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  • RMweb Gold

I've a couple of things to report since I last updated this thread. The track is now down except for 5 lengths that are arriving tomorrow. This'll complete the double loop. I've soldered in a lot of power lines either side of the track to make sure I've got electrical continuity, and I've carved out the platforms.

 

The platforms have been cut from some 1/2" expanded polystyrene. It's really easy to mark and cut the verticals with a craft knife. I've had to shape it around the signal box and what will be the slope down to the signal box. The sloping ends have been cut with a bread knife, and then finished with a smaller paring knife to flatten the surface. The slope down to the signal box will be made of card so that I can paper the vertical wall behind the slope. I've never been great at wallpapering, so this was definitely easier :)

 

Using Elmer's woodworking glue I've covered the platform with home printed brick paper. the side walls first (including the overhang) then the platform tops. The top was scored a few mm from the side through the middle of the edging so that the edging overlaps the sides.Unfortunately the glue caused the paper to expand, and when it dried it shrank again and caused the platform to curve upwards. I tried Pritt Stick style glue, but it didn't hold the paper onto the polystyrene very firmly. I guess when the platform goes back down I'll be putting a 2x4 over the top to weight it down.

 

The photos shows the platform with the modern edging. It's a real shame about the GN waiting room looking so derelict. This waiting room style was also seen at the other two intermediate stations still on the Wainfleet and Firsby Line at Thorpe St Peter and Havenhouse. The waiting room was at Seacroft as well, but this has disappeared now.

 

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I'm thinking of using spray mount on the other platform as I have some left over. Hopefully this will keep everything nice and flat. The other platform is really plain. No overhang, the sides are dirty reddish brick, and the top the same blue bricks with a white line whitewashed along the edge. From memory, it is also about three bricks lower than the almost finished platform, being a few years older. Although it was increased in height, it is the original platform from when Wainfleet  was a single track terminus before the line was extended to Skegness.

 

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Looking around cyberspace for ballasting info, I found this video of a ballast vacuum. Well it's probably overkill for me, but it looks cool :)

 

 

My wife is back from Calgary tomorrow, so if I get a chance on Tuesday I'll be downstairs with a bottle of "natural tears" as I squint at the sleepers looking for loose stones, a spoon and a pipette.

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Hi Jason,

 

Good to hear of progress.

 

Can I comment that I find your use of expanded polystyrene 'interesting' as the core of your platforms! I don't think I've come across that before. That having been said, the effect of your home printed brick papers is most convincing; that brick surface for the platforms is just as I remember Wainfleet station from all those years ago!

 

Pity about the warping. If it's any consolation it happened to one of my platforms and it has a fairly solid wood base. My 'school boy error' was that I stuck the top surface down, left it with weights on overnight etc. When I came to it the following morning it had this frustrating banana shape to it. It was then that I discovered that this exactly matched the profile of the surface that I was resting the platform on whilst the glue set (ie I hadn't checked that it was flat and true) :swoon:

 

Bet you're looking forward to the first train doing a circuit - always a great moment!

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  • RMweb Gold

Cheers :) I keeps seeing articles that use the board for landscaping (there's some great videos on YouTube, especially one where the feller has at it with all manner of rulers, rasps and knives) and I just thought - well it's about the right thickness. The foam board will sit on top of a cork base so that i can ballast without endangering the ink on the paper. If that wasn't a concern, I'd probably have a layer of mounting board on top and glue the bricks to that. While the foam is pretty stiff, this would guard against dents. It really is very easy to use, and faster to shape, with complex cuts where the signal box will go a breeze. And it's cheap - $7 Canadian for a 2'x8'x1/2" board that will also be put to use as river banks.

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  • RMweb Gold

Just re-read my previous post - that's what happens when you post from an iPhone I suppose...

 

I spent some time on the platforms again today. The one that warps upward is currently weighted down with a reel of wire at each end, but the other one has remained flat. My work process is as follows:

  1. Cut the foam platform to shape. You can mark it out and cut it like wood, only difference is you use the bread knife I was writing about instead of a saw.
  2. Print then cut the sides and use Pritt stick to glue them to the foam. They don't have to be mm perfect, but you do need a lot of Pritt stick otherwise they won't take properly.
  3. Cut the tops use Scotch Photo Mount or similar to glue them to the top surface of the foam. If you use Scotch for its intended purpose, then you only get one chance to glue into position, but bonding paper to expanded polystyrene seems to be more forgiving, and though you can't slide it into place, you can peel and lift to try again a couple of times if you don't get it right. With regards to the curves, I just glued the top surface down, turned the platform upside down and then used a craft knife to cut away the excess. This, and the use of edging strips, makes dealing with slopes and curved slopes really easy.
  4. Brush all the edges of the edging strip with a gray soft tipped felt pen to hide the white.
  5. Score and fold brick edging on the sheet then cut and use Pritt stick to slide it into place, so covering up any problems with accuracy of sides and edges - I suppose it'd be easier with straight platforms! I snipped the top surface bricks to help it curve.

