Stockrington - Mojo ignited. Thanks, Heljan!

[pirouets]

Ok, google is no help or I am misunderstanding the wikipedia article. You companion is a Bower Bird? Is that a case of a bit of a collector of things?

 

Thanks and might have a look for a pack as I do have a fair about of stuff poorly stored at the moment.

[jukebox]

*chuckle*

 

That's one of the first times for me here on RMWeb my "ethnicity" has perhaps caused some confusion or lack of clarity! To be honest, I didn't even notice my use of Aussie jargon...

 

Yes, here in Oz, a bowerbird is someone who collects random items - named after the native bird that does the same as a courtship ritual:

 

 

 

 

 

[rockershovel]

Oh, one of THESE..

 

 

[jukebox]

Here in Australia, our Magpies have an entirely different reputation to that of Bower Bird.

 

They strike fear into young school children - and some adults -  every September.  With good reason.

 

 

I've certainly had blood drawn - ironically, on a golf course, when I was caddying for a bit of pocket money.

 

 

 

 

[jukebox]

Much better:

 

 

Again, just placed for observation.

 

In close up:

 

 

I have made a large batch of smaller, and airyer, bushes, and will set them in place tomorrow.  I will plant a couple of the left hand embankment - it will balance things - but most till go on the right hand side.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[kandc_au]

19 hours ago, jukebox said:

 

I also took the liberty of picking up some more appropriate shades of flock to create blackberries and brambles... and some very dark green static grass.

 

No prizes for guessing what I was up to this afternoon.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Hi Scott,

T'was looking at a youtube clip a couple of days ago where a US modeller used Model Scene (?) products that were of a mat type of thing and various colours and layered them to create a bushy lineside effect. Worked very well.
If I can manage to find in the next couple of hours I will post a link. It may be of help to you!

Khris

[kandc_au]

Scott have a look at this link and see if it is of help:
Go to about 3.30 where it gets interesting!

 

 

Edited April 6, 2020 by kandc_au
Added info

[jukebox]

Thanks for that, Khris.  My OCD tendencies were struggling with him (!) - so many things partly done, and areas that he was going back to.  But whatever works for the individual, I guess.

 

His end results look pretty good - that variety of textures is important, I think - but I winced at the prices of the products he was using.  I guess that's the time-cost-quality triangle at work. 

 

I need to spend some time watching some of my reference videos, to get a sanity check on what NE England looked like int he 1950's and 60's.

 

Cheers,

 

Scott

 

[kandc_au]

15 hours ago, jukebox said:

 

 

His end results look pretty good - that variety of textures is important, I think - but I winced at the prices of the products he was using.  I guess that's the time-cost-quality triangle at work. 

 

 

 

Glad you have the money if you only winced 
I think my missus would give me Covid 19 if I was paying those prices for that amount

Khris

[jukebox]

55 minutes ago, kandc_au said:

Glad you have the money if you only winced

 

I don't have the money - which is why I'm not buying pre-made foliage mats, but doing it all myself!  That, and it appeals to my artistic side.

 

But seriously, scenicing a 7m x 4m layout can never be a frugal proposition - as I've observed, when you start doing *anything* on a room-scale layout, the quantities you use are eye watering.  I'll come close to incorporating 90Kg of hydrocal on Stockrington, and am about to buy my 35th litre of PVA this afternoon.     

 

I'd guess I have 30 or so bags of different static grasses, and a similar number of flocks.   The thing is, that spend is spread out over 2 years - I started flocking in March 2018, apparently - which takes much of the pain out of it.

 

Having said that, until this year, I've purchased my ground cover directly from the UK, and the price has been pretty manageable. The Javis scatters I used were £2.20/bag plus postage.  Even last weekend, buying locally, the bag of Peco summer grass I got for $10 was my most expensive item - the Noch fibres and blackberry leaves (actually "Forest Floor" scatter) were $5-$8 each.  Ex-the UK, they'd have been about 2/3 that... but who knows when they might arrive Down Under.

