FulhamTim Posted October 14, 2020 Share Posted October 14, 2020 I retired in January and having completed/progressed the list of tasks I have time to start for the umpteenth time a layout. Earlier attempts have failed at various stages due to work commitments - I start then ended up with a new job. This time interruptions will be tasks set by my wife (which occurred about 8 weeks into retirement with a decorating project (which included stripping the walls back to brick and replumbing hot/cold and CH)). The basics: 7mm S7 layout of Bodiam Station in Kent (part of the Kent and East Sussex branch line). As a full-size exact depiction. That is not as mad as it sounds because the whole layout, including entry and exit boards is about 25 feet – luckily my little brother has a large workshop with a mezzanine so I will eventually be able to set up the whole layout there, although he does not know that yet. The operating area is about 12 feet I choose Bodiam because we often went to Bodiam Castle as a child and I did the same with my children; my mother took a school friend and me on the railway in the early 70s, and I remember when Dulux painted the station for their advert. I chose the 1950s because the maternal members of the family talked of the hop picking and it seems an interesting time. Below is the track plan. I have used a plan of the station obtained from the National Railway Museum as the base and then used Templot to set out the track. I am adding details from photographs I found on the internet (and have bought) as I go along. Other than the track plan I have put together the first two baseboards. I have used the standard 9mm birch ply frame with the infill blocks for the sides made up from 9mm ply glued together. I have diverted from the normal by using 4mm ply for the outer edge of the beams, added another taller piece to cover the beam and provide the profile of the ground (you can see this on the second board where I had not sanded the tops level. Another piece of 4mm ply is then fitted on the inside of the top edge above the 9mm ply top to form a rebate. This should give even greater rigidity to the board and stop any movement. I suspect from an engineering view this is massively over engineered for the weight etc, but I won’t be building another model so it will need to last my lifetime. I have started to build the track. My intention is to use the first board as a test run of techniques. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I will be able to get the groundwork started and the track fitted on this board. 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul H Vigor Posted October 14, 2020 Share Posted October 14, 2020 Do I recall seeing several bee hives in Bodiam goods yard? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nearholmer Posted October 14, 2020 Share Posted October 14, 2020 (edited) Excellent choice of location! Will the view be down-hill across the valley to the castle, or up-hill from the river? I shall watch with great interest, and imagine I’m there. Edited October 14, 2020 by Nearholmer Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted October 14, 2020 Share Posted October 14, 2020 My in laws live close by and I do enjoy watching the trains run. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted October 14, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 14, 2020 And not that far, by car, from the Woodcock at Iden Green.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
FulhamTim Posted October 14, 2020 Author Share Posted October 14, 2020 4 hours ago, Nearholmer said: Excellent choice of location! Will the view be down-hill across the valley to the castle, or up-hill from the river? I shall watch with great interest, and imagine I’m there. Thank you - Up from the river. My wife asked me if I was modelling the castle as well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
burgundy Posted October 14, 2020 Share Posted October 14, 2020 Once did an archaeological dig just in front the station, looking for traces of the Roman naval base on the Rother. Hard to imagine now. Best wishes Eric 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwr Posted October 15, 2020 Share Posted October 15, 2020 Bodiam was the subject of challenge Aneka back in the day Paul R Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted October 15, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 15, 2020 1 minute ago, pwr said: Bodiam was the subject of challenge Aneka back in the day Paul R I thought that, but research seemed to think it was Northiam. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwr Posted October 15, 2020 Share Posted October 15, 2020 Yes I think you are right. It was good fun programme though even if KESR did get the track down first and removed it for the programme - or at least that's what was claimed at the time Paul R Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRASinBothell Posted October 15, 2020 Share Posted October 15, 2020 I recall a day spent at either Bodiam or Northiam station in the mid-1960s, when I was in the Army Cadet Force at school. The railway was, er, in hibernation at the time, and the exercise was to defend the station against some imaginary invaders, so we spent the day sitting there with rifles at the ready, or visiting a nearby hostelry! Gordon 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Hal Nail Posted October 17, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted October 17, 2020 On 15/10/2020 at 16:51, GRASinBothell said: the exercise was to defend the station against some imaginary invaders What like GWR? 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