I didn't score a definite line on the platform surface at the top of the slope because I seem to remember that the platform had a rounded transition between slope and horizontal.

 

I'll spray the platforms with matt varnish when I'm done as I seem to have got glue on some of the top surfaces.

 

If you haven't used spray mount before, it's nasty stuff as it's latex glue, and you don't want that in your lungs. I spray outside and still use a mask while I'm doing it.

 

The station building is just a mock-up that's been hanging around for a couple of months, so it's very warped.

 

 

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I just have to apply the Scalescenes platform tarmac style top surface to the carpark and the civil engineering with regards to the platforms is all but done. I am hoping that because I used foam, sinking fence posts into it, and cutting out the area that the water tower will butt up to will be pretty easy.

 

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Next up, ballast, and bus wires.

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Edited by JCL
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  • RMweb Gold

Hmm , so won't be ballasting for a while because the ballast I bought is too dark. I'll not get to Calgary now until after the ski season, so I'll carry on concentrating on buildings.

 

Wainfleet has a number of orange brick buildings knocking around the place such as the waiting room, station building and the signal box, but as I've just picked up a little tool to form corrugated iron from aluminum foil I'll make a start covering the goods shed. Watch this space, but don't hold your breath, it's going to take a few days :)

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  • RMweb Gold

Onwards and upwards. I received a "corrugator" through the post from Australia the other day, and as I have a couple of hours to spare I made a start making those corrugated sheets of aluminium. I've put up a thread here that explains what it's about. I think it's in the wrong forum at the moment so I've asked the moderators if it should be in Scenery and Structures.

 

I'm pretty excited about this little tool. Not only will it while away your evenings keeping you out of trouble, but you will end up with a limitless supply of corrugated texture sheet, which is good for me as I'm 350km away from a model shop, and postage is pretty steep :)

 

The goods shed in Wainfleet was initially made of brick, and lasted until the widening of the line (mainly because it was sited in the path of the second line and would be awkward to get around!) When the new goods shed was built it was built of iron or steel sheeting on a frame. Unfortunately I have no good photos of this shed, and have no photos of the road side, but I do have a description from a family friend who worked in the yard.

 

Although Wainfleet goods yard closed in 1964, it is possible that the shed wasn't used some time before that, and my relative remembers an engine being stored in there from when engines were farmed out to more rural locations during the war. The wagons were loaded either in the bay next to the station platform, or on the siding at the far side of the yard. The local farmers brought their trailers full of produce to the yard earlier in the day, and if you were lucky you'd get the bay. This was the best place to be because unloading the trailers was way easier than the other side of the yard where you had to throw the produce upwards to the wagon. Apparently if you were a larger farmer you could, for the price of some beer, get onto the bay platform and get done quickly. At 3pm the engine turned up and the train went off to Firsby and beyond.

 

Here's a link that shows at least a part of the shed: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinzac55/3929572069/ and here's another one http://www.flickr.com/photos/ingythewingy/6412318011/

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  • RMweb Gold

I started a thread about using the corrugator here, and have completed my first three walls (pictured below). To be honest it didn't take as long as I thought, but then this was the office. I have the goods shed proper to do. But it's after 10pm now, and tomorrow's another day.

 

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Good to see you are progressing nicely. I mentioned in a post a while back about class 114 DMU's which were the iconic Lincolnshire DMU for over 30 years. I thought I would post a couple of pics of my completed model using DC Kits bodies married to a modified/stretched Bachmann class 108 chassis. It took a while to complete but I think is worth the effort. Whilst we now have every type of diesel loco from the major manufacturers, I doubt it will be the same with DMU's, and the 114 is probably not top of the majority of wish lists.

 

Cheers

Simon

 

 

 

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  • RMweb Gold

Hi Michael

 

Thanks very much. They were embossed using a tool which was basically two pieces of acrylic with scored lines on them. I cut each embossed piece of aluminium out and then used double-sided tape to fix them to the side of the building. A longer description can be found here:  http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/67597-corrugating-with-aluminium/?view=getlastpost I'll be updating it in a couple of days with information that shows how to make the "sheets" more quickly.

 

Hi Simon

 

You can rest assured I know a lot more now about class 114 than I did before your post! When I have got a bit further with the layout I think I'm going to tackle one of these. Did you take any photos during your conversion?

