Stockrington - Mojo ignited. Thanks, Heljan!

[runs as required]

I like the idea of a Q6 chuffing gently into a hole on Wearside, coming out agin briefly through Folkestone Warren then emering for good in Perth WA - at least its downhill.

 

dh

 

PS

Best wishes to your family of trees

[jukebox]

I like the idea of a Q6 chuffing gently into a hole on Wearside, coming out agin briefly through Folkestone Warren then emering for good in Perth WA - at least its downhill.

 

dh

 

PS

Best wishes to your family of trees

 

It *was* St Patrick's Day, and I have tree.. er, three children, so it seemed like the right turn of phrase...

[The Blue Streak]

When I read this, a thought occurred.  Ventilation shafts were a very good way to keep the tunnel in the right direction when it was being constructed.    ............

 

However, were they particularly effective at ventilating the tunnel, when complete?  Whilst I see that warm loco exhaust would tend to rise up the shafts, the replacement air still has to enter at the tunnel ends, which would happen naturaly due to weather conditions.  Would there be any significant increase in replacement speed and would that be very relevant given the time between trains passing through?  Given the piston effect of the close fit of a train in the tunnel, which would largely pull/push replacement air with them, surely ventilator effectiveness would be minimal by comparison. 

 

Kind regards

 

J

 

A very good point regarding the "piston effect" suggesting that it would be more likely to push pull the air and therefore be possibly more effective than ventilators. However surely if the train were to be running at low speed then the push pull effect would be far less and thats where effective ventilators would be of assistance.

 

They possibly would have been some benefit in the scenario at Swan View in the link below.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47357685

 

Either way they do however make a very effective addition in 1/76 scale.

[jukebox]

The start of a four day weekend - but sadly, neither of my shipments of static grass have arrived, so I busied myself elsewhere.

 

Call me old fashioned, but I like the look of lichen as model vegetation, so when five bags of the stuff were going cheap locally on eBay, I snaffled them.  But when they arrived, I suspect they may have been *very* old shop stock that had faded badly... although the photo on the WS website is close to the mark:

 

 

The bulk lot was three of this "spring green"  and two "natural", which was a bone hue.

 

I opened one bag of each, and spread it out on a board, to see what I could do with it.  To be honest, the colours were... hopeless.  Too stark a white, and too vivid a yellow.

 

This is a close up of the "spring green" (perfect for anyone modelling Stroudley era Southern, no doubt...) 

 

 

I was considering using them as "buses" to spray glue on and dip in other foliage, when last night I remembered a chapter from the backscene book I have been reading, talking about using material the same colour as the backscene to create connectivity.  So I thought I'd have a go at dying the lichen using the backscene paint.

 

 

 

I have to say I was pleased with how that turned out.  I used the two different greens from my back scene, and with the two different shades of lichen, now have a big batch of material to place along the join between backscene and 3D world.

 

 

 

The differing shades of green should make a good transition from some of the lighter Woodland Scenics scatters that I am using to vegetate my trees, and the colours on the back scene.

 

A Good Friday, indeed.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

edited for copious typos...

Edited March 30, 2018 by jukebox

[jukebox]

It has been one of those fortnights where the progress on Stockrington has been very visible.

 

I was a little hesitant to start - I think I painted the castings three or four times before I was close to happy with the colours - but eventually bit the bullet and glued the right hand rock face on:

 

 

I actually ended up taking most of my carefully made castings and smashing them into pieces, so that I could make a rock face that was sensible - and avoid duplicate castings

 

 

While that was drying, I extended the grass cover on the top of the mountain...  the white of the PVA underneath always scares me that I've done it wrong  - until it dries.

 

 

...and down the slope beside the rock cutting  (I've just grassed in this shot: I vacuumed the green of the rock faces a little later)

 

 

Then I filled most of the gaps with the dyed lichen...  Those trees are out of the way so I can grass - they will go toward the backscene when I plant them.  The brown patches are where I experimented with spreading some "earth" and "turf" over the grass - but did not like the result.  I've just added some fresh grass over the top tonight, to tone those patches down.

