Sarn (Montgomeryshire) and Nantcwmdu (South Wales) plus Montgomery Town in 7mm

[corneliuslundie]

When I have put the ply back I'll take a photo. Essentially, it fills in the open parts of the baseboard at the back to support the scenery which will slope gently up to the backscene.

 

Not exactly hard work. That has been the various publication projects for the HMRS and WRRC, now mostly out of the way for a while, though I enjoy doing that anyway.

 

Jonathan

[ChrisN]

When I have put the ply back I'll take a photo. Essentially, it fills in the open parts of the baseboard at the back to support the scenery which will slope gently up to the backscene.

 

Not exactly hard work. That has been the various publication projects for the HMRS and WRRC, now mostly out of the way for a while, though I enjoy doing that anyway.

 

Jonathan

 

Jonathan,

Thank you.  I must also say that I appreciate what you do for WRRC, thank you for that as well.

[corneliuslundie]

So much for weekly posts. It is two months since the last one. Things have been erratic but progress has been made on various fronts. The first photo shows the layout as it was about a month ago, with the basic scenery base in place except for the area around the house. This will need to be completed and bedded in before the hillside around it can be completed.

 

 

Work on the house has continued steadily. I did complete the window frames for the two bay windows but managed to destroy both sets while trimming them to fit in the extremely tight space inside the bays. A new set is under construction, but rather slowly. I'll post some photos of the house when it is complete. It is crucial to the scenery at the back of the layout as it sits over the box containing the lever frame.

 

I have also done some more research for the crossing keeper's cottage which will sit on the near side of the line at the left hand side. A card mockup has been made and work on this will start slowly. (It has no bay windows!)

 

The layout got evicted from the workroom for about a month so some serious work could be done on one of the internal doors of our house. This is now back in place and both closes and has a working catch, two things which are rare for internal doors in our house. I shall shortly have to start work on the next door, so it will be back to wagons.

 

I mentioned some time ago that I was building a screens building for the coal mine on the club layout. Well, after some delay sourcing scale corrugated iron (obtained via our local dolls house/plastic kits shop from America) it is complete and has been installed on the layout so that the scenery around it can be completed. There is a high level opening on the left side where the tramway from the drift (off scene) will enter the building, supported on trestles as it curves around from the rear of the layout. The name of the former owner is fictional and commemorates two recently deceased members of the club. Incidentally, the corrugated iron is technically 3.5mm/ft but seems to work well. There are 208 pieces on the roof! (I have also used it to clad the shed at the side of the big house on my layout.)

 

 

I have also been working on two wagons. One is an etched brass kit for a MR 3-plank open. The etchings are beautifully sharp but I am still in the process oif adding details such as the door springs and all the bolt heads which are not included in the kit. The kit is designed to have sprung wheels and buffers but I have made it solid in both cases as I don't feel that springing is needed for a 9 ft wheelbase 4-wheel wagon in EM and since I use S&W couplings the buffers are normally not functional. The second wagon is for a friend.He picked up a chassis from a 7mm 3H kit for an open wagon for 50p. I have put it together and am building a suitable body - 16ft (outside) 7plank Gloucester design with end doors. I have taken features froim a number of photos so it will be a bit of a hybrid. It will be painted black, lettered as OCEAN and then very heavily weathered and given a P number to represent (roughly) a wagon photographed in about 1962 and shown recently on RMWeb. It is proving quite fun, and it is definitely easier adding bolt heads in 7mm. Talking of bolt heads, one of the presents from my son this Christmas was a selection of moulded bolt heads in three sizes from an American source. Two have been used on this wagon to represent the ends of the end door pivot bar.

