Balley-yn-Eas

[Chris Williamson]

Clamping in operation!

 

[Chris Williamson]

More clamping as progress continues.  The joints between the limewashed stonework sheets will be fettled to make them disappear once they've had a few weeks to fully harden.

 

[Chris Williamson]

With GGR Santa Trains and the Boxing day Mince Pie Trains done, there's been more time to work on the current building project.

 

[Chris Williamson]

The front slate roof on the building is too long to be cut from a single sheet of Wills roofing.  On the Mines workshop and offices I made the mistake of jointing the sheets in situ.  By luck and good fortune it was possible to work on the joint to disguise it.  However the process involved a lot of very slow and delicate work that risked ruining the build thus far.  Lesson learnt: all future joints to be made prior to fitting!  This is still a very laborious process.  But, at the worst, only the sheets in question have been spoilt.

 

First, cut to achieve the best match possible between the two edges.

 

 

Apply sufficient solvent to achieve a good welded joint with the application of a degree of pressure.

 

 

Using some scrap material, splint on the back allowing clearance for attachment to the structure of the building.

 

 

Once the joint has fully hardened (allow at least a couple of weeks for this) carefully level the rows of tiles across the joint with a needle file.

 

 

Using the back of a sharp knife blade or whatever your favourite scribing tool is, very, very carefully recreate any tile details lost as a result of the levelling work.  Patience is required for this stage of the proceedings and it is as well to have other jobs on the go at the same time to preserve sanity.  This is going to take a while to complete.

 

 

 

Edited January 13 by Chris Williamson

[Chris Williamson]

Meanwhile, one of the other jobs to maintain sanity:  a frame around which the curved corrugated roof can be formed and fixed.  Following my earlier experiment, I'd determined this needs to be substantial.  Out came the stock of 60 thou plasticard.

 

 

There are two unintentional minor upsets in the way I've executed the overall build.  The first is that the 'new' corrugated structure overlaps the 'old' building.  So the curved roof is going to have to be formed to overlap the slate roof at the junction between the two elements.

 

 

The other upset is that the width of the corrugated structure has dictated that the length of the arc circumference is a good few millimetres longer than the depth of a Wills sheet.  So two sheets had to be jointed.  That said, the overlaps in the moulding of the individual corrugated sheets are consequently correct on both sides of the apex.

 

A lot of time has been spent scoring the back of the roof to allow it to be flexed to shape on the frame.

 

 

Fingers crossed this can be fitted without messing it up!  The slate roof will need to be fixed first to allow the overlap between the two to be formed accurately.

 

 

[Chris Williamson]

The slate roof is all but completed.  Construction of the boiler house chimney has been the other sanity task while completing the fettling on the roof.  This will need fixing to the building structure prior to fixing the roof.  As always, the small details proved most time consuming.  The regular blockwork castellated chimney top has twenty individual components in its makeup.

 

 

 

[Chris Williamson]

An unexciting photograph, but a milestone none-the-less:  the front slate roof is finally fettled and ready for fitting.  A coat of primer will hide the scratches and scuffs at which point it should be almost impossible to discern exactly where the joint is.

 

[Fair Oak Junction]

Very nice job, hiding joins can be a pain at the best of times! 😄

[Chris Williamson]

It's all coming together nicely, though there's still much to do.

 

 

[Chris Williamson]

Another distraction from the ongoing building project.  Working on some new fittings for the GGR replica 4-wheeler coaches.  The Unimat 3 was purchased by my father some 40 years ago.  He then upgraded to something more substantial with the Unimat being passed on to my late brother.  I managed to reclaim it while clearing his house a couple of years ago.  I now have to relearn the art of setting up and using a lathe and mill.  I recall that accurate setup is always the hard and slow part of the job.  Once that's done, the rest is easy.  This time, I only need to use it as a clever pillar drill.

 

[Chris Williamson]

Anyway, back to the build.  Some Evergreen strip used to form the ridge tiles.  The curious arrangement of the roof where the big chimney meets the ridge was tricky to replicate,

 

 

 

[Chris Williamson]

Another laborious process ongoing: blending the edges of the Wills slate walling sheets where they join.  Having added buttresses to support a wooden walkway built out over the river, there's a good number to deal with.

 

Where possible, I've avoided placing the raw edge on the front face.  The adjoining faces have also been cut from a continuous strip wherever possible.  In this way there's a degree of alignment in the stonework courses.  Plastic putty has been used to fill gaps and form mortar flaunching on the stepping of the buttressing, etc.

 

 

Work in progress at the bottom of the photo.  A sharp blade to start.  Occasional use of a wedge shaped needle file where needed.  An old toothbrush to burnish out any debris and obvious file marks.

 

 

One end completed.  With luck, the joints will be all-but invisible once painted.

 

[Chris Williamson]

Today: the job I have been dreading; it was time to put the corrugated roof on!

 

First a paper template.  Then very careful trimming of the previously made up roof through a series of very fine reductions with a test fit between each.  Given how hard it was to accurately hold the otherwise flat roof in place around the curved formers, each cut was checked, double-checked and then checked at least another couple of times to be quite sure of the alignment.  I also roundly cursed my oversight in allowing the design to have the corrugated shed overlap the stone building.

 

With the roof cut to final size the edges were chamfered to reduce the apparent thickness of the Wills sheets and then the underside of the corrugations formed along the length of the roof.  A little knife blade nick under the apex of the upper surface of each corrugation followed by a light touch with the 'sharp' edge of an oval profile needle file did the job.  Combined with the chamfer, this gives a convincing impression of the edge of a sheet of corrugated iron.

