Aston On Clun. A forgotten Great Western outpost.

[Alister_G]

Forgot to say, by the way, you've made a cracking job of the crossing-keepers house, and like you I prefer to have the chimneys solidly attached to the structure, rather than balanced on top of the roof afterwards.

 

Al.

[MrWolf]

Thanks, whilst the stringers for the goods shed steps were setting, I retrieved the house from downstairs and slathered a coat of raw brick red on it, actually Humbrol Matt 100 mixed with dirty thinners. If you break a Victorian brick, or the fired surface is spalled away by frost etc, this is the colour I see. I am leaving the inside of the porch as "whitewash flaking off damp bricks" which was the main reason for double skinning.

 

Oh and thanks for the link to Dexters cove for the chimney pots, they are bang on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 11, 2020 by MrWolf
PostScript!

[Barclay]

For crates, packing cases, cardboard boxes, Scale Model Scenery do some very nice laser cut stuff. I've not used these but I have had other things off them and they are excellent.

[MrWolf]

This morning's pre breakfast swearing session has resulted in getting the steps and handrails to the access door built. It might not look much, but it took two pairs of hands to get everything glued up and acceptably level.

Initially I couldn't see the point in buying a ready made length of stairs for such a short run - I do now!

 

Thanks for the tip on crates, ISTR @Mikkelmade some crates and boxes that looked the business on his blog.

 

[Gopher]

On 09/12/2020 at 08:14, MrWolf said:

Having been woken earlier than usual by that question men have been asking for millennia: "How can something so small and apparently fragile take up so much bed and defend that territory so well whilst apparently asleep?" 

I think in the early days of a relationship it is excused by the "I love you and want to be close to you".  As time goes on it becomes open warfare.  What always astounds me is if you decide to vacate the bed for even a second, your territory is lost, with not a hope in hell of reclaiming it.  Yes often accomplished when your female bed mate is allegedly in the land of nod.   

 

Buildings are looking great by the way.  I am always in awe of people who can scratch build buildings.  I can make a decent fist of a kit, but scratch building especially with Wills building sheets is always a challenge.           

[MrWolf]

I'm not complaining.....

 

In other news, I don't think it's so much where you start nowadays, there's some really good laser cut kits such as Petite Properties, it's how people finish and detail them that gives the result. Even the ready to plonk buildings can be taken to another level. 

If I can get my buildings to look half as convincing as yours on Dewchurch, then it's been worth the effort.

 

 

Edited December 11, 2020 by MrWolf
Stupid autocorrect

[MrWolf]

Remember these being given away? 

I needed a weighbridge hut that could pass for having been built at the same time as the crossing keepers house. I have had a look at the bits, but I would like the window in the middle of the front wall, the door towards the rear of the left-hand end and the chimney in the opposite corner.

You can see the beginnings of the latest bit of plastic kit massacre next to the packet.

 

 

I don't need all that many buildings for this layout at all. The most substantial is the crossing keepers house, for which I am waiting for slates to arrive in the post.

 

Below is a list of what they are and how I am planning on creating them.

 

Station building: Largely inspired by Vowchurch, with a small canopy. Built mostly from scratch.

 

Parcels / cycle shed: Wills pagoda with cut and shut Peco windows a la @chuffinghell

 

Signal box: Still undecided. Might see how well I get on butchering the Ratio one I have, if that fails I will refer back a couple of pages and get my hand in my pocket! 

 

Goods shed: In progress, much modified Wills kit. 

 

Weighbridge: Much modified Ratio yard office. Brass Pooley bridge from Wizard models.

 

Merchant's hut: Wills lines men's hut with Victorian window and roof finials / sign.

 

Feed store: Ex 4 wheeler PBV from scrap Tri-ang clearstory bodies.

 

Platelayer's hut: Coopercraft, been gathering dust since last century....

 

Corrugated garage / filling station: Slater's and Wills corrugated iron.

