Cheapside Yard - RIP (Ripped into pieces!)

[south_tyne]

Ha! That is totally confusing (the scale difference I mean), but I love it.

 

 

Agreed but it's great isn't it!

 

By the way, I love those 'colonial' coaches John. Kind of WC&P-esque. I have a crazy idea (one of far too many ideas!!) to model a Carribbean island railway with export British stock with maybe an excuse for a few American items thrown in for good measure! Silly really, but the older I get the less need I feel to be constrained by rivet-counter type ideals. My flight of fancy involves my Hudswell Clarke, some 'wild west' style coaches and a collection of 4 wheel wagons for a mine... Maybe a gold mine Silliness maybe but life is to short for too much seriousness!

 

Anyway, glad to see that you've got the layout up and running... enjoy PLAYING with your trains

 

David

[BG John]

Agreed but it's great isn't it!

 

By the way, I love those 'colonial' coaches John. Kind of WC&P-esque. I have a crazy idea (one of far too many ideas!!) to model a Carribbean island railway with export British stock with maybe an excuse for a few American items thrown in for good measure! Silly really, but the older I get the less need I feel to be constrained by rivet-counter type ideals. My flight of fancy involves my Hudswell Clarke, some 'wild west' style coaches and a collection of 4 wheel wagons for a mine... Maybe a gold mine Silliness maybe but life is to short for too much seriousness!

 

Anyway, glad to see that you've got the layout up and running... enjoy PLAYING with your trains

 

David

The coaches are from a cancelled export order, just like the WC&P ones. In fact they were exported, as I bought them from someone in Huddersfield, and they now live in Wales!! I have absolutely no intention of taking my narrow gauge modelling seriously, although I think it actually needs serious effort to create convincing silliness. I've got my narrow gauge layout planned, and want to add as much quirkiness to it as I can, but I've got to greatly improve my modelling skills to avoid it looking like bad modelling, so the silliness will be limited by the level of skill I've achieved when I do it.

 

One of my many ideas was a former British colony later colonised by Uncle Sam, so I could have a mix of old and quirky Britishness, and more modern American. Then there's "The Island", designed by Rev. Awdry and Patrick McGoohan, with assistance from Roger Dean and the set designers from Avatar. Sort of Thomas and Skarloey meet The Prisoner on an island floating in the clouds!

 

I'll start to enjoy playing with my trains when I've replaced the annoying 3-link couplings on the O gauge stock with Dinghams!

[brossard]

OK, had a chance to have a proper read of this thread.  Very interesting stuff.

 

I noticed someone mention Zap a Gap CA - the medium viscosity (green bottle) is all I use and extremely good.  It doesn't go off with time either (or at least remains viable).

 

I like Pritt sticks for card models too.  The chap at my local hobby shop (if you count 20+ km as local) recommended tacky glue so I better get some.

 

Those Dingham couplers look interesting - they're about as close to the prototype as I've seen short of 3 link.  They still require magnets for uncoupling which I dislike.

 

John

[BG John]

I'm still using cheap CA, and haven't tried the more sophisticated versions yet. I buy Pritt in bulk (well 5 at a time!), and use Anita's Tacky Glue. I've no idea if Anita's if different to anyone else's, but it was the best price I found on eBay, and it works. I've started using it for some track laying, where I just need to stick a few sleepers down, rather than painting the whole trackbed with PVA.

 

Someone posted a link to a video of Dingham's in use yesterday, and they were hardly visible even though I was looking for them. I read up on most of the automatic couplings for O gauge, and they seemed to be the best. Ideally needing electromagnets rather than permanent ones is a bit irritating though. I only need one magnet on Cheapside, on the scenic end of the fiddle yard, so I'm going to try making a sliding thing that will push a permanent magnet under the track when I need it. I'll be using Spratt & Winkles on my various 4mm layouts.

[brossard]

For the last 30 years or so I've used Kadee on my 4mm stuff.  Recently I've been installing the "scale" head versions which, if you remove the trip pin, are quite unobtrusive.  For uncoupling I use a bamboo pointed stick.