 

Finally, the critical step.  Sh*t or B*st really.  Get this wrong and the build is ruined.  A deep breath, an open window and work quickly.

 

The back of the roof was liberally coated in cement / solvent and left to soften.  A coat of the same was then quickly applied to the roof framework / former.  Wasting as little time as possible the roof was aligned onto the framework and pressed it into place with both hands.  With no other way of clamping the job, I then spent the next hour or so desperately clutching the build to my chest with both hands pressing the roof into place.  A lot of pressure was require to keep all of the roof curved and in contact with the frame and the edges of the existing corrugated sides.  I was very glad, indeed, that framework had been so robustly made and that the structure of that end of the build is as strong as it is.  This is not the most delicate or elegant of ways to roof a model building.

 

I've struggled to get the camera to focus, so here are some slightly dubious photos to give you an idea of the end result.  Whatever, I'm please and will sleep well tonight. Next up, the fill-in pieces to go under the roof at each end.

 

 

 

 

[Keith Addenbrooke]

Hi @Chris Williamson - you held it in place for an hour!  You put me to shame: I give up after ten minutes holding parts in place hoping the glue will stick.  I’m currently re-doing a building that failed QC first time round because I wasn’t careful / patient enough.  Reading your post made me feel guilty enough to go and check on progress - any bits that hadn’t set were addressed with superglue.  Very impressed, Keith.

[Chris Williamson]

18 hours ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Hi @Chris Williamson - you held it in place for an hour!  You put me to shame: I give up after ten minutes holding parts in place hoping the glue will stick.  I’m currently re-doing a building that failed QC first time round because I wasn’t careful / patient enough.  Reading your post made me feel guilty enough to go and check on progress - any bits that hadn’t set were addressed with superglue.  Very impressed, Keith.

@Keith AddenbrookeI really had no choice!  Every time I relaxed the pressure the roof wanted to unstick and revert to a flat sheet. I'd to sit tight until the solvent had completely hardened and the weld was solid.  Even then I kept a close eye for a while.

[Chris Williamson]

Work has started on the fill-in pieces.

 

First, a better view of the treatment of the edge.  This looks a bit crude in closeup and from below.  The effect is convincing from the side or above.

 

 

The fiddly bit: cutting to size.

 

 

Checking the fit.

 

 

One end done.

 

 

 

[Chris Williamson]

The major structure of the Long Dry is complete.  A pause, now, while I think about the walkway to the door in the corrugated part of the building.  Window frames are still troubling me, too.  I've seen a small combined laser and blade cutter advertised that I'm contemplating.  Hmmm...

 

Meanwhile, a somewhat experimental leap into new territory.  The mine's loco shed is based on the one that stood at Peel.  Can I convincingly set brick detail into slate walling sheet?  This isn't going to be quick and I've accepted that a degree of filler is going to be needed.  Nonetheless, the joints need to be as tight as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

[Chris Williamson]

A bit more progress this week.

 

Making brick window arches.

 

 

Forming the full depth of the window recesses and adding window ledges.

 

 

Trial fit against the original carboard mock-up.

 

 

Next, to apply filler where needed and tidy up the brickwork on the joints in the recesses.

 

[Chris Williamson]

Loco shed progress:

 

 

 

[Chris Williamson]

As always, the small details are the most time consuming to build.  At a rough count, around 50 individual pieces make up this ventilator.  Then there's a second one to follow this one.  Thinning Wills slate roofing was an interesting and inescapable exercise.

 

Second half of the ventilator roof still to be installed.

 

 

The basis of the top chimney in place.  I'm still considering how to construct the tiny pitched slate capping. 

 

[Keith Addenbrooke]

1 hour ago, Chris Williamson said:

 I'm still considering how to construct the tiny pitched slate capping. 

 

 

 

Hi Chris, if I might make a suggestion, one way would be to use a jig - perhaps from thick plasticard or wooden coffee stirrers glued together to form an inverted L bracket on the workbench (or maybe just stiff cardboard creased to the desired angle). Make the small slate roof on that, then transfer it to the model.  If it doesn’t work first time (I’m sure mine wouldn’t) then no damage is done to the model.  Just a thought, Keith.

 

 

Edited February 28 by Keith Addenbrooke

[Mike Buttell]

Peel loco shed was such a charming building, why on earth they had to knock it down, but leave the water tower in place I just don’t know. 

Edited February 29 by Mike Buttell

[Chris Williamson]

10 hours ago, Mike Buttell said:

Peel loco shed was such a charming building, why on earth they had to knock it down, but leave the water tower in place I just don’t know. 

It is a shame given that all the other buildings survived up to the point of being built over by MNH.  Better still, if only we still had the whole line from Douglas to Peel instead of just a part of it in your shed!

[Chris Williamson]

Well, @Keith Addenbrooke in part gave me an idea and in part confirmed an idea.  Close inspection of the best two photos I have of Peel shed reveal small timbers on the underside of the slates on the chimney capping.  If only I could reproduce these I'd have a jig of sorts.

 

This was first cut out as a much larger 'V' shape to get the correct angles.  It was trimmed to size and shape once the angles were confirmed to be correct.

 

 

With two identical supports made, I 'castellated' the top of  the chimney to leave matching verticals and then carefully attached the new pieces.

 

 

 

 

All that remains is to add a couple of squares of thinned Wills slate roof.  Watch this space.