Operation Abysis

[Jimmy styles]

so for my next building i decided i wanted something large and striking for the backdrop for the entire harbour, i did a lot of research on the internet (what did we do before the internet.)

 

i found a style of building i wanted and set about drawing up the plans.

 

it was only when i started to stick the plastikard together that i discovered just how big this building was going to be, i named it the monster warehouse.

 

 

not being worried about the size of this project i set about cutting the doors and windows and building the loading towers. the RSJ loading rig is a copy of a real one and i think looks quite effective.

 

 

i couldnt resist keep putting the monster on the layout to see how it looked. it just appeared to keep getting bigger

 

 

the hardest part of the build was the roof and getting the angles to look correct.

 

i continued with painting and weathering. but i had to think of a name for the warehouse. thats when my father came up with POOLE BRO's as POOLE is my late mothers maiden name. i just love to add personal touches to my models.

 

so i continued to add details. i really wanted some rusty chain blocks hanging but in my research i found that if the doors where shut then the chain blocks would have been removed in order to protect them from the elements.

 

also in my research i found that the loading floors below the very top all hand hinged platforms to ease loading that would only be lowered if again the doors where open. i kinda wished that i had modeled at least one door open but being low reilef i just didnt have the depth.

 

well here is the finished building.

 

 

and finally in its new home.

 

 

so how do you think the monster turned out??

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CourthsVeil]

It fits – well done, Jimmy.

 

  Armin

[Jimmy styles]

As the weather today decided not to ran, i thought that it would be a good idea to move the layout into the garden before i made a start on the granite sets to see how it looked in natural light.

 

as i have been building in a dark garage with nothing but poor lighting it was nice to see the layout so far in natural daylight.

 

here are some pictures, what do you guys think???

 

[Jimmy styles]

so i decided that i need three buffer stops on the harbour.

 

again to the internet as i wanted something that looked right, a bit of research showed that the buffer stops on harbours were a bit different to those used on mainline lines.

 

they appeared more bodged together.

 

i found these photos.

 

 

so i firstly tried to change a peco plastic one, that did not go well.

 

so next up i thought that using old rail may work, but how could i bend this??

 

 

amazingly this worked well and i didnt even set light to the house.

 

 

i continued and this was the result, i'm quite happy with it and just have two more to do. just need to weather them now.

 

 

 

 

 

[Jimmy styles]

so the last two days i have been working on the granite sets as i have a very large area to cover (the entire layout)

i have chosen to use das air dry clay. i then hand scribe each block.

 

 

i got really bored of hand scribing these and had to think of a way to make it quicker, i decided first that i needed a small rolling pin. i had a rummage in the garage and found a old broom handle, perfect i cut a section of the end.

 

 

then how could i make the scribing quicker, so we made a stamp where one end can be used for the large areas and the other end used for the smaller areas.

 

 

so then i continued until i run out of das clay.

 

 

i still have a large area to cover but once weathered and painted should look really good.

 

 

[ilovetrains6]

Looking marvolios

 

 

Johan

[glenng]

Love what you have done so far how did you make the boat gangway to the MTB?

[Jimmy styles]

so i have been working hard at my granite sets but very quickly getting fed up. here are some pictures as to where i am up to with it.

 

 

 

 

my attention was drawn to a couple of gaps and what could i fill them with the first gap is seen below

 

 

i decided that the best way to fill this gap was with a wall with barbed wire along the top, i think this works and ties in the WWII theme

 

 

the next was to tackle the entrance to the harbour, i decided a wall and a gate, i have started on a watchmans hut which can be seen in the photo. i will build a full military checkpoint here with barrier. again i think that the barbed wire works well.

 

[mason]

Looks awesome James, great work

[Jimmy styles]

Thank you neil not really had time for to much, busy at work and preparing for Christmas.

 

Also busy building a massive building for someone ha ha

[ess1uk]

Looks great now the cobbles are finished

[Tangoman69]

Just caught up with this thread, how come I've missed this beauty?

The engineering works and the warehousing are stunning!!

I particularly like the stencilling of the names, brilliant!!

 

Karl

[Jimmy styles]

ok so not much happened for a little while on my layout i was busy with christmas and building a commission building.

 

however to get myself moving i moved the layout to my dinning room so that i could finish the granite sets out of clay.

 

this did speed up the process for two reasons, firstly the central heated speeded up the dying time for the clay and secondly my wife constantly moaned that the layout was in the dining room!!

