Killybegs Posted July 9, 2014 Author Share Posted July 9, 2014 Many thanks for the advice Guys. I had come to the same conclusion myself and the canal now has three coats of (relatively) flat gloss varnish. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Killybegs Posted July 15, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 15, 2014 I finished the derelict canal boat last week so thought I had better post a photo. You can also see that the canal has now been repainted and varnished. I am much happier with the new colour. The replacement blue brick edgings are also now in place. I have started work on the first of the industrial buildings that border the canal, pics to follow in due course. ... and here's a shot looking under the road bridge. I must get around to finishing off that embankment! 22 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twright Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 Excellent work, very effective Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Siberian Snooper Posted July 15, 2014 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 15, 2014 I think that's going to end up being very atmospheric. SS Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
keith73 Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 Wow amazing pics they look real. Top notch. I'm building a canal on my layout too, is that all you used matt varnish? How many coats is it & how thick? Looks so realistic. Look forward to more Keith Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killybegs Posted July 15, 2014 Author Share Posted July 15, 2014 Wow amazing pics they look real. Top notch. I'm building a canal on my layout too, is that all you used matt varnish? How many coats is it & how thick? Looks so realistic. Look forward to more Keith Hi Keith, Three coats of Ronseal Gloss varnish on top of several coats of Humbrol enamel. My biggest problem is keeping those tiny motes of dust off the surface. I dust and vacuum an hour or so before, clean the surface with a cloth dampened with white spirit and paint immediately. Every thing is then covered and left for twenty four hours and still the dust gets in. I use the hardglaze varnish as the quick drying one dries too quickly, especially at this time of the year. Not good if you are having to cut in to a lot of edges. Hope that helps. John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killybegs Posted July 21, 2014 Author Share Posted July 21, 2014 (edited) With the work on the canal pretty well finished, it was time to move on to the industrial buildings at that end of the layout. First up is the warehouse. This sits right on the canal. At one time barges were able to be unloaded directly onto the upper floors but, with the passing of the canal trade, the lifting gear and doors have long gone, the openings partially blocked and new windows fitted. Sadly this building has now fallen into disuse and is currently up for sale. The model was started but then I found that I had run out of 1mm styrene sheet, very careless, I could have sworn I had loads. It was duly ordered and, while waiting its arrival, I got on with the drawings for the factory building. A mock up of two walls can be seen in the photo and the prototype can be seen below. The side facing onto the canal on the model fortunately has no windows! I had been toying with various ideas for what to put on the viewing side of the road to add a little more interest. Looking at an aerial photograph of Worcester (in the GWRJ article on the Vinegar Works) I noticed that, in real life, this site had been occupied by the Gas Works. I therefore decided I could model the external wall only (even this meant a little widening of the baseboard). Initially the outside face of the plywood was just going to be painted but then I decided to give it a bit of detail. The position of the roof is represented by a strip of styrene. This is the back of the Gas Works and the road here is at approximately 45 degrees to that at the front so the wall is on a splay which accounts for the seemingly low pitch of the roofs. The big question is, what do I do with the brickwork, do I just paint it matt black, framing the layout, or do I paint it to represent the inside of a brick wall in a gas works? If I go for the latter, would that brickwork have been painted? I guess it would be pretty grubby anyway. Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated. While I have been typing this, the postman has arrived with my styrene. Hurragh! Edited July 21, 2014 by Killybegs 13 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killybegs Posted July 27, 2014 Author Share Posted July 27, 2014 Further progress on the warehouse between bouts of gardening, keeping an eye (or ear!) on Le Tour and the Commonwealth Games and doing a spot of housework to keep out of trouble! Walls floor and roof are now all assembled. A few hiccups along the way, mostly due to carelessness, but these have been pretty much overcome. At the moment I am trying to decide whether to paint the brickwork before attacking the tiling, or vice versa, and it might not be a bad idea to do something about gutters. It will keep me out of mischief for a while anyway. 10 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killybegs Posted July 29, 2014 Author Share Posted July 29, 2014 (edited) I'm still playing around with various painting techniques for the brickwork, mostly to do with getting the right balance between bricks and mortar. In the meantime, the gutters have been made and fixed and the downpipes have been made and painted. They won't get fixed until the brickwork has been painted. The gutters were fabricated from 60thou styrene sheet. The inside of the gutter is scored out using a short length of small brass tube in a pin vice before the outer face is curved and the gutter can be cut from the sheet. The sockets on the gutter are 10thou styrene. The downpipes are 1mm brass rod, the collars being formed with brass shim. I haven't spilt something on the model, I think that's flare from the flash! I do need to clean up the filling on the left hand end of the wall! I am particularly pleased with the brackets. I included a load of them to fill up the etch that I had done for bits and pieces on the loco shed. Thinking now about how many I need on the whole project I should probably have included more! This cruel enlargement does highlight the problem of overlarge mortar joints! Edited July 29, 2014 by Killybegs 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twright Posted July 29, 2014 Share Posted July 29, 2014 Very nice Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Phil Bullock Posted July 30, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 30, 2014 Fantastic progress ! SO atmospheric - and captures the area superbly Phil Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kempenfelt Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 Fantastic work John! Visiting RMWeb for the first time for quite a while and hadn't realised that you'd been beavering away on Worseter! With regards to the wall I'd be tempted to avoid painting it black as its part of the view and could look like a black silhouette in an otherwise very believable scene. With regards to colour i'd assume whitewashed (or similar light colour) brick would be a good bet, grubby as you suggest (but predominantly white) perhaps with some of the brick colour showing through in places. I assume the gasworks is still operable in the scene? Otherwise you could model it as derelict without the roof with perhaps a bit of vegatation growing up the inside of the wall? Here's a couple of my pics from Swindon in recent years, before and after use as a railway restoration workshop which may help to picture what I'm suggesting. Best Wishes Paul Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killybegs Posted July 30, 2014 Author Share Posted July 30, 2014 Fantastic work John! Visiting RMWeb for the first time for quite a while and hadn't realised that you'd been beavering away on Worseter! With regards to the wall I'd be tempted to avoid painting it black as its part of the view and could look like a black silhouette in an otherwise very believable scene. With regards to colour i'd assume whitewashed (or similar light colour) brick would be a good bet, grubby as you suggest (but predominantly white) perhaps with some of the brick colour showing through in places. I assume the gasworks is still operable in the scene? Otherwise you could model it as derelict without the roof with perhaps a bit of vegatation growing up the inside of the wall? Here's a couple of my pics from Swindon in recent years, before and after use as a railway restoration workshop which may help to picture what I'm suggesting. 