 

John

[south_tyne]

The coaches are from a cancelled export order, just like the WC&P ones. In fact they were exported, as I bought them from someone in Huddersfield, and they now live in Wales!! I have absolutely no intention of taking my narrow gauge modelling seriously, although I think it actually needs serious effort to create convincing silliness. I've got my narrow gauge layout planned, and want to add as much quirkiness to it as I can, but I've got to greatly improve my modelling skills to avoid it looking like bad modelling, so the silliness will be limited by the level of skill I've achieved when I do it.

 

One of my many ideas was a former British colony later colonised by Uncle Sam, so I could have a mix of old and quirky Britishness, and more modern American. Then there's "The Island", designed by Rev. Awdry and Patrick McGoohan, with assistance from Roger Dean and the set designers from Avatar. Sort of Thomas and Skarloey meet The Prisoner on an island floating in the clouds!

 

I'll start to enjoy playing with my trains when I've replaced the annoying 3-link couplings on the O gauge stock with Dinghams!

 

Great stuff! Maybe silliness was the wrong word... quirkiness is probably more applicable! You are very right mind, that a freelance scheme needs just as much thought, more so if we're honest, in order to make it convincing than a project that slavishly follows reality. Not to denigrate either school, but each has their own strengths. I love the British colony idea, it is similar to something I'm thinking of you... one day (when I finally pull my finger out I suppose!).

 

Keep the updates coming 

[BG John]

For the last 30 years or so I've used Kadee on my 4mm stuff.  Recently I've been installing the "scale" head versions which, if you remove the trip pin, are quite unobtrusive.  For uncoupling I use a bamboo pointed stick.

 

John

I think Kadees would look completely out of place on my 4mm stuff, as my main interests are 19th and very early 20th century. My planned O gauge layout will be the Kent & East Sussex Railway in 1905, so again out of place. For my other layouts I'm not so bothered, but it makes sense to be consistent. My narrow gauge loco and coaches came with them, and I not impressed, but they may just need adjusting. They are more suitable for narrow gauge, but my current plan is to try Greenwich couplings.

[BG John]

Great stuff! Maybe silliness was the wrong word... quirkiness is probably more applicable! You are very right mind, that a freelance scheme needs just as much thought, more so if we're honest, in order to make it convincing than a project that slavishly follows reality. Not to denigrate either school, but each has their own strengths. I love the British colony idea, it is similar to something I'm thinking of you... one day (when I finally pull my finger out I suppose!).

 

Keep the updates coming 

I'll try. It may seem crazy, but by working on multiple layouts I'm getting far more done than I've ever managed before, as when I run up against a practical problem, or get a mental block about doing something, I've got other things to get on with. So progress, and therefore reports, tends to be a bit erratic. I'm currently working on designing 4mm broad gauge wagons to produce with my Silhouette cutter, that I hope will lead on to producing both O and O-16.5 rolling stock too. That's led me on to learning how to colourise black & white photos, that I'm hoping will allow me to print coloured overlays for the rolling stock when I have a decent photo of the prototype. I have what I think is a suitable photo of the wagon I'm doing at the moment, so it's a good time to learn. I'll get there with all of it one day, especially if I can master the techie stuff.

[jcm@gwr]

Just been catching up with this, bad luck with your N/G loco.

If you have to give up with it, then one option (for a v/short

wheelbase 0-6-0) is the Bachmann Junior range.

They do 2, a freelance diesel (Rusty) and a saddle tank,

I've got the steamer and it runs really well.

[brossard]

I think Kadees would look completely out of place on my 4mm stuff, as my main interests are 19th and very early 20th century. My planned O gauge layout will be the Kent & East Sussex Railway in 1905, so again out of place. For my other layouts I'm not so bothered, but it makes sense to be consistent. My narrow gauge loco and coaches came with them, and I not impressed, but they may just need adjusting. They are more suitable for narrow gauge, but my current plan is to try Greenwich couplings.

 

No question Kadees are out of place in a pre-nationaisation layout, but, for me, it was a case of function trumping appearance.  I always cut off the trip pin and that improves the appearance, particularly on unfitted stock.  I always say that at least a Kadee looks like it belongs on a railway vehicle, unlike pretty much all the others.

 

John

[raymw]

Hi John,
 

I'm not sure warping will be a problem, unless the backscene gets wet! 

