Barkham Green GWR OO Layout

[vulcanbomber]

Starting to add some of the bits I brought at Warley

 

 

 

Still got a policeman to add, but run out of dark blue paint

Also working on an Ice cream salesman

[vulcanbomber]

Still adding bits I brought at Warley, this shows the 3 new yard lights in the Gas Works

 

 

Thought I would show a few more pics of the layout lighting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also added a front wall to the Wheelwight's still needs gates, but it pulls the whole front of the village together, I feel. The red coals in the in the blacksmiths shop doesn't show up very well with this camera

 

[vulcanbomber]

Brought some thin chain at Warley to finish off crane

 

 

[vulcanbomber]

Been thinking about how to fill corner of market square, saw pic below and thought a clock tower might do the trick.

 

I have some etches of clock faces, so I thought I would do a mock up to see what it would look like.

1.

 

To my mind the tower is too tall, so I tried a smaller version

2.

 

As part of the exercise tried something on a different scale

3.

 

Thought I would post ideas and ask for comments, I think no.2 is best, but open to suggestions

Edited December 15, 2014 by vulcanbomber

[Mikkel]

That's a difficult choice. I suppose no. 1 is closer to the typical height, but on the other hand no. 2 fits in better and creates a bit of perspective by being smaller in the vanishing point. I think I agree about no. 2.

[vulcanbomber]

Mikkel

Thanks for input, I shall be going with 2

[richard i]

pity i thought no3 worked really well in the space, no2 just did not fit where it was as what would be the logic of leaving a small gap to the right when building it for real? Where as the memorial would want people to walk around it.

[vulcanbomber]

Thanks for input

Problem with 3 I think is that it looks like a carriage clock stood on top of a post, just too small.

Your right about the right hand side of No.2 not being able to walk around, but if I pull it slightly forward, it can be seen from the churc which is one of the reasons I imagine it was built because the Norman church doesn't have a clock

[vulcanbomber]

 

Two Dart Castings Porter's added and I've rearranged the chain so the box can actually be lifted out of the van!

 

 

Added a Dart Castings policeman mopping his head because of the heat

 

 

Someone asked if I would show how I built my models so I thought I would detail the building of the clock tower

 

Here it is with the main 3 parts built,the base, tower and clock area

 

The tower is designed to slot into the base, so at a later stage I could add electronic clock chimes. Also I may have to reduce the height once the main clock body is built

 

Here is the basic clock base built and now has to have all of the detail fitted

[vulcanbomber]

Well were off to spend Christmas with my Daughter and her two daughters, one's a Hyper very excited 3 year old, so should be great fun!

Happy Christmas to everyone, I thought I would do a review of what's been achieved in a year when we get back home

[vulcanbomber]

Well another visit to the Grandchildren and we pick up another lurgy, this time a tummy bug on Boxing Day. Still up to then it was all worth the fun on having Christmas with a 3 year old, who for the first time understands all the magic of Christmas. Then we had relations down for the New Year, so haven't done a lot of modelling.

First off a Christmas present of 4 tank wagons, alarming to think these cost £50!

 

 

More work on the strucure for housing the clock

 

Using a ‘Scrawker tool to engrave the pillars

 

 

An experiment to see if I can use paper mache over a plastic former to build the dome

 

Starting to come together with brickwork added to front face of the tower.

Edited January 5, 2015 by vulcanbomber

[vulcanbomber]

Spent the afternoon running trains. here is the the new oil train on the viaduct

 

[vulcanbomber]

I decided that the Clock mounting was too wide it didn't look right mounted on the tower, so I bit the bullet and took it apart so I could reduce it in size and here it is mounted on the tower. I have also finished all of the brick work for the tower. Just need some more plastic card to add the roof before I try fitting the dome.

 

 

Made a start doing the clock faces, the Langley model etches fit exactly on a 1p piece, so they have been super glued to these, then given a coat of primer, before being sprayed white. Then the tricky part of dry brushing to make the numerals stand out. So far so good just 2 more to do and then I will select the best 2 to go on the front and side where they can be seen.

 

[Ruffnut Thorston]

Spent the afternoon running trains. here is the the new oil train on the viaduct

 

Oil02.jpg

 

I may be wrong, but did oil tanks have a barrier wagon at the Brake Van end as well as the one you have provided at the loco end?

 

I do like the Clock Tower, very Victorian.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Sarahagain

[vulcanbomber]

Sarah

Thanks for all your likes., you might be right about the barrier wagon, however to be honest the real reason it is there, is because I have no other train to add it too and it just looks right!

The rest of the tank wagon train isn't strictly accurate either since I don't think the Pease wagon is an oil wagon I think they used to be loaded with some sort of food stuff. However as I said it looks the part so I've added it to the train.

As you can guess I'm not a rivet counter!

[Ruffnut Thorston]

I can be a bit pedantic about some things, like "Exhibition Quality" (whatever that is meant to mean?) layout in magazines with the "usual" lack of drivers in road vehicles, or crews on locos that are meant to be "Creeping" up to signals, and such like....not to mention some recent examples using a pretty bad "model" narrowboat sold as an ornament....

 

BUT I agree that layouts that are not putting themselves up as somehow "better", or "more accurate" have every "right" to do what they like.