104-0500_IMG.JPG Swindon Derelict.jpg Best Wishes Paul Thanks for the input and photos Paul. I suppose I really need to find out what went on in those particular buildings. Time for a bit of research! John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killybegs Posted August 29, 2014 Author Share Posted August 29, 2014 Not a lot apart from a coat of paint.While waiting for this to cure prior to weathering, I decided to crack on with the paving to the wharf adjacent to the warehouse. Picking up on CK's thread, I used Tetrion filler spread about 2.5mm thick. Once cured this was scraped and sanded to a level surface. This revealed a few air holes which needed filling and re-sanding. We then went off to Connemara for a week, after which I had a dose of 'man flu' and didn't get much work done on the layout. With all that thinking time, I decided that the whole area probably wouldn't all be paved (or it could be me not facing up to scribing such a large area!). In the end, I opted for a strip a little over 20 scale feet.I also did a bit more research and found that there was a tendancy to use blue brick paving rather than sets in some canalside locations. When I came to do the scribing, I discovered there were variations in the hardness of the filler, probably due to the fact that it had been kicking around in the garage for some time! This did, however, give a not unpleasant uneven texture to the paving - weathering would be more likely with brick than granite! While I had the filler to hand, I also finished off the embankment and filled around the base of the bridge abutments. The overall view: A bit more detail: 15 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Killybegs Posted September 4, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 4, 2014 The brick paving has been painted and the remainder of the area behind the warehouse has been surfaced with cinders. I was going to make a start on finishing the grassing to the embankment, but I didn't bleach the carpet underlay enough, so the whole process of bleaching, rinsing and drying had to be repeated. It's difficult to judge how well it's bleached when it's still wet! As I had the cinder mix to hand, I surfaced the remainder of the canal towpaths and then set about a bit of soft landscaping. The right bank was always pretty overgrown with trees hanging over the water on either side of the bridge. This was what I was hoping to achieve on the model. So here's progress to date, unfortunately the Mogul is still looking for a crew. They may need sunglasses as we now have a clear blue sky! With work beyond the bridge complete, the signal is back in place, as is one set of railings on the bridge. Tomorrow, hopefully, it will be back to working on the embankment, the underlay is looking OK! Then I think I might get the roadway that passes under the bridge finished and surfaced. The best laid plans .......... 27 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Y Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 John; that is simply superb! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twright Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 Incredibly realistic; so difficult to tell where the model ends and the picture starts. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boatman Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 So nice to see care being taken with canals and boats and that backdrop is amazing! Well done, from the ex-owner of Heather Bell, the most famous of all boats on the Worcester Cut. Thanks for finally taking the trouble to model a canal properly! Regards, Boatman Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Phil Bullock Posted September 5, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 5, 2014 Absolutely stunning John Phil Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jock67B Posted September 9, 2014 Share Posted September 9, 2014 John, Apologies for a rash of ratings, but I've just found your thread thanks to a couple of comments on Early Risers, and I'm glad I did! Very inspirational as I hope to start some modelling at the turn of the year when my fitness and budget are in place. The canal water is one of the best I've seen, well worth the effort it obviously took. Thank you, kind regards, Jock. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killybegs Posted September 9, 2014 Author Share Posted September 9, 2014 John, Apologies for a rash of ratings, but I've just found your thread thanks to a couple of comments on Early Risers, and I'm glad I did! Very inspirational as I hope to start some modelling at the turn of the year when my fitness and budget are in place. The canal water is one of the best I've seen, well worth the effort it obviously took. Thank you, kind regards, Jock. Hi Jock, Your ratings are most welcome. I was quite surprised that a couple of entries on early risers could generate such a flurry of ratings across the board. I guess many threads can go unnoticed unless something draws your attention to them. I have to say that RMWeb is a godsend to those of us who live in a neck of the woods where like minded souls are few and far between. It's great to be able to chat to fellow modellers over the 'ether'. I must admit that I hadn't cottoned on to early risers but, rest assured, you haven't heard the last from me! I gather you have not been well so I hope you are now on the road to recovery. best regards, John 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Killybegs Posted September 12, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 12, 2014 Nearly there as far as the canal is concerned. I have also been doing some work on the embankment and surfacing the road alongside the canal. I still haven't got around to putting the crew in the Mogul! 33 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy M Posted September 12, 2014 Share Posted September 12, 2014 Magnificent work John. I can't believe it has taken me so long to stumble upon your thread. It is now down as a must follow. The Mogul looks the business as well, I presume it is a Mitchell kit? Regards, Andy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerrySVR Posted September 12, 2014 Share Posted September 12, 2014 Just stunning Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Great Bear Posted September 12, 2014 Share Posted September 12, 2014 Magnificent work John. I can't believe it has taken me so long to stumble upon your thread. It is now down as a must follow. ditto Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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