 

i have now finished all the clay work so next up is a massive amount of painting.

 

however here are some photos, what do you think??

 

 

 

[Jimmy styles]

Just caught up with this thread, how come I've missed this beauty?

The engineering works and the warehousing are stunning!!

I particularly like the stencilling of the names, brilliant!!

 

Karl

 

Thank you Karl, it's taken a long time but I'm really pleased with how it's turning out

[Jimmy styles]

so today i decided to crack on with a bit more of my layout but with my wife at work, my son at school, i was left at home with my two year old daughter who hinders my progress as she likes nothing more than to sit with me helping.

 

any way first up i thought i would do some work on my travelling crane and yard crane,

 

 

i actually got quite a lot of these built, and then couldn't resist puting it on the layout to see how it looked. i was really pleased.

 

 

next up i decided to to give the entire layout a base coat of grey to see how it may look.

 

 

i couldnt resist this photo showing the transition

 

 

even though this is after just one coat of paint it looks so much better and makes such a difference

 

 

 

[CourthsVeil]

That's good. Really good!

 

Armin

[Jimmy styles]

so i managed to find a couple of full days to work on the layout without any interuptions. my first challenge was to paint the granite sets on the layout.

this took a lot longer than i first anticipated.

 

 

i'm quite happy with the result of this, i think it may still need some more grime and muck espically between the rails.

however whilst doing this the postman delivered the backscene and i just couldnt resist fitting it.

the main backscene is a photographic heavy overcast sky by ID Scenes. i then used townscenes industrial  rooftops cut oyt and stuck on to give a bit of depth.

 

 

what do you think?

[DLT]

what do you think?

Brilliant!

[Bogie]

F'ing amazing!!!

[Jimmy styles]

so i had a bit of a building day today.

 

to start off with i decided i wanted to get all the colours down the cobbles and weather around the tracks.

 

 

this then led onto deciding to paint the buffer stops that i had scratch built.

 

 

next up was to paint and weather the small yard crane.

 

 

finally was my fav bit of my days modelling, i had started my large travelling crane and i was determined to get it finished however i did not quite get there, i still have to glaze the crane and add the light on the front. however it has been fully painted and weathered.

 

 

please comment and let me know what you think.

 

 

[Boco_D1]

What a fantastic job you have done, I really like the cobbled effect you've created with the das clay.

[Jimmy styles]

Thank you, I am really happy with the effect however it did takes ages and at times I was thinking "what am I doing" but I think it's turned out really effective.

[Jimmy styles]

so todays update,

 

first up was to add some ground point levers to the points, these are a etched part which was a little fiddly to put together but was worth the effort. 

 

 

i decided that a good busy war time harbour would need quite a few soldiers, crates and oil cans. i purchased a large amount of resin soldiers all in different poses which should look good once painted. i have already painted about ten of them but as you can see from the below picture i have a few more to paint.

 

i also decided that i wanted to make my own crates and oil cans instead of buying them. luckily my father has a 3d printer, so a quick design on the computer resulted in a nice selection of crates and oil drums.

 

the below picture shows all these primed and ready to be painted.

 

 

and finally i couldnt resist doing this picture.

 

 

your layout needs you!!!

[Jimmy styles]

so my next challenge was to add a working light to the front of the crane,

i decided that this would be achieved with a micro LED. however my issue was how to power this LED the easy way would be to run wires down the crane legs and attach to the base board or even the rails that the crane sits on.

 

however this would mean that the cane would have to remain in place, and as this is to hopfully be a exhibition layout i wanted the crane to be removable and possible to place in different positions.

 

so i opted for a small coin cell battery and a switch, all this could be easily housed inside the crane. i opted for a pressure switch so that all i have to do is put the roof on and the light comes on. seems simple. oh how wrong i could be........... it all went really well until i came to put the roof on. the lightweight plastic was not heavy enough to hold the sprung switch down.

 

the way i fixed this was to add a considerable amount of lead to the inside of the roof. luckily you cant see the lead and it all seems to work really well.

 

[rockershovel]

I do like the effect of the faded painted letters on brickwork, once a common sight but difficult to carry off in model form.

 

Regarding figures, personally I'd suggest that you avoid having too many. Troops don't usually travel in battle order, and they tend to travel in quite large, formed groups if they are embarking. Landing craft have very limited range and seaworthiness; troops embark at sea, at the last possible moment, and even first-wave assault troops may carry large amounts of essentials.