the product. This was for water about 1-2 mm deep. I was pleased with the effect but expensive for what I achieved.

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/55633-thread-shed/&do=findComment&comment=704237

 

- Richard.

 

 

I agree Richard. Even my local model shop mentioned they thought these products were a bit on the expensive side. I’ll see how I get on with my older tried and tested method!

 

Marlyn

[Marly51]

Been very, very busy with lots of outdoor jobs and had to juggle modelling the two cakebox models in whatever spare time was left!
 

Some progress shots! Final shots of model to follow.

 

Baseboard scenery before varnishing the lake! The main surface areas were made from Gaugemaster ‘Gravel Mat’ and ‘Grass Mat’. The shoreline stones are a combination of gravel from my own garden paths and coarse ballast. A bit of weathering on the stones helps to bring out the details.

 

 

Before final painting and applying scenic materials, I like to give the whole base a light spray coat of grey, to see the different textures, without losing any of the small details.