 

 

Since the workroom was clear and my son was visiting for a couple of days, I set up the layout, positioned the various proposed and actual buildings and added the stock which will be used - or at least most of it as I still need some timber wagons to add to the ex-Cambrian pair and I have a couple of LMS cattle wagon kits to build. At last I can see that some progress is being made, though there is still a, lot of work to do on the buildings and scenery. The mock-up of the crossing keeper's cottage is at the far end of the layout. At the moment it is sitting on the end of the siding, which will have to be shortened and a buffer stop (Lanarkshire Models, awaiting assembly) added.

 

 

Thank you for your patience. More posts as there is some progress. I am about to experiment with a method of building flat bottomed track for Nantcwmddu. If that is successful I will report here. In the meantime, a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year / Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda.

 

Jonathan

Edited December 28, 2015 by corneliuslundie

[Donw]

And Best wishes to you Jonathan

 

Don

[ChrisN]

Jonathan,

Glad to see there is some progress, on several fronts.  It is nice to see the whole of the layout with the house in place.

 

Hope you have a good New Year.

[corneliuslundie]

An update just really to confirm that I have not stopped building Sarn.

The crossing keeper's cottage is complete as is the 'big house' which hides the lever frame. The landscape is now 3-dimensional and a pinkish brown, awaiting grass, hedges and trees, having been built up in card and then covered with netting fabric impregnated with plaster, Resin W and paint..I acquired the necessary scenic materials recently so now have no excuse for not tackling this part.

I have completed two LMS cattle wagons from the Parkside kit, one as supplied and the other with the different door arrangement shown in some photos. They await completion of painting and lettering as does a GWR gunpowder van, which will deliver the occasionsl aupply of explosives for the quarry on the Kerry Tramway..

I have also built and nearly finished lettering the three 009 wagons which will sit on the loading dock, representing the Kerry Tramway. Two will be loaded with tree trunks, and the third with stone chippings of some kind.I suppose I also need an 009 gunpowder van.

But I have also been sidetracked as usual, making up and lettering  a rake of about a dozen coal wagons for the Nantcwmdu Coal Company, for my next, Valleys based, layout, as well as struggling to make the Cleminson underframes work under the Rhymney 6-wheeler bodies - not the fault of the chassis but because of a need to incorporate supports for the J hangers at each end of each spring. The latter are on order from ModelU as 3-D printing.

And our club layout which has the colliery building illustrated above had its first outing last Saturday, incomplete but sporting a narrow gauge tramway on a viaduct to bring the colliery trams to the screens at a high level. This has taken some of my time over the past few weeks, though still needs some work, including a representation of the 'creeper' which will haul the trams.

The modelling room is occupied by a door being sanded down and repainted for the next few days but I will try to take and post some photos in a week or so.

And of course I keep getting distracted by the delightful threads 'owned' by ChrisN, Edwardian and others.

Jonathan

[corneliuslundie]

An update at last, before I disappear abroad for a month. Progress has been slow but fairly steady. At times I have been occupied with the club layout, which went to its first exhibition recently, albeit incomplete.

Anyway, first rolling stock. Apart from more work on underframes for Rhymney 6-wheel carriages, with nothing worth photographing, and time spent completing a dozen ancient Airfix cattle wagon kits for use on the club layout, I have built six wagons for Sarn.

Three are narrow gauge, and will sit suuitably loaded on the loading bank at the back.

There are also two LMS cattle wagons built from Parkside Dundas kits, inspired by the MRJ article. One is as supplied and the other has the doors modified as per a photograph in the article. These complete the cattle wagon fleet.

The third standard gauge wagon is a Parkside GWR gunpowder van. It is complete but is awaiting the red transfers which I shall order from Fox when I return to the UK.

For the ;layout itself I have completed and installed the 'ty mawr' which hides the lever frame. It is based on a house between the station and the Pryce Jones building here in Newtown.

The garden still needs some work in the form of a gravel area from the entrance to the corrugated iron shed and some plants against the walls, and the stone capitals need painting.

I have also completed the cottage which sits at the left hand side. It is based on various Cambrian Railways crossing keepers' cottages, plus a bit of imagination. Its base needs completing and it also needs some suuitable planting, as well as a fence.

