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Obbekaer & Ribe Skibbroen - P87


Middlepeak
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I'm having guilty visions of being ostracised from these portals for making only one post this year, so to make up for it, here's a brief Yuletide update from the RGVJ.

 

Progress has been limited of late, with the focus being on developing a plan for additional rolling stock. This is mainly to provide better coverage for Obbekaer on the exhibition circuit, but also for some additional variety at Ribe Skibbroen, as and when that becomes operational.

 

First off is the small 3-axle B&W diesel featured before in these pages. This is a scratchbuilt effort, which has required a considerable amount of research and design work before artwork could be prepared for etching. Even then, some of the parts have had to be redesigned, either for a better fit or a more simple assembly, but that's actually a part of the whole process that gives me a good deal of satisfaction. So, after well over a year of effort, sometimes sporadic and at other times hectic, I'm only just at the stage of having a working chassis.

 

The final loco comprises three sub-assemblies - chassis, footplate and body - which all screw together. All are made from nickel silver. The chassis is sprung, using CSBs from steel wire running through handrail knobs. High Level hornblocks carry the axles and the wheels are from Alan Gibson. A Mashima motor is mounted centrally, driving through North West Short Line UJs to two identical High Level gearboxes on the outer axles.

 

The basic footplate structure has been completed, with buffers and screw couplings. Springs have been fitted to the w-irons, but the axleboxes (white metal castings from Rumney Models) will be fitted after the remainder of the soldering is complete. There's an array of additional fittings and pipework to be attached before then, and I'm only just beginning to come to terms with what it all does! Brake gear will follow later.

 

Anyway, here's a photo of the unit as it stands.

 

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Away from the rolling stock, I've completed a small 'ledvogterhytte' for the level crossing over the main street (Overdammen) at Ribe Skibbroen. It's all plasticard, apart from the cobbled paving surface, which is actually a photograph printed onto a textured watercolour paper.

 

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You'll also see from the background that the track gang has started to lay sleepers in the station at Ribe Skibbroen. These are laser cut, with two stuck together to give a full thickness sleeper and a small countersunk head brass tubular rivet inserted in the top layer, to which the rail plates and rails will be soldered. That simple description doesn't do justice to the boring job of putting them all together!

 

Anyway, that's it for now. Hopefully more updates in the New Year, but in the mean time from all the Directors and staff at the RGVJ, a resounding GOD JUL to everybody!

 

Regards,

 

Geraint

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just to follow on from the Christmas Eve post, I've now finished the crossing keeper's hut for the Overdammen level crossing. 

 

This is of a fairly standard Danish design, with dimensions taken from photos found on the internet and a drawing prepared in CAD. The basic structure is in plasticard, with etched windows and door. The chimney stack uses my standard method of producing brickwork with strips of .011"x.022" Evergreen strip, with the vertical joints cut with a scalpel.

 

The base was originally cut from scribed 2mm MDF, but I couldn't get the right combination of colours for the cobbles. In the end I hit on the idea of using a Noch pre-printed sheet, which has been scanned in, adjusted to reduce the size of the cobbles to match the prototype street, and then printed onto 250g/m2 grained watercolour paper. This has a delicate rippled surface, which takes the ink well and removes the flatness of what would otherwise look just like a photograph. A small amount of weathering with powders gives further variation to the colour.

 

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The fence is made from microstrip and the large edifice to the left is actually the warning gong for the level crossing.

 

Crossing keeper Mouritsen (one of Modelu's excellent products printed at 3.5mm scale) is anxiously looking at his watch. The afternoon mixed from Gram must be running late today!

 

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With the hut finished, I can now turn my attention to the rest of the crossing, which will have two booms across the street. At this stage I haven't decided whether this will be a manually operated crossing (in which case the winch mechanism will need to be added to this scene), or whether it will be one of the new fangled (for the late 50s) electronic crossings with flashing lights. Watch this space!

 

Regards,

 

Geraint

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  • 3 months later...