 

Hard to say, but looking at that vid, and counting the different containers he had lying around, I'd estimate Mr.Bennett spent more on ground cover for that one embankment area than I have in total!   

 

"You pays your money, you takes your choices"!

[kandc_au]

That would have been my suggestion to make your own, much in the same vain as they make little clumps.
Your earlier comment about having done patches here and there, I do agree.....I could not work like that, but like you said each to their own.
Either way, you are doing a GREAT job on the layout. Looking brilliant!

 

Khris

[jukebox]

Thanks very much Khris - there are some very talented people here on RMWeb, and I consider myself lucky to have access to their advice and opinions.  I'm not obsessive about my layout - I want to have fun building it, and fun operating it. I do find it relaxing going upstairs for a couple of hours at a time to move things along.  And when I'm closer to be being done, I'm looking forward to photographing trains in the landscapes I have created.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[jukebox]

Bit of a hodge-podge today. 

 

I've a few things on the go, but rather than roll them up, I'll show some unfinished business...

 

Once I populate the golf course, leaning over to the far side scenery will be... problematic.  So I'm adding a few details that I'd planned to do, but not got around to, until today...

 

First up - the meadow across the tracks looked a bit homogeneous.  So I'm adding flock to suggest a patch or three of clover.

 

 

That's flock on PVA, painted on top of the static grass - I'll vacuum it up, and what's left should do the trick.

 

Next up, some mud around the gateway:

 

 

Fine dirt over the static grass.  May need a second application - will find out when I vacuum the surplus away.

 

The cutting itself seems a little bland.  Having said that, when I look at period photos of Stoke, the embankment there is... bland, too.

 

My compromise was to add a handful of weed tufts.

 

Start with ~5mm drops of PVA...

 

 

The roll some "weed mix" between the thumb and finger till the strands align.  Take it with tweezers and plant it in the wet PVA:

 

 

They are a little "bushy" but again, a vacuum up should take away some of that volume.

 

And some blackberry bush on the far embankment:

 

 

That white just visible is the PVA.  I *might* add another clump to the top left... will see how it appears with fresh eyes tomorrow.

 

On the near side, I've been adding texture; some soil and greener grass here and there - this was after a SG application, so there's a lot of loose material that need to be cleaned up, but it's coming to life now.  Blackberries over the top of that later in the week. A boundary fence, too.  Some base layer 4mm static grass is visible beside the fairway...

 

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[jukebox]

24 hrs later...

 

The clover came up nicely:

 

 

So much so that I decided there needed to be a touch more in that field.  And yes, I did add a touch more blackberry bush:

 

 

..and to keep the continuity, I added some on the field closest to the layout edge.  Because this is a lot closer, I went from a single colour flock, to using two shades:

 

 

We'll have a look tomorrow to see how that vacuums up.

 

The gateway also came up okay.  From above it looks a bit flock-stuck-on-static-grass:

 

 

But from ground level or at normal viewing distances, it works:

 

 

The tufts in the cutting lost a lot of volume, and are more subtle now:

 

 

The green shading I applied to the far side has also given me a result to be happy with...

 

 

So much so that I have gone back and added a similar treatment to the far side, so make both embankments looks "as one"

 

***

 

The last tweak involved some critique from Science Major eldest son.

 

"There's a mistake in your backscene.  The haze blue mountain occurs in the far distance.  You can't have it in front of the dark mountain..."

 

 

He's right.

 

So the tree there grew a bit..

 

 

..and all was good with the world.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[gordon s]

That really looks impressive Scott. The cutting and the flow of the track through is really taking shape.
 

One thing that is bothering my OCD and that’s the angle of the 5 bar gate (4) in the field.  Whichever side it is hinged, it’s going to be a problem.  I’m off to search the web as I can’t recall seeing a gate so far out of level.......

[jukebox]

It's not ideal, Gordon, but I set it up so it's hung from the high side (I believe the diagonal on the hinge always has to be at the top - otherwise it's not supported in any way). 