The story is that there was to be a level crossing to the left of the cottage, as the line continued towards Church Stoke, but as the line was never built the cottage has ended up in the goods yard and occupied by the local ganger.

As you will already have spotted, grass has been growing. I have put grass everywhere it should be now except for a narrow strip at the right end side between the road and the edge of the baseboard. The rather rough appearance seems to me to be rather effective, but is an accidernt. I applied the initial grass to a layer of PVA glue, but when this had dried the grass seemed rather patchy and thin. I therefore sprinkied more grass and fixed it using a spray acrylic matt varnish. The appearance was fine but the fumes were too much to cope with. I therefore switched to a mix of PVA glue and water applied with one of those sprays designed for spraying plants. This provides rather too much moving air which is why the grass has 'ruffled up'. Anyway, I like it.

I have also been completing a rake of varied coal wagons for the Nantcwmdu Coal Company (I was told firmly by a Welsh speaking friend that it should be Nantcwmdu, not Nantcwmddu - after I had lettered about eight wagons) for my Rhymney layout, but they are not in a fit state yet to photograph. I just got rather fed up with applying transfers, and put them to one side for a while.

I have a backscene in mind but first have to photograph it - from a point on the road between Newtown and Caersws. Thwe weather has not really invited such activity until the last few days whgen i have been too busy.

That's it until July.

Jonathan

[mike morley]

Jonathan,
there is obviously a knack to spraying dilute PVA with a plant mister that you clearly have while I equally clearly do not. Would you care to share your secrets with those of us less gifted?

I started off with a 50/50 mix of PVA and water with a drop or two of washing up liquid to break the surface tension, but all the mister did when I pulled the trigger was make squelching noises until I'd adjusted the nozzle so far that what emerged was effectively a 4mm scale version of a water cannon that blasted the scenery in all directions. I've since tried diluting the PVA more and more until I could have drunk it, adding so much detergent I could have done the washing up with it and everything in between, but the result was always the same.
I even resorted to the bad workman's trick of blaming my tools and bought another mister. No expense was spared this time - £3.99 from Wyevale instead of 99p from Sainsburys - but the result was just the same.

So, over to you, Maestro. How should it be done?

[corneliuslundie]

I am afraid that a four letter word is involved rather than a five letter one. The first layer of grass was sprinkled onto neat PVA glue. I don't think this had completely dried when I added the second layer, so some probably stuck a little. At first I had the same kind of trouble as you with the spray, either nothing or a deluge, or sometimes just drips. But after some fiddling the spray agreed to produce something like a heavy rain shower. I stood well back so that as far as possible I avoided the spray arriving completely horizontally. As you can see it did ruffle the grass quite a bit, even so. Had I been trying to produce a lawn rather than a Welsh hillside I would have been very unhappy. Of course as a result I also sprayed the floor and adjacent wall quite thoroughly.

I really don't know if I could do it again, which is just as well as I don't think any more grass is needed. In fact  have realised that there is now grass on the entrance road to the goods yard.

The next challenge will be the woodland to the right of the road. Fortunately it is only about a square foot altogether.

Jonathan

Edited June 14, 2016 by corneliuslundie

[corneliuslundie]

Horrified that it is two months since my last post.

I have not ben absolutely idle since returning to the UK. I have completed and lettered, but not yet weathered a gunpowder van for Sarn, which will appear here when weathered. I have been experimenting with winter hedges, reasonably successfully (some pics when i have done a bit more), and I have been laying road surfaces, though the material seems to change from grey to an odd bluish colour when stiock down with PVA, so no photos until it is painted.

And I have spent a great deal of time resurrecting a dozen Airfix cattle wagons which i made up (badly) about 40 years ago and which are intended for the club layout. Several needed replacement doors, roofs etc, most needed repairs, and all needed painting and lettering. This has convinced me not to model the BR period as the lettering is so small.

