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Stockrington - Mojo ignited. Thanks, Heljan!


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18 hours ago, pirouets said:

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

 

Hi Steve - there's plenty of real estate up in that corner; those chalk marks in the lower left of the first photo show the edge of the rough; the fairway is the tiny triangle at the bottom of the shot.  Take a look in some of the following photos...

 

18 hours ago, lezz01 said:

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.    

 

Hi Lez - yes, I was reading up about them; the Dutch Elm fiasco is quite fascinating.  And making them elms would be a nice anchor to my 1930-1960 timeline.

 

About the size...

 

Turns out I have seven armatures underway; these are florist wire, and because I knew I wanted tall trees, I've actually Araldite-ed the bases to maximise the height - the bunched wire is coated in epoxy, and the masking tape holds the bundle till the glue sets:

 

1404b.jpg.de786045e30997d120b949d0fe8410ae.jpg

 

I started these a week ago; they are nice and dry now.  Checking the length....

 

1404a.jpg.622543bf9425212f67b56d30157284a1.jpg

 

450mm tall - potentially a 400mm tall tree, by the time you form a canopy.

 

But...

 

As I discovered when I created my hill, absolute scale doesn't always translate well on a model.  Let me illustrate.

 

I've used my collection of WS shaker bottles for reference; these approach 250mm high, and have the sort of height-to-width bulk that I'd expect an elm would, judging by those sample photos.  I'd probably go up to ~75mm higher.

 

Positioning them in a stand of seven in place on the hill results in this:

 

1404c.jpg.b43af23470e9ffdd893099330624642d.jpg

 

I know those aren't 100ft, but the reality is, too much higher starts to look "wrong".

 

They are still well clear of the fairway:

 

1404d.jpg.9045e0cf8319aa745ec57570240a102d.jpg

 

I will plant progressively smaller trees closer to the fairway to create a fairly substantial green band between the fairway and the railway.

 

Looking back up the hill, you can see the screen ~300mm elms would create:

 

1404f.jpg.c2dbb427f823c0042304d5977cadb0b8.jpg

 

And just to show what I mean by "looking wrong", here's my tape measure, extended to 400mm:

 

1404g.jpg.bcb7ab0232cdc09d4cf694c363b36cb5.jpg

 

That's uncomfortably high....

 

And if I used trees that mature, I'd have to plant less of them, as they'd need to be wider...  that was my I liked the Australian Kauri's initially; their width to height ratios worked well for me.

 

1404h.jpg.47bc9b5fe54a71d03d0dfcd3dd81274f.jpg

 

I have no idea if I can even convincingly model an elm!  I guess I get seven goes at it. 

 

I shall do a bit of delving to see if anyone else has had a go online.  If all else fails it will be trial and error.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

 

Edited by jukebox
modified comments about shaker bottle height...
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Lovely visual exposition of how distance and size comparison in 1:1 will remain the same when viewing something scaled down. 

 

Viewing real 76 to 912 feet at 1;1 gives very small angular viewing displacements, between the nearer {76 feet} objects and comparable objects at the far extremity.  However, viewing 1 to 12 feet of 1:1 objects will have a large angular displacement of the eyes from one end to the other, eg. if viewing objects along a table with plates, knives, forks etc.  Close objects taking up a much greater viewing angle than than the same size distant ones. There will also be the same large "actual" angular view displacement when viewing items at the same, close 1 - 12 feet, distances but representing 76 to 912 scale feet.  The mind will see the closer objects as taking up a greater angle of view and so interpret that as it must be BIG then.  Layout pictures 2 and 3 show the effect very clearly as in one the bottles are close, taking up a large viewing angle in 2, but a smaller angle of the view in 3, so looking a bit less disproportionate.  Looking at the poplar, in picture 3 then back to the bottles, they look more reasonable and I suspect even less so, if they were on the far side of the cutting, photographed from the same place as number 3 layout picture.

 

What a rubbish description of mental interpretation of visual references, but I know what I meant and it still leaves the problem of the fact that they are intended to be by the golf course.  :rolleyes:  I don't suppose you might consider the Elms for a wood on the far side of the cutting and some pretty little Silver Birch trees and Gorse Bushes decorating the Golf Course?   :unknw_mini:

 

Keep safe

Julian

 

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You're just trying to confuse me, aren't you, Julian?  ;)  I'm not quite sure what your conclusion was... but I *think* you're pointing out that even at 300mm, scaled to 1:76 and viewed from 1ft-6ft, the mind will see those trees as big?