 

I should go back and add a strainer post next to the hedge.

 

Don't ask about the double gates at the far end of the cutting.  They're on an even worse slope; One of the perils of horizontal compression...

 

A lot of that fence is "compromised" - it's Ratio fencing, which is rigid.  Looks fine as a backdrop until you examine it too closely.  I will use Peco fencing on the nearer side, which is more fiddly to install, but can be set correctly with posts closer to vertical on undulating ground.

Edited April 9, 2020 by jukebox

[jukebox]

Apparently, you can bat both ways when it comes to gates...

 

My way:

 

 

Or the other way...

 

 

 

[RedGemAlchemist]

7 hours ago, jukebox said:

24 hrs later...

 

The clover came up nicely:

 

 

So much so that I decided there needed to be a touch more in that field.  And yes, I did add a touch more blackberry bush:

 

 

..and to keep the continuity, I added some on the field closest to the layout edge.  Because this is a lot closer, I went from a single colour flock, to using two shades:

 

 

We'll have a look tomorrow to see how that vacuums up.

 

The gateway also came up okay.  From above it looks a bit flock-stuck-on-static-grass:

 

 

But from ground level or at normal viewing distances, it works:

 

 

The tufts in the cutting lost a lot of volume, and are more subtle now:

 

 

The green shading I applied to the far side has also given me a result to be happy with...

 

 

So much so that I have gone back and added a similar treatment to the far side, so make both embankments looks "as one"

 

***

 

The last tweak involved some critique from Science Major eldest son.

 

"There's a mistake in your backscene.  The haze blue mountain occurs in the far distance.  You can't have it in front of the dark mountain..."

 

 

He's right.

 

So the tree there grew a bit..

 

 

..and all was good with the world.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

That looks fantastic! Very nicely done!

[jukebox]

A bit of an excursion, this afternoon.

 

There's no "right" way to create ground cover.  One of the things I am really enjoying is experimenting with things, or making mistakes and trying to rectify them and getting a good result.

 

The down side is that areas I created 2 years ago sometimes no longer satisfy me - and I may go back a give them a tweak, to "lift" them to the standard I am working to now.

 

Over where the golf course property meets the station, I though I'd try stick coarse flock to the plaster, not static grass.  I wanted to suggest longer, unkept ground cover.

 

When I stuck the first layer on, it didn't cover 100%, and the brown plaster was visible.  I added more glue in the worst areas, and reapplied - it came out looking quite good - like low shubbery...

 

I then wondered: what if I had applied static grass over the top of the flock????

 

Well this is what you get:

 

 

It comes up looking like weedy grass!

 

  

The olive-green flock is the slope to the station - I haven't treated that beyond a single flock layer.  Yet.

 

Here's area with the double layer of flock:

 

 

I could get a similar effect using the heavier "bushes" or "clump foliage" product from Woodland Scenics... and still might.  There's low trees and shrubs to go in here on both sides of the fenceline...

 

 

But this is one of those happy experiments where I didn't just want a flat green surface, and have managed just that by literally playing with the materials I had.

 

If it had looked wrong, I'd have grabbed a putty knife and lifted it off.

 

Don't be scared to experiment.  It's only a train set!

 

Cheers,

 

Scott

Edited April 10, 2020 by jukebox
typos

[jukebox]

As I alluded to a day or so ago, the gates at the far end of the cutting are even more fantastical than the one dealt with this week.

 

To wit:

 

 

It really was a bodge of an effort, simply because I gave no thought how those fence might meet in real life, or perhaps because that looked like some sort of rail reserve access...

 

Now I have a few tubs of blackberry bushes ready to plant, it wasn't a hard call to disguise that nonsense...

 

 

Much better.  Even from the reverse angle.

 

 

So where am I at?  Well I'm about ready to plant the blackberries on the near side.  But to do that, I really want the boundary fence in.  That will let me build up some long grass on either side of the fence *before* I plant blackberries.

