Mol's MSC Layout: "The Boysnope Bump"

[Mol_PMB]

When the current wagon and loco projects are completed I should be able to make a train very similar to that. I even have some Skytrex rod coil loads to go in the Highs. The translucent wagon sheets are interesting - not seen them before. 

[Andrew Young]

Over recent months I’ve rather neglected RMWeb whilst life got in the way of model making so had missed your threads on here until a friend put me on to them last week whilst discussing model matters in Tywyn. Your modelling is superb and I particularly like your nettles and RBWH, your keeping the layout simple and getting on with it is something that I should really take heed of in my own modelling.

[Mol_PMB]

Many thanks! 

Progress on the layout has slowed recently as I’ve been spending much of my free time at Boston Lodge working in 305mm:ft scale. That’s where I am now. 

I’ve also had several long days working at Newton Heath recently in the day job. 

My layout is set at this time of year, so I’ve been looking at the weeds and flowers in the long grass to get some ideas of what other plants I should be adding. Watch this space for some more vegetation in due course. 

 

[Mol_PMB]

I think today I’d rather be building my layout! It is impossibly hot to be driving. 

I am hiding in the shade while I have a moment’s downtime. 

 

The water cooler is very necessary:

[doilum]

On 22/07/2021 at 12:35, Mol_PMB said:

Many thanks! 

Progress on the layout has slowed recently as I’ve been spending much of my free time at Boston Lodge working in 305mm:ft scale. That’s where I am now. 

I’ve also had several long days working at Newton Heath recently in the day job. 

My layout is set at this time of year, so I’ve been looking at the weeds and flowers in the long grass to get some ideas of what other plants I should be adding. Watch this space for some more vegetation in due course. 

 

Question for the botanists: was ragwort as extensive as it is now?

[Sandhole]

10 minutes ago, doilum said:

Question for the botanists: was ragwort as extensive as it is now?

No it wasn't.
When I worked with horses, the first Ragwort plant seen, we all went into the pasture and dug the plants up and burnt them. Same when I worked milking cows.
They have not been controlled and have spread out of control.
The bloody stuff is a poisonous plague on the countryside.
Regards,
Chris.

 

[david65061]

5 hours ago, doilum said:

Question for the botanists: was ragwort as extensive as it is now?

It used to be removed as soon as it grew as it was poison to horses. When we were in the scouts we would pay for our weeks camping at a farm by removing it from a field and then chucking it in a river  as they did not want it in any of the fields.

[doilum]

We have horses hence the interest. Geography text books refer to it as Oxford Ragwort with a clear implication that the GWR was to blame! ( There was an A level section that looked at the human influence of bio geography). Now, as you say it is every where. Pulling and burning is the only safe method.

[Andrew Young]

10 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

I think today I’d rather be building my layout! It is impossibly hot to be driving. 

I am hiding in the shade while I have a moment’s downtime. 

 

The water cooler is very necessary:

Far too hot for that kind of thing at the moment. My last Talyllyn turn of my fortnight was a week ago today, too hot for me, it was high twenties then and it’s even hotter now! 

This week, driving tin rockets with air conditioned cabs has for once been more enjoyable than driving antique kettles. 
 

Andrew

[Mol_PMB]

14 hours ago, Andrew Young said:

Far too hot for that kind of thing at the moment. My last Talyllyn turn of my fortnight was a week ago today, too hot for me, it was high twenties then and it’s even hotter now! 

This week, driving tin rockets with air conditioned cabs has for once been more enjoyable than driving antique kettles. 
 

Andrew

I was struggling for a while, thinking 'I must know this person, but not by their real name'. Rabbit and Tickle have helped me work it out!

Mol

[Andrew Young]

9 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

I was struggling for a while, thinking 'I must know this person, but not by their real name'. Rabbit and Tickle have helped me work it out!

Mol

 

Ah yes, I’m the other Panda, the Southern Snowdonian variety who occasionally turns up at Port with Mr Martin. Btw, It was Mr Ribbands who pointed me in the direction of your modelling. It’s a small world.

Edited July 24, 2021 by Andrew Young

[Mol_PMB]

I've been out walking a lot this weekend, and photographing various plants that grow near the canal.

My layout is set at this time of year so it was good to see all the various plants, their colours and sizes in this season.