 

I can offer the following:

 

What is fixed: I'd like some tall trees in that corner of the property - mentally, I see it as a visual break, that lifts the area from just another anodyne model railway hillside, to something special - and it's far enough away from the fairway, that it will not look out of place, because the canopy of the trees will go from around 100mm on the edge of the rough, up to 300mm by the fence-line.

 

To that end, elms are not set in stone. I just like the shape, plus I want to try and model a specific species, not just have "a tree".  Hint; I'm not overly happy with my "trees" elsewhere, but as they are to the rear of the layout, it's less critical for me.  These are very much up front.  And at eye level.  Are Elms a no-no for golf land? - even well away from the fairway?  I would have though in pre-Dutch Elm Disease days, if there were tall trees around the border of a property, they would have been left intact - it's not like people in the 1940's knew these would succumb to a disease in the 1960's....

 

Perversely, I could use poplars, and make *those* 300mm tall and get away with it.  But that's not what I had in mind.  Remembering too, that the bottles I used to depict height are solid. The trees will, if I bring my modelling A-game, be somewhat transparent, to allow a sense of depth looking through, or past them.  I'm actually happy to consider other species of tree...

 

I'd not considered vegetating the far side of the embankment...  though on of the corners near the gate could be planted.  For the reasons above, it's the unused land owned by the golf club that I'd planned on hosting mature growth.

 

There will indeed be smaller trees and shrubbery along the fence-line of the golf course, but closer to the hole. The distance from fairway to fence narrows to almost zero behind the green, so the canopy will get lower as it follows the fence to the hole.

 

Right now I'm still static grassing - there's a few days of that - and adding detail to the remainder of the cutting, as well as twisting up some smaller, non-descript trees for the fairway that I may try and tweak into more specific types.  I can't plant the blackberries until all the static grass by the fence is planted - it goes everywhere...

 

So we have time to discuss options here before I start.

 

Cheers,

 

Scott

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The thing with trees on layouts is that, with very few exceptions, most of them are modeled hugely under scale. Maybe by as much as 50%. Mainly because of the fact that they would totally dominate any model railway and show up the fact that most layouts are compressed lengthwise. We subconsciously reduce the height of the trees to make the scene more believable. The sad truth of the matter is we have no real idea how big trees really are in relation to the rest of world around us. Human beings are very small really, few of us ever make much over 6 feet in height, a two storey building is maybe 40' to the top of a chimney stack, most mature trees are at least twice that. So we lose the relationship trees have with the world because we are always looking up at them or in some cases our experience with trees is confined to small fruit trees or service trees planted in the streets to provide shade. These are pollarded so they never attain their true height. Bizarrely the best place to get a true idea about the true height of trees is from a tower block where you can see the true relationship trees have to the rest of the world. But as long as we are compressing the scene in any direction we have to compress it in all dimensions or it looks wrong so we are stuck with underscale trees.  The logic indicates that if we compress the length by 30% we need to compress the height by the same amount or they will jar. I have no formula for this it's just a gut feeling you understand. As to what trees would look good there. I would go with a small stand of sycamores or silver birch it don't matter really because it's not natural. It's a golf course and it's all been landscaped, I would have the larger species further away from the normal viewing position and model them at 66% scale.

Regards Lez.           

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I agree about underestimating tree hieghts.

 

My wife insisted on planting a tree in our driveway that the little card attached to the stem said would grow to a height of 3 metres (or approximately 15 feet).  Well several years later this thing must be 18 metres high and still going.  The neighbour cut down his palm tree because our plant (ie. tree) had overwhelmed it!

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58 minutes ago, lezz01 said:

*snip*

As to what trees would look good there. I would go with a small stand of sycamores or silver birch it don't matter really because it's not natural. It's a golf course and it's all been landscaped, I would have the larger species further away from the normal viewing position and model them at 66% scale.

Regards Lez.           

 

That's interesting...  my perception is that for a golf course 1930-1960, that it would be created from it's surrounds, not as landscaped as we see today.  So, for instance, if the land acquired for the course had elms, there would be elms there...  and that only those trees that needed to be removed to create the fairway would be removed.

 

I could be wrong, and I guess in the real world, both scenarios played out.

 

By the 1970's and 80's, we had got to "designer golf courses" where the whole kit and caboodle was manufactured...