I was given a few samples, by a local signmaker, of an ali composite sheet - stiff, but easily folded, if you want to use it for the backing of paper/card/buildings. It is a laminate of two thin layers of aluminium sandwiching a plastic filler.It can be cut by heavy scoring by a craft knife, and folded by scoring a deep V groove on the inside of the corner. No problem with damp. It is similar to this http://www.plasticstockist.com/Sign-Display/Yellow-Aluminium-Composite-Sheet.aspx an 8 by 4 sheet would do a fair number of buildings. (lots of other plastics on that site - but I've never bought from them.

[BG John]

Aaarrrrggggghhhhh!!!! I've been playing with my Silhouette Portrait, and this is the first of many, I hope, windows for the Scalescenes 4mm Low Relief Factory I'm about to start scaled up to 7mm, and one glazing bar broke! I wouldn't advise making windows this way for a 4mm scale version, as the bars are only about 0.5mm in 7mm! RMwebbers may already be questioning my sanity, so if I suddenly disappear I may well have been carted off by men in white coats. I've no idea how many I'll screw up before I get some good ones . I'd never manage it if I had to cut them by hand though!

 

 

[Nearholmer]

The obvious thing to do is to stick some sort of ventilator pipe/duct out through that section ....... You know, have it sort-of plated-over, with a hole for the pipe/duct. Typical of industrial buildings everywhere.

 

K

[brossard]

I'm not familiar with the material used in the cutter - can it not be glued?

 

John

[BG John]

The obvious thing to do is to stick some sort of ventilator pipe/duct out through that section ....... You know, have it sort-of plated-over, with a hole for the pipe/duct. Typical of industrial buildings everywhere.

 

K

That's the sort of thing that was suggested on the Silhouette thread. The plan is to put one on either side of the glazing, so if that turns out to be worth doing, I can hide some faulty ones there.

 

I'm not familiar with the material used in the cutter - can it not be glued?

 

John

It's 10thou plasticard, so gluing isn't the problem. It's having too many thumbs on each hand to cope with 0.5mm wide strips of it easily! And the thought that there will be 16 windows in this building, and then several more buildings to do, and this is the first one I've taken off the cutter.

[brossard]

Oh dear, best of luck with that then.  I spent the morning trying to make 4mm spectacles with safety bars - it's a wonder I have any hair.  I actually did succeed but it took many tries.

 

John

[BG John]

Oh dear, best of luck with that then.  I spent the morning trying to make 4mm spectacles with safety bars - it's a wonder I have any hair.  I actually did succeed but it took many tries.

 

John

I decided to have a go at 7mm scale thinking that as I get older it would be easier than 4mm. The trouble is that you can see finer detail! When I made this building in 4mm, I just used the laser printer to print the windows onto transparent sheet.

[Dave Elbourne]

That's the sort of thing that was suggested on the Silhouette thread. The plan is to put one on either side of the glazing, so if that turns out to be worth doing, I can hide some faulty ones there.

 

It's 10thou plasticard, so gluing isn't the problem. It's having too many thumbs on each hand to cope with 0.5mm wide strips of it easily! And the thought that there will be 16 windows in this building, and then several more buildings to do, and this is the first one I've taken off the cutter.

Broken window frame ? not at all uncommon on older industrial buildings ! too many could easily become a modelling cliche tho'

[BG John]

It's been a long time since the last update, so this is as far as I got with the layout:

 

Then this happened:

 

Then this mock-up appeared on the baseboard:

 

Although I didn't get Cheapside Yard finished, or even fully working, I think it served its purpose of helping me to get started in 7mm scale. I'm hoping to finally start on my O gauge "Holman's End" fairly soon. Cheapside's baseboard is now being used for a new O-16.5 layout, "Wantish", best described as Wantage in a parallel universe, where the track is half the gauge, one of the loco sheds is in a different place, the local architecture is different, and the local people are rather eccentric!

 

I'll start a new topic soon, but anyone who is also on Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling Online will have already seen where I've got to.

[Northroader]

Most confusing, I had to go back over the thread to remind myself of what had been going on, and then when I come to take in what you were doing now, it’s different, but it’s looking good. The whole idea’s got real potential. Good luck with it.