Another few months have slipped by, and what a strange period we are experiencing. Because of my wife's vulnerable status, we have effectively been in lockdown since early March. Ordinarily, one might have expected a ramping up of modelling activity, but with care and social visits severely limited, modelling has had to play a poor second fiddle to head cook and bottle washer duties.

 

The other impact has a potentially much longer term effect. Obbekær's next exhibition outing was due to be in September, but that is looking increasingly unlikely, even if lockdown is eased significantly for others, so thoughts have turned to having something to build and run in the limited space I have in the workshop.

 

I have however made some progress on the wagon fleet for the RGVJ, including the rewheeling of a line of Hobbytrade and Fleischmann vehicles. The more recent offerings from Hobbytrade have bodywork in laser cut wood, such as the Carlsberg beer van and the DSB 4-wheel postal van in the picture. Only about 5 more wagons left to do, which will have to wait until suitable waterslide transfers come back from the printers (whenever they start working again).

 

With that in mind, and in view of the fact that Skibbroen is designed primarily as an exhibition layout and consequently too big to be erected at home, there is likely to be a bit of a pause in activity for a while. Thoughts are turning to a new p4 project, which will take me back to my previous subject of the Cromford & High Peak Railway. But that's a different story, to be told on a separate thread of this forum!

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  • 2 months later...

On numerous occasions in this thread I've paid tribute to the support and inspiration I've received from my good friends in the Ribe Model Railway Club, both in the construction and exhibiting of Obbekær and the development of the longer term Ribe Skibbroen project.

 

Well, they have now achieved film star status, at least in their native land, with a series of short films exploring their project of some 28 years to build a scale model of Ribe station in 1929. Shot by compatriot Lars Rasmussen, they can be viewed on his website at

 

https://vibefilm.dk/rhjms-english/

 

Dialogue is in Danish with English subtitles. Some of the shots are rather innovative and quirky, including placing the three friends in their own model, but what shines through is their enjoyment of just being together to create a worthwhile project. With a combined age in excess of 230, more power to their elbow, I say.

 

Enjoy!

 

Geraint

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  • 3 weeks later...

Something of a break-through this week in terms of progressing some of the additional rolling stock for the RGVJ.

 

For some time I had been puzzling over the best way to letter wagons and coaches. The main problem was that the font used by Danish railways was to my eyes noticeably different from anything available off the shelf in the UK, and the one manufacturer of transfers in Denmark seemed to have gone into a state of hibernation as far as availability and range was concerned.

 

A call to my friends in the Ribe club and Jens Bruun-Petersen came to the rescue with some photos of the artwork used by the DSB to design its font. There then followed a lengthy period of work on the computer as the images were imported into my CAD package and traced over. I then had a full alphabet in capitals and lower case, and the individual numbers from 0 to 9.

 

I then began a search through the internet to find producers of bespoke transfers who would be able to import and use my CAD files. This proved to be largely fruitless, partly because of the non-commercial nature of the project and partly because it was difficult to find a match between my outputs and their input requirements. The project therefore 'hit the buffers'.

 

At the Stevenage show in January, I made an initial approach to Simon Thomas at The Old Time Workshop, and his response was a lot more positive. Although he admits to focusing more on products that he can sell to a larger market of customers, which I quite understand, it seemed that he could fit some artwork in on the corner of his next sheet for printing, provided that I could cover the appropriate portion of the whole cost of production. I therefore put together a small range of transfers on a sample sheet, which included the RGVJ logo and initials, together with weight and capacity details for a range of wagons and fleet numbers for a couple of railcars and coaches.

 

Then of course COVID intervened, but a couple of weeks ago Simon was able to report that the transfers had been received from the printers and a few days later an envelope arrived on my doormat.

 

I have to say that the results were excellent. The lettering is very crisp and clear, and even the smallest tare weight figures are legible. Application was easy, using Micro-Set and Micro-Sol over a very light spray of gloss varnish. The attached photos show the results, after application but before the final whiff of a matt/satin varnish mix, followed by weathering.