 

Cheers

 

Scott

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Yes you are quite right many courses were fitted into the landscape. However most of what we think of as a natural landscape is in fact the product of landscapers such as Capability Brown. Where do you think they put all those golf courses? Quite a lot of them went on the estates of the wealthy. Mainly because there was a lack of heirs and the inability of many of them to be in a position to pay death duties after WW1. That war cost the landed gentry of this country very very dearly indeed. Thus stately homes became country hotels, golf courses and country clubs and the golf courses were built on the landscaped estates of the landed gentry. So what you think of as a typical English landscape is anything but! All of the land in this country was once owned by the crown and by extension the lords of the realm. Not all but a good proportion of them have been fiddled will one way or another even most of the forests are not natural forests but plantations only the truly ancient prehistoric woodlands are natural and they are very few and far between. Britain, you will remember, ruled the waves and you need an awful lot of trees to enable you to do that. Whole forests of them and managed ones at that. Even once the advent of iron ships came about you still needed lot's and lots of timber as most ships and indeed railway locomotives used a sandwich of wood clamped between the iron. So what part of the landscape here is natural? very little I'm afraid. Even some of the wilder mountains have been chipped away at and fiddled with. Some parts of Wales, Scotland, parts of  Cornwall and the northern moors are as close as you can get to a natural landscape but lot's of that's been fiddled with at sometime or other since the stone age.

Regards Lez.         

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1 hour ago, jukebox said:

 

That's interesting...  my perception is that for a golf course 1930-1960, that it would be created from it's surrounds, not as landscaped as we see today.  So, for instance, if the land acquired for the course had elms, there would be elms there...  and that only those trees that needed to be removed to create the fairway would be removed.

 

I could be wrong, and I guess in the real world, both scenarios played out.

 

By the 1970's and 80's, we had got to "designer golf courses" where the whole kit and caboodle was manufactured...

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Our course opened in 1909. The mature trees were kept, and became features and to a degree hazards of the course. A lot of them are still with us now.  Just as you say Scott, it was created from its surrounds. I would say all the older courses round here are basically the same.

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Today's progress upstairs.

 

I've been able to open up work on multiple fronts, which is speeding things up nicely.

 

1/. Added a small hedge to the boundary between the two fields

 

1604a.jpg.34b5235d2af64dfe1700105ce438026b.jpg

 

2/. Gave the golf fence the weeds treatment - using a greener weed mix than along the boundary fence-line

 

1604b.jpg.fee0e99d3ac97ec1904fc9f57fe57c5e.jpg

 

It needs to be vacuumed up in that shot.

 

3/. Started adding the first layer of ground cover to the near side of the fairway:

 

1604d.jpg.6d1d7790e318089135b17509685db4a7.jpg

 

4/. Finished adding the first layer of ground cover to the far side of the rough:

 

1604f.jpg.4f15083e033710a26756690b90ff45a4.jpg

 

5/. Started adding the second layer of ground cover - long. deep, grass - to the back of the golf course land (again, not yet vacuumed):

 

1604g.jpg.58a204021f4ea5ddeb516ee6c6edd4eb.jpg

 

Looking from a distance, the canvas is coming together...

 

1604j.jpg.6613cd426fd27ac76a0d78227ae52859.jpg

 

Don't stress too much about how that long grass looks - that's the fresh PVA that hasn't gone off.  I'll also be working additional layers in to make those 2mm grass transitions that are so visible from on high, a lot less so.

 

***  

 

A few comments, thoughts, and observations.

 

Static grass goes *everywhere* when you apply it.  For that reason, I need to get as much of it down as possible before I put in vegetation that would look bad if it were "polluted" by later grassing.  That's why I have all of a sudden blitzed the grassing - I can't finish the cuttings until all but the fairway is down.

 

I have created some areas using a deader grass mix where the planned trees will go; there's nothing stopping me adding more after the fact.

 

I need to get in and detail the remainder of the embankment - up near the church.  That will have a lot less vegetation, probably some just weed tufts, and a stray shubbery.  The zone there is close to the church and retaining wall, and I do need to try and use some material/techniques that I used in the background, to reinforce the suggestion that the scenery has continuity.

 

Lastly, and a bit of an "oh, b*gger!" moment for me today...

 

I looked up from within the cloud of static fibres and PVA fumes that was filling the layout room, and noticed I have almost painted myself into a corner.  There's a wedge of real estate between the avoiding lines and the station tracks that I've not terra-formed:

 

1604u.jpg.1a9b4bfe7b7d8c28b8f74b774e9877ff.jpg

 

That is sitting rather neatly *behind* the golf green, at the start of the cutting...