 

As the track gauge for OO is "wrong" anyway.....

 

Rivet counting is fine in its place! Wherever that is!

Edited January 13, 2015 by Sarahagain

[vulcanbomber]

 

 

 

Clock Tower virtually finished, just need to find the right paint to add the verdigris to the roof. To see what it might look like I used some dulux willow green which is almost right except that since it is a kitchen paint it has a satin finish, which doesn't look right. It's not worth buying a bottle of "model mates" verdigris, since at £7.50 this would be more than I've spent on the clock tower so far, since most of it was built using bits in my spares box.

The hardest part was painting the numerals on the clock faces, luckily I only had to get 2 out of 4 right, because the rest are hidden.

I'm very pleased with how it fills the corner and glad I made choice no 2,

[Jaz]

I really like the clock tower, initially i preferred the higher one, but as your idea progressed it does have better proportions. The idea was a always that it could be seen from the ground level and the buildings.

I particularly like the copper top which has now got a soft green corroded finish. I think, but am not sure, that they usually had a lightning conductor. lovely piece of modelling.

It also 'fits' with the atmosphere of the nearby buildings.

[vulcanbomber]

Jaz

Cheers for comments, yes I'm looking around for a suitable spiky bit to go on the top, once I have got the paint for the copper top right

Thanks for all your "likes" by the way

 

OH and a belated happy birthday by thew way

Edited January 16, 2015 by vulcanbomber

[vulcanbomber]

So as to be able to get the clock faces for the Clock Tower, I brought this kit From Langley Models

 

 

This left me with quite a lot of the kit left, then I realised that it would make a great little cameo for the Hotel

 

 

The 2 benches are ones left over from adding the table and chairs on the veranda. The rose winding around the frame work was built as a test. I'm very pleased with so I have 3 more climbing roses to construct and will take some pics as I do the rest and post how it was done.

The Hotel desperately needs some guests!

[vulcanbomber]

Well with the weather being so cold it's a good excuse to stay indoors and work on the Railway.

Said I would show you how I did the Roses

 

First make up an armature use 16/0.2 wire

 

 

Then coat in Acrylic paint straight from the tube, which is nice and thick

 

 

Then dip in a suitable flock while paint still wet

 

 

Take into Garage and spray with fixing glue and dip in a tray of popyy seeds stolen from the kitchen

 

 

Paint poppy seeds

 

 

Plant Roses

 

 

The last item left to build which I brought at Warley was a Langley Models ice cream tricycle. I had had been giving me some trouble, it comes with pre-printed sides but these aren't right for the 1930's it should look like this

 

 

The question was how to do the lettering, after consultation on the RMweb and at my club, I realised the best way to do it was to type it out in Word and then print it. Problem was my version of Word, wouldn't do percentage scaling, after a bit of research on the Web I discovered Excel would, so these are are typed into Excel using Arial Bold font 8 the smallest size , and then scaled to 30%

 

 

It is now finished

 

[vulcanbomber]

Well as I said all ready, I removed the module behind the station for upgrade before Christmas, well now that the Market Square is virtually finished, I decided it was time to make a start on that

 

The original intention was to just replace the terrace with a scratch built one's

 

 

 

This was the first module I built and to honest it was rushed to get some thing running, hopefully my modelling skills have greatly improved since then.

when I looked at it closely, I decided to that there were a lot of other things wrong

 

1.It was built before I was introduced to static grass, and that would all need redoing

2. The walls were looking very botched

3 The railing were damaged in places and quite a few needed replacing

4. I never liked the street disappearing into the back scene on the right

5. The park area was done before the church was built and contained part of an old church eg grave stones and the war memorial, these would be better moved to the Church proper.

6. The large tree is the background was looking very tired

 

So there nothing for, but to start with a clean sheet!

 

 

Now need to decide what to model!!

[vulcanbomber]

Right decided what to model

 

 

I'm going to forget about having a curve in the corner, and butt the building right into a conventional corner. Problem with having a curve is that it difficult to find suitable scenery to fit. For instance the buildings would have to form a crescent and then you have problems with path and roads being curved. Also the path and road will disappear into the back scene behind the station building if it is straight.

 

 

I've now found a source of etches for the windows, which will be 24 instead of 18 panes. I haven't found a source of curved windows, but I played around with one the etches today and think I can successfully modify some.

 

Since this is the last building I will make for sometime I'm trying to make it special, and no expense sparred (don't tell the wife)

[vulcanbomber]

Was in a local town at the weekend and popped into Games Workshop and came out with a pot of Citadel Technical NIHILAKH OXIDE for £2:50 which is for doing verdigris on copper.

I gave the cap a coat of Tamiya XF-6 Copper first and then applied two coats on the new paint, very pleased with the result

 

 

[vulcanbomber]

Not done much on the layout recently, it's peak time for the garden and allotment to be sorted out and got ready for a new season.

However when I went to Ali pali I took the opportunity to buy a couple of packs of the Bachmann Mini couplings, and thought I would save on postage. I was a bit surprised by the price however, £8.95 a pack, but apparently that is the retail price!

Anyway I have spent the last couple of days removing my old bug Mainline couplings on the goods wagon and all now for a couple of old wrenn wagons now have all the same couplings