 

A story like this is a real tribute to the sense of friendliness and collaboration which exists in this hobby. Simon's patience and commitment were exemplary, and his skills have given a real boost to some of the projects that have been sitting on the 'to do' shelf for some time.

 

Regards,

 

Geraint

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RGVJ Wagon Text Black.pdf

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On 11/08/2020 at 17:28, carl19 said:

Hello, are these transfers going to be available to all?

There are excellent!

 

 

Carl,

 

I took the decision early on that these would not be commercial in any way because they largely cover a "might have been" railway and therefore would be of little use to anyone else. That said, if there was sufficient interest in transfers for a small range of Danish wagons from Epoch III, I could use the existing artwork to put something together, and we could see if Simon would be prepared to produce them.

 

Regards,

 

Geraint

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On 11/08/2020 at 19:43, doctor quinn said:

Hi Geraint,

The decals look great, there is another Danish decal maker Skilteskoven http://shop.skilteskoven.dk . Jørgen Ron is very helpful, he will do custom numbers on his sheets and will accept PayPal. 

 

All the best

 

Nick

 

 

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Nick,

 

I'd heard of these but never really investigated the website, so thanks for the link. Glad to hear that the service has been good too. I'll be interested in numbers for my Litra F - when I get round to finishing it!

 

Geraint

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  • 1 month later...

Today has been an interesting one, with Obbekaer appearing in its first 'virtual' exhibition - Scaleforum.

 

In many respects the day itself has been quite a relaxing. I've even managed to multi-task by watching the cricket on TV whilst looking at the various presentations. The full show can be visited at www.scaleforum.org, even after the show closes in an hour's time. One of the stars of the show for me was Vincent de Bode's 'De Graafstroom'. I've been good friends with Vincent for many years and I saw this layout in an embryo state in Vincent's loft nearly 20 years ago. It's really a stunning depiction of a typical rural scene from the middle of the last century, and with a strong family connection .... but I won't spoil things any more!

 

A few words about the process of filming though. This had to be done in the middle of lockdown, with my wife in shielding mode, so none of the usual helpers could be there to assist. It also meant that the layout had to be erected single handed across our lounge, with very little room to spare, and yours truly was left to operate the phone camera with one hand and the controller with the other, whilst occasionally running round the back of the layout to change points and signals!

 

Thankfully the editing suite allowed me to remove the pregnant pauses and bad language.

 

All in all, the whole project took around 30 hours, including story writing, filming, recording the commentary and editing. It's been good to get back to the workbench after all that.

 

You can now see the video on my new YouTube channel at   https://youtu.be/HilG__1p13k

 

Regards,

 

Geraint

 

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2 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

Sadly the video declares itself to be private. 

Ian,

 

Many apologies, the video goes 'public' at midnight, in deference to the S4um event today. It is however available on the Scaleforum site before then.

 

Sorry  I was a little impatient!

 

Geraint

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17 hours ago, Middlepeak said:

 

One of the stars of the show for me was Vincent de Bode's 'De Graafstroom'. I've been good friends with Vincent for many years and I saw this layout in an embryo state in Vincent's loft nearly 20 years ago. It's really a stunning depiction of a typical rural scene from the middle of the last century, and with a strong family connection .... but I won't spoil things any more!

 

 

Hi Geraint,

 

Vincent and colleagues were kind enough to bring De Graafstroom to Uckfield last year - its only UK visit to date. I agree it is a superb piece of modelling winning both the Keith Nock Memorial Trophy and the public Best in Show Award.

 

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More pictures at http://www.uckfieldmrc.co.uk/exhib19/degraafstroom.html

 

Excellent video of Obbekaer by the way - just had chance to view as wasn't around for the "virtual" Scaleforum.

 

 

Edited by adrianmc
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The video was well worth waiting for. It gave me an informative insight into the model and its historical origins, as well as plenty of technical details. P87 is hardly mainstream, so the extent of scratchbuilding is not to be underestimated. Lots of clever touches and animations, too. An (unsurprisingly!) articulate commentary helps! 