 

cheers

 

Jason

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The 114 in the pics looks a real pukka job, I've two built and another two ready to build but I'm still learning! One thing DC did get wrong with these kits, and I didn't realise until I'd finished mine, was the door droplights are too shallow, they should extend down to the lower edge of the windows but apart from that minor point, they do make up into a cracking model.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • RMweb Gold

Received a parcel in the post this morning containing the 1948 Olympic set that was discussed in the bargains thread (57quid!), some buffers and a couple of Hornby footbridges. I saw the Scaledale ones but they looked awful. I've bought thte standard ones in green and grey. My aim is to reproduce the footbridge in Wainfleet. This was unusual in that it had four sets of steps - two were in-line with the bridge and were used to allow people to cross the tracks when the trains were passing through. The other two sets of steps went to the platforms. It seems that hardly anyone used the footbridge, as it was much quicker to use the pedestrian gates next to the grossing gates.

 

To recreate the bridge I'm going to use both footbridges, The bridge needs to be an inch longer than the kit provides for, and because it's on the platforms, I'll need to take some height out of it. My current thoughts are:

 

  1. Keep the four legs on either side the same length.
  2. Replace the middle "floor" section with plasticard that is an inch longer than the current model. This section will be flat as per the prototype and remove the unneeded height.
  3. Cut off the curved sections of the footbridge sides.
  4. Chop the diamond pattern sides up so that they extend the right width. This is going to be a pain because they seem to be made of polythene.  I might be able to use some thin H section to insert the cut ends into (the prototype has vertical bars so it wouldn't be too out of place.)
  5. Put it all together
  6. Try and find some sort of undercoat that will work for the various different types of plastic that are involved.

I think that the last problem will be the worst one. I've been reading up on polythene and it seems like it's almost impossible to glue and paint. Oh well, in for a penny...

 

I've had next to no time in the basement over the last few weeks, but I got an hour in today, and the carpark has been tarmacked and the ballast has started going down. I think I've got a process going, but it's going to take a while...

 

cheers

 

Jason

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The 114 in the pics looks a real pukka job, I've two built and another two ready to build but I'm still learning! One thing DC did get wrong with these kits, and I didn't realise until I'd finished mine, was the door droplights are too shallow, they should extend down to the lower edge of the windows but apart from that minor point, they do make up into a cracking model.

Thanks for the comments. I never noticed that the door droplights were too high for the 114.It seems that the DC kits parts are almost "generic" in nature and no doubt are used to build up kits for a variety of other classes. The instructions also miss out some specific points as well, notably that there are window apertures missing from either side of the gangway on the brake vehicle, and that there is a headlamp missing from the top of the roof dome on the front. This is in addition to the flushglaze windows and seating packs lacking enough of each to complete as per instructions!

 

Never mind, the joys of kit building I suppose is to have to finish it off with a bit of scratchbuilding!!!

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  • RMweb Gold

This is going to be great when finished, very impressive so far.Glad to see you use proper measurements ie;imperial not this fancy continental rubbish which will never catch on.

                                                                                                       all the best

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  • RMweb Gold

Haha, it's worse than that, I'm of the age that I find myself interchanging with the two styles (I'm ambidextrous like that). Canada is as messed up as the UK - km on the roads, but building work in ft and inches, and beer glasses in all sorts of sizes depending on whether you're buying a glass or a pitcher of booze.

 

I do tend to use inches more though.

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  • RMweb Gold

Ok, I'd better focus and finish something. The first item off the production line is going to be the goods shed. Which pretty much just needs assembling now. The walls have all been covered with the corrugated aluminium, and I've been down to the hardware store for a can of white primer 1/2 price this week :), so it's a case of priming and gluing or vice versa. As one of the walls is an unknown entity (no photos and none of my family can remember what it looked like), so I'll make sure that this wall is tacked on rather than a solid join. I'm really excited about getting this done as it'll be the first completed building on the layout apart from the nissen hut that I built as a proof of concept.

 

I'm learning that, apart for the obvious (boards, then track then electrics etc) there are lots of things that must be done in a certain order. The platform can't go down until I know the width of the steps of the footbridge, which can't be built until I've made the signal box as it almost brushes up to it (in fact theroof at the back of he signal box isn't square because it wouldn't have cleared the footbridge if it was. This photo shows what I mean http://www.flickr.com/photos/ingythewingy/6412319293/ ).

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  • 1 month later...
  • RMweb Gold

The sun's out and Winter is starting to give way to Spring, and the time I have available down in the dungeon has increased to the point that I can stop watching trains go round and round for five minutes before going to bed and actually get some stuff done.