 

Things are not too dire; by removing a good portion of the ground cover tubs I have sat up that end, and plonking a pillow on the tracks to protect them, I can imitate a rather large fur seal, and lie on the layout there, to reach in and place some plaster and then come back and cover it with cinders;

 

0803h.jpg.bc5287ee32c7a651bc0d1414580f877c.jpg

 

At least it will give me a good opportunity to look at the cutting from track side, and be sure I am happy with it, too.

 

I'm sure there will be an excessive amount of profanity involved, so shall try not to do it on a Sunday.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

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Work, in progress.

 

2004a.jpg.67eddcc245587b97d8421792baf5da84.jpg

 

I might need to source some 6mm grass to transition that fence-line vege to the rough...  I still have to apply some SG over those flock spots were trees will sprout.

 

The sharp eyed will have noticed the goings on beyond the fence...

 

2004b.jpg.b5453a0939163aefd84f86facc1448ea.jpg

 

This side of the fence, I've painted the bunkers, ready to be sanded.  I'm hoping that brown lip will just be visible when I flock to the edge, to look like topsoil...

 

The fence has had extra tufts of weeds stuck on.  There's still vegetation, underbush, and shrubbery to go along the back there.

 

Beyond the fence, the vee between the station tracks and the avoiding lines has been built up with plaster, and once it dried, given a first cover of cinders:

 

2004c.jpg.22948ca6723db8793ea8ca5106eb6737.jpg

 

I've plastered 85% of the length of it - stopping at a point where the station platform is likely to be close to ending...

 

Miraculously, the plaster, despite being spread directly on untreated ply, did not crack.  I took the liberty of cindering the cess on the four foot side, too.  Spilled a bit, as well, I see.

 

I will bring the cinders up to where I stepped the plaster down - and leave the final blending of the platform end until I install the platform.

 

That water mark in the ballast is from the plaster when I formed the cutting.  I plan to spoon fresh ballast over that area, and vacuum it up - Hopefully the fines and dust it leaves will disguise or at least tone that down.  I have some other spots here and there, where plaster has splattered, or glue dripped.  The small areas are inconspicuous or even like real life.  The larger discolourations look wrong.

 

Cheers for now

 

Scott

 

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I've been doing micro sessions upstairs - adding detail or extra grass layers in five-to-six small areas at a time, twice a day.

 

The end result is that I **think** I'm done with the North end of the cutting.

 

2104a.jpg.ae1d71512dbc6b3926b3124724b676ea.jpg

 

The blackberry bushes are placed, not fixed for now...

 

2401d.jpg.a5cd5b070ff7c8a4f607f96fa0f7318e.jpg

 

I want to see how I feel about the groupings over a few days.

 

2104c.jpg.3c312cbb8e4f299b7c6215e305e0ea3c.jpg

 

I'm done all the way to the bluff on the corner, and the first 500mm around the corner is sorted, too - just need to wait for the cinders to dry so I can weed up the boundary fence at that end...

 

2104b.jpg.7ff52681c5c29538c5fc0944bee14d6e.jpg

 

With the grass and weeds all down, I can get serious about the trees.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

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N.B.  This defaults to low rez... but if you click on the settings tab, the original was uploaded in hi-rez.

 

 

 

Edited by jukebox
note about resolutions
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18 minutes ago, jukebox said:

N.B.  This defaults to low rez... but if you click on the settings tab, the original was uploaded in hi-rez.

 

 

 

Red letter day Scott! Great to see a locomotive running through that lovely scenery. No stopping you now.

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Thanks for the kind words and likes, Gents - much appreciated.  I shot that on my work iPhone - it's come out rather well, and wasn't too onerous to edit, so shall do some more videos as time permits.

 

*** 

 

In the meantime, realising I needed to finish the static grassing before I could progress with fence-side shrubbery, I bit the bullet, and have started on the fairway....