 

 

It's perhaps a bit lush...  I will tone down the treatment on the opposite bank, as that side is supposed to be well and truly industrial grime, and is flanked by terrace houses and the MPD.

 

Not finished yet - but pretty close.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[jukebox]

Whilst the rock cutting took a bit of courage, dressing the other tunnel portal was the part of the hobby I really enjoy.  This all came together in the course of a few nights across the week:

 

I started with just the rock casting:

 

 

I surrounded that with Woodland Scenics "earth" fine turf - essentially a flocking material.

 

 

I then started filling in the spaces, with WS clump foliage and undergrowth.  I have four colours of each to mix size and texture.

 

 

I wasn't happy with the foliage on the first tree I made, so I stripped it off - I teased out the mat of mid green turf, and used that as ground cover on each side of the tunnel mouth... (you can see the PVA is still wet in this shot)

 

 

As I filled in the canvas with plant matter, I extended the ground cover away from the tunnel.  I have some cheap static grass from China - a lurid dark green, a lurid light green, and a useful beige.  I blended these together, and came up with a mix that I realised looked like short, dry, grass - so I experimented with it - and it came up a treat.  I added patches of pure beige to give it some relief.

 

 

I added some lichens, using some larger pieces to project above the skyline of the background

 

 

and finally, some more clump foliage around the grass areas.  I've started to place the fence across the top, too.  This area is starting to look very close to complete - very satisfying!

 

***

 

And a behind the scenes shot, showing the mayhem that is going on behind the camera;  I have decanted my two shipments of static grass, and now how a good supply for the Eastern side of the layout.  I'm finding it is very much like an artist's palette - as I learn what the different lengths will do, and how the look once the glue dries, I'm able to experiment to avoid it looking like a single mass of identical colour.

 

I still am not happy with my tree making - nor my hedges - so have some homework to do, yet.

 

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[Brian D]

It has been one of those fortnights where the progress on Stockrington has been very visible.

 

I was a little hesitant to start - I think I painted the castings three or four times before I was close to happy with the colours - but eventually bit the bullet and glued the right hand rock face on:

 

0804a.jpg

 

I actually ended up taking most of my carefully made castings and smashing them into pieces, so that I could make a rock face that was sensible - and avoid duplicate castings

 

0804b.jpg

 

While that was drying, I extended the grass cover on the top of the mountain...  the white of the PVA underneath always scares me that I've done it wrong  - until it dries.

 

0804c.jpg

 

...and down the slope beside the rock cutting  (I've just grassed in this shot: I vacuumed the green of the rock faces a little later)

 

0804d.jpg

 

Then I filled most of the gaps with the dyed lichen...  Those trees are out of the way so I can grass - they will go toward the backscene when I plant them.  The brown patches are where I experimented with spreading some "earth" and "turf" over the grass - but did not like the result.  I've just added some fresh grass over the top tonight, to tone those patches down.

 

0804e.jpg

 

It's perhaps a bit lush...  I will tone down the treatment on the opposite bank, as that side is supposed to be well and truly industrial grime, and is flanked by terrace houses and the MPD.

 

Not finished yet - but pretty close.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

 

Whilst the rock cutting took a bit of courage, dressing the other tunnel portal was the part of the hobby I really enjoy.  This all came together in the course of a few nights across the week:

 

I started with just the rock casting:

 

1103d.jpg

 

I surrounded that with Woodland Scenics "earth" fine turf - essentially a flocking material.

 

0904a.jpg

 

I then started filling in the spaces, with WS clump foliage and undergrowth.  I have four colours of each to mix size and texture.

 

0904b.jpg

 

I wasn't happy with the foliage on the first tree I made, so I stripped it off - I teased out the mat of mid green turf, and used that as ground cover on each side of the tunnel mouth... (you can see the PVA is still wet in this shot)

 

0904c.jpg

 

As I filled in the canvas with plant matter, I extended the ground cover away from the tunnel.  I have some cheap static grass from China - a lurid dark green, a lurid light green, and a useful beige.  I blended these together, and came up with a mix that I realised looked like short, dry, grass - so I experimented with it - and it came up a treat.  I added patches of pure beige to give it some relief.