 

After starting the thing a couple of months ago and leaving it sat where it was for weeks, I've finally made some headway with the corrugated iron goods shed. Using the little tool I wrote about in Corrugating with Aluminium I've created a whole load of strips of aluminum sheeting that's been chopped and shaped, and then pressed matte board using double sided sticky tape - Valerie style. Luckily the shed was in a distressed state in the years that I'm modelling Wainfleet, which means the nicks and such like that I've added to it through handling it could be seen as prototypical! Note to self, put the foil on as close to the end as possible!

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The chimney is made from a 1/2" square section of poplar from Canadian Tire. I cut the wood about 1/2" shorter than I needed, then cut 4 pieces of card 1/2" long. Using 2 sided tape again, I put the chimney onto the scored printed brick paper (square!), wrapped it up, then inserted the card sections into the top. Flipped the paper ends over the top and then down the inside to make it look like the chimney is hollow. I may do this again and I glued on the decorative rows of brick but they haven't really come out as the printed paper was too thin.

 

With regards to painting, the idea is that that the top sheets of corrugated iron are thoroughly rusted, but the walls aren't at all. For the rusty roof I used Burnt Umber, Cadmium Yellow and Pyrrole Crimson. It seems to be similar to the only colour photo I have, so hopefully it'll work. Actually, it's looking a lot redder on the photos than it does in the kitchen. The sides are a light yellow which didn't seem to rust at all. I'm not sure how I'm going to weather it, so I'll do a test piece - maybe just a really thin dark brown wash or something.

 

Anyway, vertical struts, windows (Tichy Trains), door, interior, light, and general tidying up of edges (they are looking a bit rough in those close-ups) to do and then my first building in about 15 years will be done!

 

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This last photo shows that the aluminium keeps the grooves even after painting, which is good news.

 

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That realy is a cracking building. It's also good to see a different approach to corrugated iron rather than the normal plasticard.

 

If the rest of the layout matches this standard, you'll have set a benchmark for others.

 

Duncan

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  • RMweb Gold

Thanks Duncan :)

 

Wainfleet isn't known for it's majestic mountains and lush valleys, but at the same time, the landscape isn't entirely flat. This is good news for me because am entirely flat layout wouldn't have been quite as interesting to build. I mentioned before that there is a rise from the level crossing that ore or less gets to the height of the platforms. This is fortuitous because that rise is about 1" in 4mm scale - the thickness of my, yes you've guessed it, insulation foam. This $7 8'x2' of stiff foam is really being put through its paces! The corner board that holds the curve out of Wainfleet station is going to be built up to this thickness. I've used a kitchen knife to roughly carve out the curve, the downward slope of the road and the river to shape before taking the sheets into the garage to power-sand them down. I've got to do it this way because I'm really sensitive to dust (had the hooter re-bored a couple of years ago) and I can't leave it hanging in the air.

 

Anyway, I'm left with some smooth shapes that I'll be able to glue into place soon.

 

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This shows the river banks that haven't been sanded yet.

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and in place with felt tip markings of road and building locations and a paper cut out of the main floor plan Wainfleet All Saints church.

 

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Finally, here''s the mostly done goods shed in place. The slope on the far side of the Boston platform has been ripped up. It was made of ply covered with cork, but it really didn't look right, so I'll be getting out the, yes, insulation again and redoing it.

 

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To be honest, I'd have been worried if you'd ended up with lots of hills in Lincolnshire.

 

You a certainly making good progress with the layout.

 

I'm particularly looking forward to seeing the church build and detailing.

 

Duncan

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  • RMweb Gold

Well, I'm getting out of Fernie and heading to the big city today (pop 15,000) to buy brown paint. It's about time I started painting, and as we have no guests in the B&B until next weekend, the smell of paint will have hopefully disappeared. I'll have to get some glue appropriate for the foam as well to get that stuck down, and some polyurethane varnish for the river surface. Heady days :)

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  • RMweb Gold

My uncle who was loading and unloading in the '60's told me a couple of days ago that the goods shed wasn't in use towards the end of freight on the line, and that all the agricultural produce was loaded either lineside or on the ramp beside the Boston platform. As a result, it seems that almost nobody knows what the loading side of the goods shed looks like. As this will be away from the viewing side I'm going to leave it until I can find out a bit more about it.

 

In the meantime I've been on Ebay again and bought this LNER shipment label that was used in the yard into BR times. Unfortunately I don't know whether the label was put on the side of the waggon or the produce itself. The potatoes to be loaded in Wainfleet were destined for Somerstown near King's Cross.

 

post-14192-0-73535300-1364771098.jpg

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