I also ended making up four replacement bridge girders for the club layout, as the originals I had made got lost. Anyway, the layout went out to its forst show a while back (Craven Arms), has another outing due in September at the Welshpool & Llanfair weekend and is due at our own exhibition in Welshpool in October.

But the reason for this post is the photo below. It was taken the other morning in the modelling room, with no supplementary lighting. But obviously the residents of Woodbine Cottage had the lights on.

It lasted just a few minutes until the sun moved and was no longer reflected onto the back of the layout (there is a hole behind the house as it hides the lever frame) from a framed and glazed photo behind.

Jonathan

[Edwardian]

Well, Jonathan, I am glad that you did post today, as it caused me to stumble upon your topic, which had somehow hitherto eluded me.  I have very much enjoyed catching up. 

[corneliuslundie]

I am not sure the above photo merits the praise it has been given. All I did was notice and take the photo.

And I forgot one little project also awaiting weathering, though not for Sarn. For my birthday my son gave me a 3D printed body for a Rhymney Railway van. I have now added the necessary underpinnings and painted and lettered it (though i am rapidly running out of transfer Rs so am havcing to scavenge them from sheets such as SECR). It will of course be for Nantcwmdu. Photos when weathered.

Jonathan

[Talltim]

I hope you cleaned it well before painting. I look forward to seeing it at the weekend.

[CKPR]

 have also been completing a rake of varied coal wagons for the Nantcwmdu Coal Company (I was told firmly by a Welsh speaking friend that it should be Nantcwmdu, not Nantcwmddu - after I had lettered about eight wagons) for my Rhymney layout, but they are not in a fit state yet to photograph. I just got rather fed up with applying transfers, and put them to one side for a while.

 

I appreciate that this might be a bit too late, but I only ever letter PO wagons on one side, especially if I'm doing similar bespoke letter by letter jobs. I take my hat off to you for tackling a rake of eight - the most I've ever done is five and that was with POWSides dry rub sets (in my defence, dry rub lettering is one of the minor works of the devil)

[corneliuslundie]

I have decided that as a lot of the modelling recently has been on rolling stock for Nantcwmdu I should combine the two in one thread.

Progress has not been fast since the last post because it was interrupted by an appendix removal followed by an infection and now by further health issues, so far unspecified.

But the work done has been:

Almost completing work on converting to EM an Airfix Dean Goods - new compensated chassis for both halves, Potrescap motor in the loco, pickups added to both parts, brake gear completed etc, and then one of the soldered joints in the tender chassis came adrift, so awaiting inspiration to complete - but since it has been waiting for about 20 years another month or two will not matter;

Completing, slowly, a rake of Ratio 4-wheelers and two Vans using etched sides with Ratio chassis/ends/roofs, also started in a previous century. Some will be brown, some lake and some chocolate and cream;

Completing lettering of about a dozen scratch built Rhymney Railway wagons, though I am now running out of suitable transfers

Building one more wagon which I thought I had done but couldn't find - a Rhymney dropside three plank open with 9 ft 9 in wheelbase

(Incidentally, these wagons are needed for a photo shoot to illustrate an article and a talk, as there are no prototype photos of most of them).

When there is a little more progress I will post some photos.

Back on Sarn, I have been planting a hedge slowly, and will be doing a bit more soon. As it is early spring, the hedge consists of lots of short pieces of wire twisted together in groups, planted in a bank of Milliput and painted a suitable light brown colour and then scattered with brown scatter. The first stretch of hedge looks decidedly neglected, but hopefully the next stretch will have a more cared for look as I get practice and now have a new supply of scatter.

And I also built one more wagon for the narrow gauge line on the loading bank, and painted the surrounding plywood pale blue.

All of which has been interspersed with work on the next HMRS book on constructing five inch gauge wagons by Doug Hewson.

Jonathan

[ChrisN]

Jonathan,

Hope you begin to feel better soon and they can sort out whatever is going on.