 

Lovely, Geraint. 

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What an excellent video Geraint.

 

For years Danish modelling was dominated by large plasticky layouts where it was all about hauling power and never mind the prototype. But in recent decades a quiet revolution has been brewing, with more attention to careful modelling of real or imagined locations.  Your layouts are surely a significant contribution, as is of course the work of the Ribe modellers and other like them. I hope your layouts will get good exposure here, so that mainstream Danish modellers can see what it possible. 

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Hej Mikkel,

 

Thanks for your nice comments. The layout has appeared in Lokomotivet magazine and we came to the DMJU exhibition at Bramdrupdam in 2014, so in some respects we may have already contributed a little to the 'revolution'!

 

If you can think of any other way to get the video seen by a wider audience in Denmark, I would be very happy to consider it.

 

Best wishes,

 

Geraint

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  • 7 months later...

Dear All,

 

Very little to report in the way of progress with either Obbekaer or Ribe Skibbroen, but I wanted to explain the reasons for that and prompt some discussion around the circumstances surrounding it.

 

As you will have gathered, both layouts have been designed with exhibitions in mind, and in fact neither of them are of a suitable size to permit permanent erection at home. Of course we all appreciate the hole that the pandemic has left in our hobby, with no exhibitions to attend. For the moment there doesn't appear to be much of a light at the end of that tunnel. Whilst the virtual shows have helped to a certain extent to fill the gap, and Obbekaer has appeared at two such events over the last year, there's nothing to beat the sort of face to face interaction that you get at an exhibition. I'm sure we're all looking forward to the time when we can resume this part of our hobby - safely.

 

But there is perhaps a bigger problem here, for some of us at least. In the normal run of things, invitations to exhibitions come as a result of appearances elsewhere. Take away the opportunity to showcase your efforts and the invitations dry up completely. In the case of Obbekaer, we had 5 invitations in the diary in various parts of the country, which would have given us a reasonable amount of exposure and hopefully further invites to follow. One by one these have been cancelled, such that there is now only one remaining, for 2022.

 

Given that exhibition managers are generally planning quite a few years ahead, there would seem to be little prospect of filling the diary with new bookings, at least for 2-3 years, and then there is the problem of building up the layout's profile again, especially when you've already gone through the coverage in the modelling press some years back and there is no real prospect of a 'rerun'.

 

This may sound like an unduly pessimistic view of the world, but in my case it has resulted in me abandoning some of the planned work on rolling stock for Obbekaer and buildings for Ribe, in favour of a new home-based P4 project, which I must say I am enjoying enormously. It does however beg the question of the future, for Obbekaer in particular, and it will sit unused in its crates for the time being, until options are clearer.

 

So is there anyone else out there will similar feelings? Does anyone have any ideas as to how future exhibition invitations might be stimulated? There is a layout database on here, which carries Obbekaer's details, but maybe there's a bigger role for something similar, once the exhibition diary begins to fill again?

 

Look forward to hearing people's views!

 

Geraint

 

 

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Geraint, is it possible to do even a partial set up to be able to participate in one of the virtual shows? Or perhaps a power point/video type of presentation from old pictures taken at previous shows? It would keep the layout and your name in the stream of consciousness in the interval before things open up again and might even be an enjoyable exercise in itself. I found taking part in VS4NI was great fun albeit lacking in the face to face element but it gave me a chance to review the history of my layout Nether Upton and the progress made from the early dodgy days to the satisfaction with the final iteration.

 

Cheers,

 

David

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David,

 

Thanks for comments, and I enjoyed your presentation on Nether Upton at VS4NI. 

 

I've already done a short film on Obbekaer for last year's S4um, which is still available on the S4 website and on YouTube. I suppose one option might be to pick a few exhibition managers and email them a link to that.

 

Is there a similar situation "across the pond"? One of the other problems here is that potential invitations from Europe are likely to be much more difficult in future since we left the EU.

 

Regards,

 

Geraint

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