When looking at rough wasteland and grassland, the variety of species and colours is huge and I certainly need to incorporate some more of this variety on my canal bank.

Even when it's basically just grass, there are shades of green, brown and buff, with different heights and textures:

Some plants such as Ragwort, Dock and thistles stand out:

I will now make a batch of each type and plant them, I'll try to do some step-by-step guides for each, similar to the ones I've already done for nettles and rosebay willowherb:

First up will be cow parsley, here's a sneak preview of step 1...

[Sweet pea]

Mol I will be watching with interest as I'm needing some ideas of how to make your own plants.

[Mol_PMB]

I got distracted today by a trip on the Daniel Adamson. For those of you within striking distance of Cheshire, I can highly recommend this day out on a 1903 coal-fired steam tug complete with art deco saloon and a well-stocked bar. 

https://www.thedanny.co.uk

 

[Mol_PMB]

Right, back to the Cow Parsley step-by-step guide.

 

For those of you who have ever used Sea Moss, or 'Forest in a Box', you know you always end up with some little bits that fall off, or get trimmed when shaping a tree. Those are the raw material for Cow Parsley.

In reality it's quite a tall plant when it flowers, can be 4' to 7' high. The leaves are down near the bottom and tend to get lost in the undergrowth. So I tend to plant it in an area that already has some low grass or vegetation.

When they have new flowers in early July, they look white close-up, but from a distance slightly greenish:

By late July they have pale green seed-heads, and into August they go a bit brownish.  This one was taller than me:

 

Step 1: take your sea moss offcuts. Also take some Peco track pins (or could be dressmaking pins) with their heads cut off. Superglue the pin to the side of the main stem of the sea moss. This is the most fiddly bit of the whole process, but it's important to give you a way of handling and planting the cow parsley; it also increases the height which is good as this is a tall plant:

Now, paint them a mid green, ideally with a slightly greyish shade. I mixed a couple of Tamiya colours and sprayed them, but it's not too critical:

Now, select a scatter material for the flowers. I had a few different options from the Green Scene 'blossom' packs, and I used the pale green one (on the right of this photo) as the white seemed too bright.

Now, prepare a small amount of dilute PVA, maybe 70% PVA and 30% water, in a shallow pot like a milk carton lid.

Pick up a sea moss piece and dunk the upper parts of it in the PVA. I probably got a bit too much glue on this example, but it's not too critical, and some can be shaken off. Try to avoid too much glue on the stems:

Next, dunk the sea moss in the chosen scatter material:

Repeat for many stems:

Let them dry.

 

When planting, I make a small hole in the scenery (small drill or just push in a pin). I put a small piece of wire in it temporarily so I don't 'lose' the hole among the grass.

Then pick up the clump of cow parsley, put a good blob of glue on its pin (I use Copydex) and then plant it in the hole. Job done!

 

For the next installment, I may do Dock or Ragwort..,

 

[Sandhole]

Just now, Mol_PMB said:

Right, back to the Cow Parsley step-by-step guide.

 

For those of you who have ever used Sea Moss, or 'Forest in a Box', you know you always end up with some little bits that fall off, or get trimmed when shaping a tree. Those are the raw material for Cow Parsley.

In reality it's quite a tall plant when it flowers, can be 4' to 7' high. The leaves are down near the bottom and tend to get lost in the undergrowth. So I tend to plant it in an area that already has some low grass or vegetation.

When they have new flowers in early July, they look white close-up, but from a distance slightly greenish:

By late July they have pale green seed-heads, and into August they go a bit brownish.  This one was taller than me:

 

Step 1: take your sea moss offcuts. Also take some Peco track pins (or could be dressmaking pins) with their heads cut off. Superglue the pin to the side of the main stem of the sea moss. This is the most fiddly bit of the whole process, but it's important to give you a way of handling and planting the cow parsley; it also increases the height which is good as this is a tall plant:

Now, paint them a mid green, ideally with a slightly greyish shade. I mixed a couple of Tamiya colours and sprayed them, but it's not too critical:

Now, select a scatter material for the flowers. I had a few different options from the Green Scene 'blossom' packs, and I used the pale green one (on the right of this photo) as the white seemed too bright.