 

All the best,

[Edwardian]

Well, that is a fairly impressive list of 'doings', all things considered, and I look forward to you posting your progress.

 

Sorry to learn that you have been through the mill health-wise, and I echo Chris in hoping that matters are resolved and wishing you the very best of health.

[Simond]

Ditto. Do hope you're feeling fully fit in the near future.

 

Best

Simon

[Donw]

I am sorry to hear of your health problems, but at least you have not been idle. I also have uncompleted projects started in a previous millennium.

Don

[corneliuslundie]

Time I think for a bit of the story (real) and history (fictional) of Nantcwmdu.

About 25 years ago, I thought it would be interesting to build a model of Nelson & Llancaiach on the Pontypool Road to Neath line. In 1912 the new station had just opened, and there was a joint line to Dowlais Cae Harris and a connection from the south from the Taff Vale Railway, though freight only. I was keen to include the Rhymney Railway as I had lived within sight of its main line when young.

However, even with a garage to play with it proved impossible to fit the station and its junctions in the available space, despite trying shrinking everything possible as much as possible without losing the plot.

So why not another GWR/RR joint line somewhere between the Dowlais line and the later line to Merthyr?

On the map there is a suitable valley though no settlement just west of Treharris. I have never quite worked out where the junction with the main line would be, but Nantcwmdu is at the top of the line, and has two collieries. One is owned by the Nantcwmdu Colliery Co and the other by the vast Ocean empire (though this was long before I was familiar with the exploits of David davies).

I got the name Nantcwmdu by juggling with the real Cwmnantddu in the Eastern Valleys. For several years it was spelled Nantcwmddu, until a Welsh speaking friend pointed out that "cwm" is masculine so "du" does not mutate, whereas "nant" is feminine, so "du" becomes "ddu". As I already have several wagons with the incorrect spelling, my story is that the owner of the colliery wasn't very good at Welsh either.

As with Sarn, the layout will be in EM. The station building is a pretty close copy of that at Bedlinog, though I have situated the signal box in the tower, unlike the prototype (I know it is wrong but I like the idea). The building has been on the way to completion for at least seven years, and may one day be complete enough to feature here. The goods shed is also from Bedlinog, but is still an incomplete shell.

The baseboards were built about three years ago, before I decided to start Sarn, but no track has been laid. One challenge will be to represent Rhymney Railway flat bottomed track which does not have baseplates. A friend who built some similar track for a larger gauge has suggested a way, which I shall shortly try, and will report.

Much of the rolling stock for the layout exists, though too much of it is incomplete, not painted, not lettered or in need of repair. That is why I have recently put some time into trying to get some of it into a usable condition.

I have one suitable loco, a Rhymney Railway class K 0-6-2 saddle tank built for me by John Bancroft, and the Dean Goods mentioned above will also be suitable, but two kits await my attention: one for a Rhymney I class 0-6-0ST and the other for a Peckett X class for the colliery company.

The layout will be set in 1912 because that is an interesting period for RR and GWR liveries (I can have GWR carriages in three different liveries) and because it is probably the time when traffic would have been at its peak; but I am thinking of arranging things so that with a minimum of change it could switch to the 1930s as I have a lot of stock for that period.

Anyway, one result of this is that I have built a good many RR wagons, in fact it least one now for each drawing I know of. Not all are lettered completely but most now at least have the RR on each side (though I am rapidly running out of Rs and am having to cannibalise sheets such as LNWR and am also, as mentioned elsewhere, running out of "Tons" which are in the same style as for GWR wagons).

I realised last week that there was one wagon which was not represented, so here it is. It is one of the designs introduced in the 20th century by Hurry Riches on a 9 ft 9 in wheelbase 18 ft long underframe. This one has drop sides rather than side doors. An odd feature, not seen as far as I know on his other wagons, is that it has only three brake shoes. I deduce from the presence on the drawing of double V hangers that it has independent brakes each side. (The drawing appeared in Welsh Railways Archive some time ago.)