 

That's about it.

It suddenly sounds like an awful lot!

[NHY 581]

Morning Rob. 

 

Yes, it does sound like a lot but I can't wait.  Like the Gopher, I am in awe of anyone who can chop/hack/chainsaw Wills sheets into submission. 

 

Your efforts in respect of the crossing keepers hut are just sublime. I can't wait to see the finished article. That said, your efforts with the Wills good shed  a readily available and much utilised little item,  is producing a highly individual  building which will have people guessing at its origins.

 

Its having the vision to bring it all together and having the ability to convert than vision into reality. 

 

Really, really top stuff. 

 

 

Rob. 

[Captain Kernow]

10 hours ago, MrWolf said:

Station building: Largely inspired by Vowchurch, with a small canopy. Built mostly from scratch.

If you hadn't done so already, this would immediately have caught my attention.

 

Good fellow.

 

 

[MrWolf]

Thank you all for your words of encouragement, I really don't know what to say!

As for the Wills sheets, I think that they get a bad press, there are people who claim them to be over scale, but I like the rather irregular surface and detail, plus the availability of correct bonding patterns for Victoriana. To me, some of the embossed sheets look like the printed brick papers of forty years ago.

The trick is not to be too delicate and treat it as though it was metal or wood. Big files, razor saws, actual proper Stanley knives. It's easier to work with and quite hard to bu66er up. It's actually quite soft plastic, when cutting with a knife, make the first couple of strokes as though you were drawing a line with a pencil, then the cut won't wander.

 

I didn't start at stupid o'clock this morning, it's been a lazy one, compounded by "Indiana Jones and The Breakfast Of Doom" basically, RRH tipping the entire contents of the refrigerator into a pan. I should never have taught her how to show off cracking eggs with one hand... 

 

But about an hour ago, I recovered and got a bit done at the weighbridge after applying brick red and light stone paint to the goods shed. This may be avoidance behaviour on my part, because I am deliberating (read - procrastinating!) on how best to replicate the mellowed (grotty) brickwork in paint.

 

I have ended up remaking all four walls of the shed, partly because the features were in the wrong place, but also the whole lot is in stretcher bond. Ok for single skin walls or modern buildings. As they are also pretty thin, I have used them to cover the inside of the the walls. Waste not! 

Originally the plan was to simply paint the inside white and make a representation of the balance mechanism behind the window. 

Things soon got out of hand....

 

The chimney was extended down to floor level and a hearth slab fitted. The floor in such buildings was often diamond pattern brick flagstones. These extended outside the building and are represented by a bit of stretcher bond sheet intended for lining bridge arches. A notice board from an old Peco sprue and a concrete machine bed for the balance mechanism from a bit of texture off the same sprue.

After a number of irrefutable questions were raised regarding my sanity: ("Have you finally gone mad Bertie?") - a term of endearment reserved for taking the p*** ...

Followed by the far more practical observation that when in place on the layout, the window faces away from the viewer... I ended up cutting the door out of its moulded frame and turning it over to be hung from the left, so it will swing into the back wall and not obstruct the view of the weighing machine.

The chimney is raised up as per an example I saw somewhere and the bits of old wagon kit sprue will become stove and possibly bits of the balance mechanism. 

 

 

 

 

Me? Gone mad? What a beastly thing to suggest!!

 

[MrWolf]

Anybody who has ever tried to make anything will have come across the knock on effect of making changes.

I made a 'skin' for the inside of the front wall out of a bit of Slater's brick sheet, so easy to cut! The lack of relief compared to the Wills sheet won't matter under a coat of whitewash.

 

Dropping the rather nice Ratio window into the wall revealed another problem. The big ugly flange for location purposes will be very visible through the now open door!

 

 

In my experience, no decent sort of chap wants to be confronted with a big ugly flange... 

So it had to go. The window sits better in the aperture, I do have a little gap to fill though.