burgundy Posted October 17, 2020 Share Posted October 17, 2020 2 hours ago, Hal Nail said: What like GWR? 2 hours ago, Hal Nail said: What like GWR? Difficult to imagine now, but the 1960s were the height of the cold war and there was still a legacy fear of invasion. I can remember a civil defence exercise, in which we were bussed to a railhead (aka Sheffield Park), to be evacuated to somewhere remote and safe (Horsted Keynes), fed and then bussed back home. Best wishes Eric Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
FulhamTim Posted October 17, 2020 Author Share Posted October 17, 2020 5 hours ago, burgundy said: Difficult to imagine now, but the 1960s were the height of the cold war and there was still a legacy fear of invasion. I can remember a civil defence exercise, in which we were bussed to a railhead (aka Sheffield Park), to be evacuated to somewhere remote and safe (Horsted Keynes), fed and then bussed back home. Best wishes Eric The public information films on what to do in the event of a nuclear bomb. Mad times. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRASinBothell Posted October 17, 2020 Share Posted October 17, 2020 The Army Cadet Force at school was more like a large-scale version of playing with toy soldiers - an excuse to run around the countryside carrying rifles and firing blanks... No real fears - just an opportunity to play soldiers! Gordon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
FulhamTim Posted October 17, 2020 Author Share Posted October 17, 2020 1 hour ago, GRASinBothell said: The Army Cadet Force at school was more like a large-scale version of playing with toy soldiers - an excuse to run around the countryside carrying rifles and firing blanks... No real fears - just an opportunity to play soldiers! Gordon Ours was the same. It was great fun. H&S today would have a fit if they had been around then. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
FulhamTim Posted October 21, 2020 Author Share Posted October 21, 2020 (edited) Not sure if anyone else has the same issue but I have been building the underlying structure for the scenery. I drew up the profile for the first two boards: Then I started to stick the CraftFoam down. I bought 3mm sheets (it costs the same by volume so this seemed the least wasteful). Disaster. Having looked on the internet PVA glue seemed to be (odd in my mind) choice for sticking it down. Not very successful. Tried contact adhesive - beautiful melted mass. Then spray contact adhesive. It worked but made a dreadful mess. I have a quantity of P45 polyurethane glue and that was ok, but an expensive option. Then I found this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCIYMVOMBso. Of the two he suggests 3M Super 77 is very expensive, and given my experience of the other spray adhesive cannot face that. So I have ordered some tubes of the Gorrilla glue from Screwfix. I'll collect them tomorrow and have another go at the base. Hopefully tomorrow I might have some really bad photos of a beautiful baseboard. Edited October 21, 2020 by FulhamTim I cannot spell !!! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emsy Posted October 21, 2020 Share Posted October 21, 2020 Thank you for posting your new build. Some years ago I visited Bodiam and enjoyed the atmosphere of a quiet country station. As a fellow retiree and 0 gauge modeller I'll follow your progress with interest. David 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
FulhamTim Posted October 22, 2020 Author Share Posted October 22, 2020 (edited) Does everyone else find they never achieve as much as they hope? Anyway, removed yesterday's disaster of a foam landscape structure: Not pretty, but I learnt from this so that is good - isn't it? I re pre cut all the pieces and set them out ready for gluing I have laid the large pieces of foam with contact adhesive (from Screwfix) and I had much better control this time. I treated it as paint rather than glue so it has gone where it should. They are weighted down now. Tomorrow I will glue the pieces cut for the low bank (in front of the track) and the bank that rises behind the track with Gorilla glue. That is in a silicone type tube so I should have much better control. Once it is all glued down I can start to shape the foam ready for the clay covering. I am using Foam Clay because it is light weight and seems to work very well - I have been following some of the Warmers/Military modellers on YouTube and they seem to have landscape down to a fine art. More pictures on Saturday hopefully. Edited October 22, 2020 by FulhamTim Grammer :-( Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Thomas Posted October 22, 2020 Share Posted October 22, 2020 Such a lovely project which I shall certainly be following with much interest. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitpw Posted October 22, 2020 Share Posted October 22, 2020 I followed the link to your website and I'm impressed by your research and clear and tidy approach to modelling Bodiam. I look forward with interest to following its development (glue disasters included!), particularly as it's 7mm. Kit PW https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/blog/2502-swan-hill/ 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
FulhamTim Posted October 24, 2020 Author Share Posted October 24, 2020 Friday was good. The spray adhesive had worked and the gorilla glue was easy to apply. As you can see the foam shaped well and should provide a good base for the covering. The one issue I did find was that the hot wire foam cutter I have would not cut through the dried glue. I had to use a stanley blade and sand paper. I need to buy a modelling knife with a long blade to shape the foam. Hopefully buying thicker foam will be easier as well. While working on the boards in the shed I did think that my construction method would be an expensive option, but my aim is to make the boards as light as possible. I should explain that my hope is to paint and then flock directly onto the main flat areas. A box of CraftFoam https://www.panelsystems.co.uk/product/craftfoam-blue is just over £51 (pus VAT) for 300 *600*600 (irrespective of thickness). Glue is much more expensive so I will buy a box of thicker foam - probably 10mm. This seems to be a reasonable balance, especially as the wider 2nd board will require quite a large area about 30mm thick. I had bought some Foam Clay but it was the wrong type (it has small polystyrene beads). I did not realise until I had started to use it. I will see what happens when it dries but not sure it will be much use - I will probably use it to form shapes before covering with the correct type of foam clay (see below). I have reordered Foam Clay for sculpting the remaining landscape. Overall I hope this will be lighter than say ModRoc etc. I subscribe to a WarGamer on YouTube called LukeApps. He has his own website https://www.geekgaming.co.uk and he was quite impressed with the FoamClay for creating light weight gaming tables, which of course they have to lug about and apparently suffer quite a lot of abuse. I am going to spend the next few days setting down the Templot track templates and laying the track. So more pictures next Wednesday (if I put in a date then I have to find the time to progress the model). Keep safe everyone, and thanks for the positive comments. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobslob Posted October 24, 2020 Share Posted October 24, 2020 Shall be watching with interest, as i live in Northiam. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
FulhamTim Posted November 2, 2020 Author Share Posted November 2, 2020 Irritatingly life continues to get in the way of modelling. I have made progress but not sufficiently to offer some of my very bad photographs - I am waiting for the track ballast to dry (it appears that my shed, even with heat, has a relatively high humidity). However, as a slight digression I was conscious that we spend hours checking where each rivet should be but do we spend as much time researching the permanent way? Anyway with my OCD switched to full I have been researching what size ballast would be accurate (apologies if this is covered elsewhere). I found this article from Coventry UniversityRail_ballast_technical_data.pdf. Ballast is unlikely to be any bigger than an inch in diameter (<0.5mm in 0 gauge) unless modern mechanically tamped. Looking at the Woodland Scenics website they provide a scale reference chart. As you can see the Woodland Scenics Fine ballast is better suited to O scale, although even then is slightly over scale. I could not find the Woodland Scenics Fine ballast easily so bought 1kg bag of Fine ballast from World War Scenics (WWS) . This is finer than the Woodland Scenics Medium so I am using this for the main track areas. I intend to use finer mix of ballast for the station and siding. War World Gaming do fine sand that I will mix with the WWS fine ballast. Below is a picture of the track in Bodiam station during my period. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
47606odin Posted November 2, 2020 Share Posted November 2, 2020 I used woodland scenics medium ballast for OO, it looks about right Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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