Now, prepare a small amount of dilute PVA, maybe 70% PVA and 30% water, in a shallow pot like a milk carton lid.

Pick up a sea moss piece and dunk the upper parts of it in the PVA. I probably got a bit too much glue on this example, but it's not too critical, and some can be shaken off. Try to avoid too much glue on the stems:

Next, dunk the sea moss in the chosen scatter material:

Repeat for many stems:

Let them dry.

 

When planting, I make a small hole in the scenery (small drill or just push in a pin). I put a small piece of wire in it temporarily so I don't 'lose' the hole among the grass.

Then pick up the clump of cow parsley, put a good blob of glue on its pin (I use Copydex) and then plant it in the hole. Job done!

 

For the next installment, I may do Dock or Ragwort..,

 

This is superb work, my friend.
Curses, the devil's plant will make an appearance on 'The Bump' will it?
Those wagons are works of art, fantastic!
Regards,
Chris.

[Sweet pea]

Mol I agree with Chris, superb work. I like the step by step guide to your flower making.

[Mol_PMB]

Encouraged by your kind feedback, I have another installment of weeds!

 

This evening we start with Dock. In spring this is a low-growing broad-leaved plant that you would barely notice. It often grows near stinging nettles which is handy because Dock leaves naturally soothe nettle stings.

But in late July, it sends up tall flower spikes which start off a mix of dark red and green, and then turn more uniform brown. Even among long grass they are very distinctive:

The ingredients for Dock are plant stems and fine brown scatter. In retrospect I wonder if this shade of brown is a little too pale, or if I should have mixed in another darker colour. Maybe I will if I do another batch.

Cut each plant stem into two lengths, give yourself a bit of variety in the length. Then prepare another little pot of slightly diluted glue (70% PVA, 30% water).

Dunk just the top part of the stem in the glue - maybe one third of the total length:

Then dunk in the scatter material:

You should now have one of these:

Make lots more, many more than you think you need as this stuff tends to grow in clumps (I need to make some more myself):

Let them dry before planting in clumps. Make small holes in the scenery and plant them in with a blob of Copydex or PVA. Here are some of mine:

They don't stand out quite as much as some of the real ones, which is why I am thinking about using a darker shade of brown scatter. But they capture the general appearance pretty well.

[Mol_PMB]

As a follow-up, here's the Ragwort which uses a very similar technique.

Ragwort has big clusters of bright yellow flowers above relatively dark green leaves, so it really stands out among the summer grass. It is poisonous to horses, so in former years was actively eradicated from pastures.

However, in my run-down 1960s on the waste ground of the canal bank, I expect there would be some Ragwort. There most certainly is on the canal banks now!

Here's a photo on canalside waste ground:

Here's a closeup of a couple of stems:

The technique is the same as for the Dock, with a couple of tweaks. Firstly, Ragwort isn't so tall, so most of the stems can be cut into three rather than two.

Secondly, dunk the stems so that most of their length is in the glue, and then dip them in mid or dark green scatter:

Leave those to dry.

Then it's time to add the flowers. Dip just the top end of the stem in the glue again:

And then dip in yellow scatter:

You should end up with something like this:

...hopefully more than one!

Plant them in the scenery as before, as individual stems or small clumps:

 

There will be some more plants in due course...

[Sweet pea]

Mol even when I think I have seen it all, it just keeps getting better. 

I'm looking forward to using some of your step by step flower making.

[Andrew Young]

Really enjoying the horticultural tips, certainly adding some colour to your layout. 

[sb67]

That cow parsley looks superb and has got me thinking about how to replicate the weeds that are seen growing on rough ground. Looking forward to seeing more. 

[doilum]

Excellent work. Perhaps need far more of the ragwort. It is one of those plants that tends to be be either absent or rampant. I look out on a sea of the stuff that wasn't there last year.

[Mol_PMB]

If anyone doubts why I need a colourful canal bank, here’s a photo I took this evening about half a mile along from Boysnope, in an area that was cleared of all trees, shrubs and undergrowth back in March. 

 

 

It’s a busy week on the upper reaches of the canal - 3 ships in the last 2 days, and another 2 en route. 

[Ruston 48DS]

Mol this is a pictures that shows you after many years of heavy industry, nature has a way shinning through.

Thank you for sharing.