 

I studied plenty of photos online, and figured I needed to depict the slightly different cuts of fairway and rough, and also, if possible, somehow show the mowing marks along the length of the fairway.  I did the latter by apply the PVA generously to the plaster with a brush, leaving brush marks in the wet glue that would hopefully gather more flock.  It was all a bit tense for the first session, so no action photos, just the end result of the centre fairway:

 

2704a.jpg.cd166dd4c91d850b727c31ee97b53f4b.jpg

 

Down near the hole, I realised I needed to mark out the different cuts of the fairway with a pencil line, to make it a bit easier see where to apply the glue for each coloured grass:

 

2704b.jpg.bd8bd976b6c935b3c8052bf48082a55b.jpg

 

Next up was the rough.  This needs a darker static grass green, to represent a longer cut.  As with the fairway, I used a sponge and wet the plaster first, so it didn't wick all the moisture out of the PVA.  Then I applied a generous layer of glue... you can see the brush marks as described above:

 

2704c.jpg.7d090880a00de56b275cc9b348340c64.jpg

 

I stopped applying glue when I got to this point, because I was worried I didn't have enough of the darker static grass.  Turns out I didn't - here's the view straight after I applied the medium green: 

 

2704d.jpg.e2a46e7e26b8ed7214da8bef6d44bd00.jpg

 

Not an earth shattering problem.  I was able to fully cover the area I had painted with glue by using some of the "accent" shades of grass that I have small tubs of to finish off.  

 

When it was all vacuumed up, it looked like this:

 

2704e.jpg.d623c06dc5a9f6ed1f41dbdcb248be49.jpg

 

There's a few naked areas where I didn't bring the glue hard up to the existing edges - in some spots, it's because I didn't like the shape of the transition edge, in others, it's just that the glue went on thinly, and skinned before I could apply the grass.  I will need to patch-fill those areas.

 

The good news was that when I vacuumed up all the left side rough, I had plenty of grass to reapply to the right side rough.

 

Glue down:

 

2704g.jpg.fe9d377a027d9e7771b79d3deda67c8c.jpg

 

I have a transition from where I ran out of static grass yesterday.  Here is how I have managed it:

 

2704h.jpg.0cc3488fdd30ac5d6b074180823f0b5d.jpg

 

Time will tell if that treatment works.

 

Here's a few of those other bald areas, up near the top of the hilll

 

2704i.jpg.be2914f55b47a3c7917ba026787623a2.jpg

 

These will give me a chance to try some patching techniques before I have a go at the spots on the fairway proper.

 

But right now, this is what the view looks like - the right hand side has a generous layer of static grass,  the excess from which I will recover with the vacuum tomorrow:

 

2704j.jpg.9b5317e943cbc82f49af27f6d40b7590.jpg

 

A bit of work on those GUR spots, and also perhaps the demarcations between cut lengths - although it does seem that the demarcation is quite hard on real world golf courses - and I shall move on to... the green.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

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..and with the right hand rough vacuumed away, I was left with:

 

2904a.jpg.a71a4b98dc25bf4e58602cba6a634426.jpg

 

which from above looks like:

 

2904b.jpg.bfbfdf72f4c4543d5f16cad7fa762492.jpg

 

and when my German workers started shovelling...

 

2904c.jpg.08bafe31ac415e6d91307f17b0aba384.jpg

 

Here's that join area where I'd run out of grass for the afternoon:

 

3004b.jpg.cad07ee0670cb2765ff0934e0c4c2b0c.jpg

 

Which leads to be a short discussion/tutorial, if you're interested.

 

I'm trying to replicate a relatively flat a uniform surface - a golf course.  But totally flat and uniform, when scaled down, looks wrong to the eye.  Even more so the camera.

 

Static grasses come in a variety of brands, lengths, and blends.  When I got my first few packs, I was surprised at the colours in the blend - some red and white strands in amongst the green in my long spring and autumn grasses.  Some brands are just a single colour - the dark green Noch grass I bought a few weeks back.  If you apply that on it's own, it looks flat.

 

Here's the palette of 2mm grasses I am using for the golf course:

 

3004a.jpg.09ad0856226816ebf71ba67cbfb872b8.jpg

 

The main colours are the large tubs.  The accents or spot colours are in the small tubs.  But even the large tubs have some accent in them. 

 

But here's the rub: with 2mm SG, if I miss a spot, it's very hard to go back and patch it - doing so creates visible ridges of PVA, or if you extend the glue to the existing area, it thickens the surface.

 

Now this is a bad thing, sort of, but can be used to your advantage.

 

3004c.jpg.9e0beef10cc53b76634e0f177498a03c.jpg

 

I wanted to create a texture of linear mowing in the rough, so instead of just patching the bare spots, I ran the glue lightly in bands, and you can make that out at the bottom of the photo above.  It patches the grass, and also breaks up the colour so it is not a single tone.

 

I went back today and have tried to patch some areas on the fairway using the light shade of grass - will have to wait ans see how they come out.