 

The view from the helicopter looks like this:

 

 

I won't add too much more texture to the cutting before it's blackberry time - some weed clumps on the right will do it.  

 

I've taken the "finished" texture to the corner and am starting on static grass around the bend (leaning across the hill to do so)

 

 

Fence strainer post added on the up hill side to hang that gate off!

 

So next job is the fencing along the top, then some dry grass to match the far side.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[jukebox]

So I've installed Peco fencing for this side of the cutting.

 

I cut off the elongated "prongs" on the Peco fencing - previous experience proved it is too hard to drill holes at the correct spacing when the land contours are not level -  and used Liquid Nails construction adhesive, applied with a toothpick to 75% of the post ends.  

 

 

This glue tacks very quickly, and binds to the static grass, so the fence is a bit resilient to knocks, which is handy.

 

 

The glue is brown, so if you had a fertile imagination, you could think it was the soil where the posts were drilled in...  but I go the extra mile.

 

I apply PVA to each of those brown glue spots, then also run a bead of PVA along the base of the fence-line - on both sides:

 

 

Then I take my Greenkeeper and apply a **very** generous cover of static grass "weeds" - this is a hodgepodge of 12mm long autumn grasses that I have kept specially for this task:

 

 

They don't go down particularly well, so I do make the cover heavy.  One take-away tub covers only 1m of fencing - but there's loads of excess for about 100mm either side of the fenceline...

 

 

Once the PVA is dry, I vacuum up the excess - about 95% of what you put down - and you're left with those glue spots nicely disguised as the longish dry grass that you might get from not being able to mow or plough hard up against the fence.  Even on the the lush green side, it doesn't look out of place:

 

 

And on the dry side, it's even better:

 

 

No obvious glue spots now.  

 

 

Ready for the blackberry bushes tomorrow... and I can also go back and add the rest of the fence toward the station.

 

Happy Easter, everyone.

 

Scott

 

[jukebox]

Where the farm land gives way to the golf course, I'm planning on a stand of tall trees along the fence-line;

 

 

I'd spotted some unusual ones here in Perth, and was going to use those as inspiration, but it turns out they are native Australian trees...

 

 

 

Scratch that idea.

 

I went back to my copy of The Observers Book of North Yorkshire Trees, and I see elms listed as being found in the region. 

 

Which led me to look at a few photos online that seem promising...

 

This one, albeit in East Coker is appealing  (photo courtesy of Ptelea)

 

 

This fits the bill, too, but that might not be Great Britain... (David Hosking photo)

 

 

...and I'll just link to the final one, actually nearby Tyne and Wear:  Durham Elm

 

So we'll see how we go making tree armatures for a half dozen of these...

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

 

[pirouets]

Think both any of those would look good. Out of interest how much of the land between the fence line and the golf hole will they take up

[lezz01]

A word of caution with Elm trees. Back in the 60's we had a little thing called Dutch Elm disease which killed or caused to be felled around 96% of all of the Elms in Great Britain I can't recall when it was exactly but we had huge Elms all around our school playing field and we broke up for the summer and when we came back they had ALL gone and I do mean all gone! There wasn't an Elm left in the whole of the county by September. The other thing about Elms is that they are very very tall. If you don't have them in Aus then you have no idea how tall they get. To do a Great Elm justice in 4mm you should be thinking 18"/450mm tall as they go to well over 100 ft. If they were in a jungle  they would be called canopy trees. They announced last year that they had succeeded in developing a strain of the Elm that was immune to the fungus carried by the beetle that caused all the problems so they should be soon making a come back. I do hope so I really miss Elms they are a very majestic tree.

Regards Lez.    

[johndon]

On ‎06‎/‎04‎/‎2020 at 09:11, kandc_au said:

Scott have a look at this link and see if it is of help:
Go to about 3.30 where it gets interesting!

 

 

 

I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in American HO but I've been watching his videos for the last couple of months, he does some very nice stuff.