 

0904d.jpg

 

I added some lichens, using some larger pieces to project above the skyline of the background

 

0904e.jpg

 

and finally, some more clump foliage around the grass areas.  I've started to place the fence across the top, too.  This area is starting to look very close to complete - very satisfying!

 

***

 

And a behind the scenes shot, showing the mayhem that is going on behind the camera;  I have decanted my two shipments of static grass, and now how a good supply for the Eastern side of the layout.  I'm finding it is very much like an artist's palette - as I learn what the different lengths will do, and how the look once the glue dries, I'm able to experiment to avoid it looking like a single mass of identical colour.

 

I still am not happy with my tree making - nor my hedges - so have some homework to do, yet.

 

1004a.jpg

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

This is looking very good Scott.  You have every right to be pleased with your scenery.  I intend to do something similar on Deneside when I get round to it.

 

Regards,

Brian.

[jukebox]

When I created the small river on Stockrington, I was deliberate in winding it through a nice 90 degree bend, so I could make it disappear discretely off scene into the backscene.  Key to that was using a large tree to block the view, and early on, a weeping willow was what I had in mind.

 

 

Looking for a Ready-to-Plant plant, I found the preformed samples from Noch, Heki, Bachmann et al, woefully wrong.  But I also noticed tutorials on how to actually make a willow tree are hard to come by.

 

 

Eventually, I turned up this:  http://bennosfiguresforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=18686&p=201796

 

Thanks to Mr.Cryns, I had a bit of a primer on one way to get what is a pretty reasonable looking willow.  So I'm having a crack myself.  You can read his how-to; mine will deviate in a few places, but that's circumstance and personal taste as much as anything else.

 

I started with cotton string that I had lying around the house.  I cut a number of ~200mm lengths:

 

 

Once I had a good number of these, I doubled them over and cut them in half...

 

 

Each stringlet was unwound, giving me five thin lengths per strip...

 

 

Mr.Cryns then boiled his sisal lengths to straighten them.  I tried this with some of mine, but it did not change their straightness - and actually "fluffed" them up a little - not what I was looking for.  So I worked with them au natural from here...

 

I made up a dirty lime green wash, and soaked them in it, to try and tone down the whiteness of the string

 

 

(In hindsight, I should have gone with a stronger green here.  Later in the build, I have decided I need to re dye the strings on the tree)

 

Once I had the strings ready, I used florists wire, and wound myself an armature.  I left the extremities of the branches long, so I could form shapes to attach the string too.  Photos of willows in winter will give you an idea what sort of basic shape to build.

 

 

I experimented with the foliage for the willow.  Looking at my reference photos, one of the things that is distinctive, is that willows have quite long thin leaves - whereas most model foliage is spherical.  Even the shredded sponge Mr.Cryns uses is round.  So I experimented, and found 2mm static grass sticks to the PVA coated string in a fashion that is slightly better than using sponge/Woodland Scenics foliage.  The 4mm lengths of static grass are too long (they make the string too fuzzy) whilst the summer green (darker) doesn't stick as well as spring, for reasons unknown.

 

 

I used some model filler to bulk out the trunk, and disguise the wire windings

 

 

I then painted the trunk grey, to match the willows in my reference photos...

 

 

Because I will be attaching cotton threads to each wire, I will do a fair bit of bending and prodding of the armature.  So the final shape is not settled - and it won't be until I have the foliage all stuck on - but if I get the basic shape right now, I can work back to it after all the dressing is done.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited April 23, 2018 by jukebox

[jukebox]

Now to the fun part.

 

*warning* Body fluids mention in the following description! 

 

The florist wire I use is coated in green plastic, which not only make sense from a branch perspective, but may just help the glue adhere to it.  I used a contact adhesive - Kwik Grip aka Tarzans Grip or equivalent in your parish, perhaps.