 

On this next shot, you can see the full gamut of green textures - fairway, rough, medium and long grass, some dead patches; 

 

3004d.jpg.75f5d2022e01463b1e5f01245d479d69.jpg

 

The other thing about applying SG is that you need a fair bit more than you will actually stick down.  My golf hole is probably more grassing than a lot of stand-alone layouts have.  And to cover that area, I initially glued about 1m x 150mm at a time.  That needed a whole bag of Peco SG.  But only 10-15% stayed stuck - I recovered, and went again the next day. 

 

Happily, I'm at the stage now where I'm just spot grassing, so am using less each time.

 

It's an iterative process - once I have done all the work with one shade, I stop and see if there's anywhere that looks flat or fake.  If so, I look at the palette of colours, and work out what sort of highlight will lift it.  The trick is to know when to stop.

 

The down side is that I will also now have to be vary careful working in this area - especially the fairway.  I can't really afford to spill any paint, water, or glue on it now.

 

***

 

In other news, I'm giving serious thought to having a go at flocking the green directly on the plaster.   I know exactly what I need to do to finish it off - flock the chequerboard, then when that is done, run a bead of darker flock around the perimeter to join up to the fairway.

 

I am also wrestling with the sheer size of a very large tree armature...  but more on that another day.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

Edited by jukebox
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Sometimes you see thing in photos that don't catch your eye in real life.

 

As I have been tell the story of grassing the golf course, in the background of some of the photos I have been posting here, I noticed a line in the steep grassed area I completed many many months ago:

 

0205a.jpg.4764ea83a7d77776bd225955a72f6f8f.jpg 

 

This line:

 

0205b.jpg.30a6f2c42ef7c674b519655a42286ae5.jpg

 

Not quite sure what happened, but I suspect it's the PVA join line where I stopped grassing one day and restarted the next.

 

Doesn't matter how it got here, really:  The bottom line is you don't see many straight lines in nature, especially with grass.

 

And when you see it once, you look at it every. single. time.

 

So last week, I slapped some PVA in a suitably random pattern on the existing ground cover, and lent across and fired some 2mm greenery at it...

 

0205c.jpg.2077aebd44036f2473943fae63897c14.jpg

 

When I vacuumed it off, the result was:

 

0205d.jpg.d89459aa5c98fc1d8d282cae174e47c2.jpg

 

Much better!

 

Cheers

 

Scott

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I've been wrestling one of my tree armatures these last few days.

 

Sitting downstairs, I was convinced it is too big, and will look silly.  Annoyed I've batch-prepared seven (!) of them, I stopped, walked away, did something else, but eventually got back to it today and finished twisting wires.

 

My inspiration?

 

0405f.jpg.9abf6acf5fcf965a407a28dd3f342c09.jpg

 

Well when I was done, before trimming it up, I thought I should take it upstairs and see if I'd wasted my time.

 

It's branch spread is wider than I planned, but actually not as tall.

 

0405b.jpg.3082eccc05574fd5c6412c42ea8313b4.jpg

 

Here's a few more views...

 

0405a.jpg.86223ecbf50fa20d055ed2f7ebed51a5.jpg

 

It needs some of the thin Woodlands Scenic poly fibre strung around the tips... and some careful application of foliage material...

 

0405c.jpg.5e968edc6511f80ed377b7f3f4663653.jpg

 

I also need to thicken out the main trunks with some construction glue, and also prune the upper limbs to give it a better shape, but I think it might be salvageable...

 

0405d.jpg.13d78f3abf2b94770af914ecffb6ee64.jpg

 

..although I see from this angle there's some more bending to do.

 

Consider it a work in progress.

 

I'll wrestle a few more into tree shapes and see how they look as a group.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

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17 minutes ago, jukebox said:

I've been wrestling one of my tree armatures these last few days.

 

Sitting downstairs, I was convinced it is too big, and will look silly.  Annoyed I've batch-prepared seven (!) of them, I stopped, walked away, did something else, but eventually got back to it today and finished twisting wires.

 

My inspiration?

 

0405f.jpg.9abf6acf5fcf965a407a28dd3f342c09.jpg

 

Well when I was done, before trimming it up, I thought I should take it upstairs and see if I'd wasted my time.

 

It's branch spread is wider than I planned, but actually not as tall.

 

0405b.jpg.3082eccc05574fd5c6412c42ea8313b4.jpg

 

Here's a few more views...

