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Eastwood Town - A tribute to Gordon's modelling.


gordon s
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3 hours ago, gordon s said:

Hi Phil, glad to hear you're OK. I did wonder if you had moved abroad as I'm sure you mentioned that years ago. More than happy to do Wetherspoons, but unless there's some smoky things about, I'll stay with the beer option......

 

Give me a little time and we could have a running session here. Never thought I'd be able to say that.....:D

 

I'll even get my good lady to rustle up a curry....

 

Cheers Gordon, be good to catch up. 

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Some lovely ballasting there, Gordon. I know this way is hard work and it's far too late to tell you I use the Coachmann glue - lay track - ballast all in one go method, but yours is far better than the "wet" method. 

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Looking very neat and tidy ' the ballasting that is ' could I suggest a change of radio station for this particular work ....maybe ' Planet Rock ' I find it makes the job whizzzzzz by at great speed :jester:

So glad you are pushing ahead with this excellent layout all your hard work is really coming together now 

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I do use Coachman’s method on point work as I was totally fed up gumming up the works with all other methods I had tried. Visually there is a difference, with the CK method looking as though the track is buried in the ballast whereas the Coachman method works really well, but gives an impression the turnout is floating on top of the ballast.

 

If you look at the station approach pic, you can see the difference in colour between the two methods. I deal with this by second stage working of painting PVA and adding more ballast down the outside edges, leaving the inner workings untouched. Of course I also add the power feeds which means repainting parts of the sleepers/rails where power feeds have been attached to the turnouts.

 

Truth is there’s no shortcut to ballasting. Switch on the radio and sing along. You can’t listen for more than an hour, so it’s a good time to stop and do something else.

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Hi Gordon

 

I have been lurking off and on your thread for years but never felt competent to comment when you were building all that lovely track and taking it apart again!

 

The ballast looks great as one would expect.

 

You ask about tarmac...I use multiple washes of various shades of grey acrylic and brush over weathering powder to provide texture and wear.....oil and tyre marks etc. I paste on strips of similarly treated paper to replicate repairs......you rarely see tarmac  uninterrupted as originally laid......strips also hide joins

 

I have used Scalescene papers....they are quite effective but they are also very useful as a shade guide

 

Kind regards

 

John

 

ps Thanks again for the turntable advice last year. It is brilliant.

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Glad to hear your Fleishmann turntable mods worked out OK, John.  They are pretty bulletproof and work really well.

 

On an earlier version of ET, I did use Scalescenes paper, so thanks for reminding me as I’d forgotten. It looked fine, but wasn’t hard wearing as printed. No doubt spraying it with varnish would have helped, but I never got round to it. Certainly as a colour guide it would be helpful, so maybe I’ll print out some more and use it for paint shading. The issue with Tarmac is that repairs tend to be uniform blocks and more often than not are black when new. It’s one of those things that looks normal in real life, but strange on a model.

 

Just found this from Kathy Millatt.....Although for a road, the principles are very similar......

 

 

 

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Heart claim they play 'more music variety.' Different shows play basically the same tracks just in a different order. Like Sir Humphrey they get rid of the difficult bit in the title, Almost anything else is better.

 

Martyn

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For “Inkerman Street”, they used a blue-grey paint and sprinkled it with talcum powder, patting it down with fingers, to create tarmac. The patting down varies the texture and colour density.

If nothing else, it would make the station area smell nice for a while.

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Gordon..classical music or Argo steam locomotive sounds are required for blasting. It is very therapeutic!

Big problem with gluing track and ballast down together is no time to test everything is properly aligned (been there have the wound stripe.)

Ballasting on Grantham uses diluted pva/washing up liquid placed between the sleepers with a paint brush then add ballast carefully, removing any excess.

Graham used peco foam for the mainline es on Grantham and Shap so ballasting is only required on goods lines etc (there is still a lot of it!).

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Thanks Barry. I use the same method as Grantham, with pva painted on with a tiny paintbrush. Just on the finishing straight with probably an hour to go to finish off the ballasting on these two boards and then I can look at walls and bridges once the platforms are done.

 

Took a break from ballasting today and am currently building the bay platform. With something like 40 pieces of platform edging to modify by removing all the backing projections, it may take a while...:D

 

Everything takes so bloomin' long...

 

Whilst waiting for the glue to dry, I thought I'd pop in and then got distracted again and bought a Hornby J36. RMweb has a lot to answer for...

 

Where's will power when you need it..

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Gordon you should be very proud of your platforms they are spot on to the highest standard Sir !!!! It's not the most stimulating job during a layout build but like ballasting if it is not done to a high standard all the hard work that you have put into the track building is spoilt ...... Whilst you are working on the platform edges I would suggest some background music .......'Close to the Edge'  by YES would help the through the task :smoke:

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Thanks guys.  You must have been up early John, or couldn't you sleep?.....

 

I had to be up to get across Reading for 08.15 and the usual traffic can be a pain. Quite a frost last night, but hoping for a sunny day.

 

Asked about the pillars on a general post and BernardTPM picked them up immediately as part of the Hornby R514 platform canopy. Dropped a mail to them last night to see if I can buy some. A guy on eBay has one for sale at £4.....

 

If all else fails, I may have to cut the roof off to retrieve the pillars and then build a new one. That sounds like modelling to me.....Oh well, into the unknown...:D

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Sorry to hear that, John. It must be really painful and difficult to sleep at night....

 

Thanks Michael. I agree with you and realise I need to move the pillars inboard, but fear trying to remove them will see them damaged, so that means replacements or having to carefully cut the roof into parts to try and salvage the existing ones.

 

I am hoping Hornby may come up with some spares, so await their answer. Buying new canopies just for the pillars is an expensive solution.....

 

....and we lost at golf again. We shot 2 under gross for a half, but one of their guys playing off 25 was one under gross for nine holes....

 

Where do they get them from....:D

 

Good to see others building to 00-SF, particularly Stoke Courtney....Beautiful.

 

....and I've noticed comments from Portchullin and Worseter on the this thread.

 

Gents, if I get anyway near the quality of your layouts, I'll be one very happy man....

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6 minutes ago, gordon s said:

 

 

....and we lost at golf again. We shot 2 under gross for a half, but one of their guys playing off 25 was one under gross for nine holes....

 

Where do they get them from....:D

 

 

 

 

The same place your club got you, being someone who started off with a highest handicap it was quite easy to shoot several shots under your handicap, as you get better and more consistent your handicap reduces and its much harder to have those rounds well below your handicap. That chap will likely loose half a dozen balls the next time he goes out 

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