 

 

 

I now have a stove and a sort of desk / cupboard to make as well as the balance mechanism. I have instructed RRH that if I go any further, talk about going any further, or if she thinks that I am going any further, she is to hit me with a frying pan / rake / steam iron in a Tom & Jerry style. 

 

It's the kindest thing to do.

 

[Rowsley17D]

To prevent partner abuse there's plenty of signal box interior kits on the go including stoves etc. unless you're fixed on plastic bashing.

[Mikkel]

Lovely buildings.

 

Regarding interior detail madness. Now that my weighbridge is in place on the layout, I can see absolutely, totally, 100 procent nothing of the interior bits.

 

So do keep at it 

[chuffinghell]

People who put interiors into small spaces are a sandwich short of a picnic!

Therefore I modified a fire devil out of the Ratio water crane kit, moving the chimney.....

 

....to the back and adding a disc of plasticard as a hot plate....

 

 

....for Simons ‘s kettle

 

[MrWolf]

There's definitely something wrong with you lot....  

[Nick C]

18 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

There's definitely something wrong with you lot....  

You've only just realised? 

[MrWolf]

3 minutes ago, Nick C said:

You've only just realised? 

 

In my defence, it's difficult to see much, the window of this room is really high and has bars on it...

[chuffinghell]

7 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

 

In my defence, it's difficult to see much, the window of this room is really high and has bars on it...

I don’t have bars at the windows but I do have rubber wallpaper and a jacket with extra long arms 

[MrWolf]

Thanks all, @Rowsley17D, I have dig out a signal box interior kit to figure out lever frame lengths. I was tempted to rob the stove out of that, but I have no doubt I will go mad with the signal box when I build it, especially as it DOES face the front of the layout.

@Mikkel I too am confident that it will be impossible to see inside the building once completed. Should I add lighting in that case?? 

I think that it was your thread that I originally posted that picture of the Pooley balance mechanism which got me thinking... 

@chuffinghell What can I say? You are the instigator of this miniaturised madness...

[MrWolf]

RUBBER WALLPAPER???? 

 

You must have gone private...

 

NHS funny farm comes with damp flaking whitewash and a blue brick floor.

Handy as a visual aid when making Victorian buildings.

[Mikkel]

Just now, MrWolf said:

I think that it was your thread that I originally posted that picture of the Pooley balance mechanism which got me thinking... 

 

Yes, and thanks very much for that. I copied it directly. The thing is, once the windows are fitted you can only really look into these small structures if there is light from the side. Which layouts don't normally have. I left the door ajar, it wasn't enough but you could leave it wide open.

[MrWolf]

The plan is to leave the door wide open, hopefully that will allow the details to be seen. It has also been pointed out (by SWMBO) that she can say to visitors: "Have a look in that little doorway, THAT'S how mad he is..."

[Captain Kernow]

Half a pound of sausages.

 

What else can one say?

 

(On the stove, of course).

 

[MrWolf]

More bodging has created something that I think looks a bit like one of those flat topped "Romesse" stoves. Apart from the door, (5 thou plasticard) the whole thing is made from coupling adaptors from a Ratio open wagon. Bits that were headed for the bin.

 

 

 

The floor is Humbrol 67 tank grey, rubbed off slightly in the doorway and centre of the room, as the bricks do wear eventually, showing a reddish hue. Walls are stippled with slightly off GWR roof white.

 

 

 

I know that I said I wasn't going any further with the details, but if you have a stove pipe cutting into a chimney at 45 degrees, you need a soot door on the back to sweep the flue.

Which CAN be seen from the viewing side of the layout.

 

Right, I'm off down to the workshop to weld the handle back onto the frying pan....

 

 

 

Edited August 15, 2022 by MrWolf
Replaced picture

[Alister_G]

Well done Rob, don't take any notice of the naysayers, it's that sort of detail that lifts an already good model into the realms of perfection.

 

I'm sure the concussion will wear off after a while...

 

Al.