 

0405a.jpg.86223ecbf50fa20d055ed2f7ebed51a5.jpg

 

It needs some of the thin Woodlands Scenic poly fibre strung around the tips... and some careful application of foliage material...

 

0405c.jpg.5e968edc6511f80ed377b7f3f4663653.jpg

 

I also need to thicken out the main trunks with some construction glue, and also prune the upper limbs to give it a better shape, but I think it might be salvageable...

 

0405d.jpg.13d78f3abf2b94770af914ecffb6ee64.jpg

 

..although I see from this angle there's some more bending to do.

 

Consider it a work in progress.

 

I'll wrestle a few more into tree shapes and see how they look as a group.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Lovely scenery here Scott...

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Despite living on the other side of the planet, and having never met, @gordon s of Eastwood Town is a good friend to me here, and there are times I wonder if there's not some sort of wormhole in the fabric of space/time between Eastwood Town and Stockrington.  This week has been one of those times.  Gordon has been having some problems with trains misbehaving on a section of track over at Eastwood Town... and suddenly so have I.

 

Unbeknownst to anyone, as I hadn't announced it here, I took a big step with Stockrington last week, removing the plastic drop cloths that have covered the low level storage tracks for the last 4(!) years.  With the scenery above all but complete, there was no risk of glue/water/plaster/sawdust fouling those tracks, and with them vacuumed up, I could think about assembling some trains and keeping them on the layout - so I could create some videos to post here.

 

Now because the track down there is Peco NS, and I'd not run any trains on it, I had the delusion that it would be clean... uh-uh. It needs the CMX to be propelled around.  So I dug out my Heljan diesels that are the anointed power for the job.  Happy with how Kestrel was behaving, I thought I'd run Falcon, too.  That was when the drama started...

 

Seems I have a spot on the mainline that Falcon doesn't like, on the inside curve around near the terrace houses.  The leading wheelset derails there the same way on each pass, regardless of speed, or direction.  I thought it might be the NEM sockets dragging the inside of the buffer beam, so carved the ridge off that.  No joy.  Then I removed the body shell and bogie side frames.  It seems it is a freedom-of-movement issue where there is a section on that curve that must just have a little too much twist for the wheelbase that Falcon has. Maybe it's the cant (super-elevation) maybe it's too sharp a transition from tangent to curve.  There's no obvious kinks or twists - even when viewed with a camera... (the pens are on the down track - the issue is directly opposite each, on the up)

 

0305a.jpg.97639c1da6e6268f217e62f98fdca3f3.jpg

 

Now I can't hand-on-heart say I ran Falcon around the circuit before I ballasted - I've searched this topic and see no evidence - but I am sure I did a lot of running trials before I started ballasting.  I took a video of the WD propelling 20 4-wheel wagons through the curve without issue... and I have run a number locos since.  Kestrel is fine.  As is Lion.  My 9F passes through okay, as does the P2.  It's just Falcon that misbehaves.

 

Perhaps there was some inherent flexibility in the unballasted track that was eliminated when I glued the ballast down, and without that suspension, the track holds a shape Falcon is not able to negotiate.

 

0305b.jpg.d434d64b28d627861f823b6c73931d62.jpg

 

Perversely, I have a large variety of eight-coupled steam locos (P2, Q6, O1, O4, WD...), so my job this week is to type-test: dig out each, fit a DCC chip if I haven't already, and run these through the problem curve.    The good news is that means you'll see some variety in the shots/vids in the coming week, of types I've not shown in action before; A1, A3, and O1.

 

If it turns out it's just Falcon that is an issue, I will leave the curve as is, and either banish Falcon to trip workings hauling trains up from storage, or sell her.  To be honest, I'd rather not re-lay if I can avoid it, but if I have to, now is the time to do it.

 

***

 

And as one last little poke in the eye, it seems I've got one more turnout I forgot to cut the bridging droppers on: when I threw the blind turnout to the future MPD, it tripped the circuit breakers.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

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Hi Scott. Love the fairway you have obviously spent a lot of time on them.

If I may just offer a comment on the tree. The fork of the main trunk is a little too abrupt.  The separation is more gentle in your inspiration photo. It needs to be slightly more V shaped and less U shaped than it is now. It could also use another coat of your bark mixture as well. What did you use, plaster and PVA mix?  Other than that it's a very nice tree mate certainly better than my first effort. A little too wide perhaps but you can trim that down a bit or turn it into an Oak or a Chestnut.