 

 

Turns out there is something of a knack to this process.  I used a toothpick to carry a trace of the glue - and I started by soaking the end 15mm of a cotton strand, then recharging the toothpick, and wiping a similar schmear on the end 15mm of a branch wire.

 

 

The trick was to roll the string in between my thumb and finger; the free end tends to lie in a curve, and by rolling it, you can let the free end find the curve that best matches the curve on the end of the wire.  

 

A few other tips; wipe the toothpick clean immediately you have applied glue to both surfaces - this leaves it free to help prod the string into place if you need to.  Use fresh glue - the solvent in the glue evaporates quickly, and if it is tacky when you try and apply it, it will pull the string end away from the wire.  It should look like.. well, pus, as it come out the tube.  Sorry, but that's the colour and consistency.

 

The glue gets very tacky, very quickly (some have said the same about me) - and within 30 seconds, the ~10cm string is self-supported by a 15mm glued section, and you can let it go.

 

The trick is to use the glue *very* sparingly - the join is a lapped one, so will be thicker than either material.  A big wad of snot-yellow glue will be hard to disguise later.

 

 

I worked methodically on the branches, starting with those at the back / on the inside.  The glue holds firm within 30 seconds, so you can handle the tree pretty easily.

 

Even as the branches started to fill, it wasn't too hard to work my way around, adding string, and watching the tree gain bulk:

 

 

It took four sessions of ~90 minutes to fill the whole tree.  It became *very* tedious.  Luckily, I was at my computer desk, so had some music playing (The Wall, and Revolver, amongst others, if you must know!) and that was great to help pass the time.  But eventually it was done.

 

I transferred the tree to a baking dish, and used some neat green paint to colour the yellow glue joins:

 

 

Then I used that same green, but diluted into a strong but watery mix, and dyed each of the strands again. Individually.  Not recommended.  Better to get them the right colour before you glue them on, as I mentioned yesterday.  But in my case, worth doing, as it confirmed these strands will droop ("weep") nicely once wet with PVA.

 

 

So this is where I am at now:

 

 

I have to say I am stoked with that result.  There could even be an argument that a viable willow could be made just by going back and adding triple the number of cotton strands to the existing branches, and using them as is.

 

 

As tedious as it is going to be, I will be "flocking" the ones I already have.  But first I will bend out the armatures into their final shape - and that will take a little care, as I need to avoid strands crossing into one another if I can, but also keep a willow shape.  I will do that with the baking tray arrangement I used above, to recover as much static grass as possible - I can foresee it being a very messy operation.  And to be honest, there's no point in doing that until I'm ready to plant the tree on the layout - so that will be a little way away yet, although I will do that before I attempt to pour water into the watercourse.

 

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited April 23, 2018 by jukebox

[jukebox]

Lots of grass going down at Stockrington.  And a tidy up of the watercourse.

 

I am a touch hesitant to post "in progress" photos of this stage - it's very much a movable feast, and in no way finished... it's flat and mono-toned, and needs detail.  These photos are really just sharing a record of progress for me.

 

But that has always been a hallmark of this thread, so here goes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's useful to pause at this point, and see what the "scenes" need.  That willow will be good, but it can't be there on it's own.  I'm going to need to plant some half relief trees against the backdrop to the left.

 

The 300mm square will be a farmer's cottage... so I need to work out what goes in there.

 

The river has had a fresh coat of paint on it's bottom - it was my intention to fill this with a greenish tinged model water, to look like the River Idle:

 

 

But that muddy colour works rather well, too...

 

One minor curiosity:  as I was adding some 2mm texture grass using the Greenkeeper, I noticed it had fallen down the glue-free embankment.  From the looks of things, the chicken wire also carries the current, because the grass aligned itself very neatly with the subtle contours.  I might even use these locations as guides to planting some detail grass when I cover the embankment later.

 

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

[jukebox]

12 pieces of plasticard makes...

 

 

A farm gate.

 

50 strands of florists wire makes...