It now has transfers on one side so has been to the photographer's studio. I may put photos of the rest of the wagons up some time, but a second reason for completing them is that I am preparing an article on Rhymney Railway wagons for the HMRS Journal and have also rashly committed myself to doing a talk on the subject to the WRRC in Cardiff next April. For the latter, I really need to have them lettered up on both sides.

Having got that off my chest I can now slip back into inactivity for a few weeks before anyone notices!

Jonathan

[ChrisN]

Jonathan,

|it is good to see your ideas.  At least once you have the track laid you will have something appropriate to run on it.

 

Hope you are feeling well.

[corneliuslundie]

Some advice please. If you look at the photos of Sarn there is a road to the right of the red brick house, beyond the brick wall. I used some fine grey ballast to provide the road surface, stuck down with Resin W. After it had dried the ballast took on a decidedly blue colour. Any idea why? And any suggestion as to what to do? I have now added a thin layer of acrylic light grey, but the ballast still showed through with a blue cast, and subsequently a thin layer of white acrylic with some brown. It is slightly better but now the ballast is coming adrift. Fortunately the plaster underneath is a reddish brown. I can deal with the road by suitable application of more ballast and some neat paint in suitable browns and greys.

However. I used the same ballast for the surface of the platform. Here I want it to be even and grey, but am not sure how to achieve that. Thoughts?

Jonathan

[Simond]

Jonathan

 

I've heard of ballast taking a greenish hue when stuck down with pva, and I tend to agree, my coal road appears to have done so. Not too worried as it will be packed with ash & coal dust in due course, but I will want to ballast the other tracks and avoid this happening again. I'm not sure why you have a blue, I guess similar chemistry & surface effects.

 

Latex glues, e.g. Copydex, suitably diluted, have been recommended, with the proviso that drilling can cause problems later. I'm likely to try this at some point.

Cascamite has also been recommended, but is ferociously expensive, and waterproof, even boiling water - which would be my first port of call if I wanted to get the track up again - so I'm disinclined to go there.

I have also heard of yacht varnish being used, admittedly for an outdoor layout, but it sounds "just wrong" to me.

 

Do please post up when you make further experiments.

 

Best

Simon

[Donw]

I agree with Simon it is a chemical reaction to the acetic acid in PVA. You could try some of the powdered grout for floor tiles.(probably cement based though). It could be worth trying the ballast you have sprinkled on a coat of matt varnish try a small test area. Otherwise try some different ballast or modelling powders ask first if it is affected by PVA. If you have a local quarry you could ask if they would let you collect a bit of the quarry dust you probably really need to know someone in authority there. Some places sell 3/8ths or half inch to dust which using a suitable sieve can supply fine powder plus small rocks of various sizes. I had a dumpy bag of the stuff delivered when doing some work I don't know if they have it in small bags. The excess can be used for DIY.

 

Don

[corneliuslundie]

Thanks for the advice. At least it is not just me.

Anyway, I decided that I really had to finish the article on Rhymney Railway wagons I have been working on for over two years (to be published if all goes well in the HMRS Journal to teach the Saesneg something about Rheilfyrdd Cymraeg). A check revealed one more missing model, so the last week has seen it built (but not lettered on the other side yet). The lettering is not quite right as on the right hand side it should say To carry 10 Tons. However, none of my transfer sheets has the first two words, so it is in 1912 livery rather than an earlier one - in fact it would probably have been red when new.

Now back to hedges. I did a few more inches last week but it takes an awfully large number of bits of bent wire. A new batch is awaiting me summoning up the enthusiasm to sit for an hour twisting them into groups. Actually laying a few inches of hedge takes minutes.

But I am seriously thinking of trying some track laying for Nantcwmdu. I am determined to get a sample length done next week, and if it is any good i will post some photos and explain the approach - flat bottomed with no base plates, using Peco Code 60.

Jonathan