Regards Lez.  

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I really hope this isn’t another pandemic......:D

 

You really have my sympathies Scott. Derailments are something that really gets to me. Coming from a mechanical background everything has to have a logical solution and I can spend hours looking at slow motion passes trying to spot what makes a wheel lift at a certain point. Sometimes there is no obvious answer, but once you discover what is causing a problem that others can live with, the joy is great and the pleasure you get seeing the errant loco passing ’that’ point without derailing is immense.

 

If it’s any consolation I have soldered a new piece of rail in place three times today and whilst matters have improved, I know it my heart it’s not good enough. The next stage will be to extend the join back another 6-8” and have a much longer piece of continual rail that will take out one or two joints. I can’t face it tonight, so will attack it again tomorrow.

 

I recommend you do the same. When you’ve had enough for the day, stop and have a beer. It will still be there tomorrow and a good night’s sleep changes everything.

 

Good luck....

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On 06/05/2020 at 00:01, lezz01 said:

Hi Scott. Love the fairway you have obviously spent a lot of time on them.

If I may just offer a comment on the tree. The fork of the main trunk is a little too abrupt.  The separation is more gentle in your inspiration photo. It needs to be slightly more V shaped and less U shaped than it is now. It could also use another coat of your bark mixture as well. What did you use, plaster and PVA mix?  Other than that it's a very nice tree mate certainly better than my first effort. A little too wide perhaps but you can trim that down a bit or turn it into an Oak or a Chestnut.

Regards Lez.  

 

Hi Lez - I've actually never played a round of golf in my life*!  It's all just my fertile imagination, a dose of solid research looking at real life golf courses in NE England, and helpful input from some of the actual golfers who visit me here.  I hope it does them justice.

 

Happy to hear your views on the proto-tree; it's not done yet, and I agree there needs to be some more tweaking.  I haven't actually covered it in anything, yet - the green is the plastic coating of the florists wire I use.  The plan form here is to form up 3 or 4 more (I won't fit 7), and get them all looking "similar but not identical" and try and apply foliage.  I needed a break from that, so it's ironing out some track issues first.

 

*well, not my adult life; did once or twice for school sports...

 

 

On 06/05/2020 at 01:50, gordon s said:

I really hope this isn’t another pandemic......:D

 

You really have my sympathies Scott. Derailments are something that really gets to me. Coming from a mechanical background everything has to have a logical solution and I can spend hours looking at slow motion passes trying to spot what makes a wheel lift at a certain point. Sometimes there is no obvious answer, but once you discover what is causing a problem that others can live with, the joy is great and the pleasure you get seeing the errant loco passing ’that’ point without derailing is immense.

 

If it’s any consolation I have soldered a new piece of rail in place three times today and whilst matters have improved, I know it my heart it’s not good enough. The next stage will be to extend the join back another 6-8” and have a much longer piece of continual rail that will take out one or two joints. I can’t face it tonight, so will attack it again tomorrow.

 

I recommend you do the same. When you’ve had enough for the day, stop and have a beer. It will still be there tomorrow and a good night’s sleep changes everything.

 

Good luck....

 

I agree about the derailments - and yes, there should always be logic to something mechanical.  My running trials this week have been... illuminating.  Let's just say the D/E crowd have it quite easy, as the all wheel pick up on a Co-Co is worlds away from some steam locos.  I'll cover off on that next week.

 

But for now, I have been bringing previously unseen motive power to Stockrington.  Remarkably, I had never run an A1/3 on the layout before this week.  Flying Fox was available, and so I fitted her with a DCC decoder, and let her loose.

 

Useless trivia.  A Hornby A1/3 has a wider loading gauge than any other loco I own.  How do I know this?  Well after I set 4474 going, she merrily ambled along the tracks, seamlessly through crossovers and turnouts, across lift sections, over bridges, and got to the tunnel portal and went THWACK! and stopped all forward motion, wheels turning merrily away.  The combination of prominent front steps and a long body throw meant said steps just fouled the bottom of the portal.  Rather than cut the steps - I have at least one more A1/3 in the roster - I got a scalpel and shaved a few mm off the face of the portal.  I'll touch it up with soot and muck, and it will be fine.   

 

It did amuse me at the time, and it's good to know which loco I now need to use when I set up my station platforms.

 

In the meantime, a short video of the run, after I'd solved the portal issue.  Not overly exciting, but always nice to show something moving.

 

Stay safe everyone.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

 

 

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