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[Jack P]

Those trees look excellent! very impressed with the willow, will have to try some of those techniques myself. 

[trw1089]

Really liking this trees Scott, looks excellent.

 

Cheers

Tony

[jukebox]

Rather shy of time, and I'd rather being doing than reporting.

 

To wit:

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited May 4, 2018 by jukebox

[jukebox]

I'm not trying to make an exact copy, just suggest an influence...

 

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[jukebox]

The texturing of the hill grass is continuing:

 

 

Meanwhile, the top paddock is now gated...

 

 

...and fenced, meaning there's an opportunity for glimpses like this one...

 

 

Cheers,

 

Scott

[jukebox]

Woodland Scenics turf coming into play, to bring the poplars to life...

 

 

 

I've a few things to do before I plant them, but as I was folating some other trees, I decided to get them done.

 

Once they are dry, I'll need to trim a few errant branches toward the tops, and perhaps touch in some more greenery.  The "transparency" of this method, as opposed to using the spider web foliage gauze, then covering that with leaf material, appeals to me a lot.  Luckily, those trees on the tunnel hill are toward the rear, so I can live with them as they are.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[trw1089]

Those trees are really looking the part Scott, excellent work!

[jukebox]

And keeping the foliage mode, the willow grew it's leaves yesterday

 

 

There's more about it's construction over at my Willow Tree thread.

 

It is not finished - needs some drastic rebending into shape - but I wanted to see if it would screen the river-into-end-of-the-world as I'd hoped.  It does:

 

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[jcredfer]

I like the tunnel too - disappearing into a suitable dark and mysterious hole!!

 

Kind regards

 

Julian

[jukebox]

Willow shaped, bonus leaves added, and planted:

 

 

 

 

Poplars next!

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[jcredfer]

Wow, what a likeness! 

 

................  enough Willow to bring "tears" to anyone's eyes. 

 

Kind regards

 

Julian

[jukebox]

I wasn't happy with the brown earth of my low embankment, and seeing the chalky clay-like look over on Tony Wright's Little Bytham, took to mine with a palette of shades.

 

That done, I was ready to grass the top before planting the poplars.

 

This was not as simple as it sounds - and involved five steps:

 

• Heath Green scatter as a base
• Earth mounds where the trees would sit (and so I knew where to space them equally)
• Short autumn grass up front
• Patchy Grass under each tree
• Long late autumn grass to the rear

 

With that done, I drilled the holes and glued the trees in place:

 

 

 

 

I went back and covered the visible construction glue with PVA, and sprinkled some olive green foliage material on, to blend the base in to the grass:

 

 

I resisted the temptation to glue the fence in place - it will only get knocked and broken as I'm working across it.

 

I've painted the embankment all the way around the bend, and am now working on the retaining wall that disguises the minimum depth backscene across the south end of the room.

 

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

[jukebox]

And so to the retaining wall behind Stockrington Station.

 

I bought these many years back, from a seller somewhere in the South of England, I seem to recall, after seeing them used by the late Graham Jowett-Ive (Capt. Jango) on his Hannem layout.  Hard to believe it will soon be six years since he passed away.

 

 

 

No way to take shortcuts with this stuff - I painted them up like I did the bridge arches, using the full palette of stones browns and creams... then covered the lot with muck. I've made the insides of the arches deliberately more grotty to create sense of depth. 

 

Some moss was added for relief.

 

 

 

I'll need to go back with a slurry of plaster or some DAS and bed the bases in, then build up the shoulders at each end (they are almost vertical - but a couple of those shots suffer from some wide angle lens distortion, making the outer ends seem raked; they aren't).

 

They stand off the backscene by a minimum 5mm in the middle - I used shims - so I can add a suggestion of overhanging greenery.

 

The chocolate box pastures will disappear from here on in, as you work your way around the layout.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited June 10, 2018 by jukebox

[trw1089]

Looking really good there Scott. Can’t believe it’s been six years since Graham passed. I used to really enjoy his videos and it was an excellent layout too.

 

Cheers

Tony