Beginners OO 1950's Banff

[aardvark]

6 hours ago, 26power said:

Hope the above and the discussion and input from others helps!

 

Absolutely!  It was really helpful to have people drop in for a chat. Sure beats talking to myself

 

  

On 10/02/2022 at 17:28, Tortuga said:

What are you trying to achieve?

 

Well, isn't that the $64,000 question?

 

When I started, I wasn't sure what I wanted. Now, 6 years later, I'm in a much better position to not know what I want.

 

I'm retired. I miss the sense of achievement associated with my old work. I still work 1½-2½ days/week as a casual, but that's more about social interaction than any sense of achievement.  With this hobby, when I've done something, there is an identifiable goal and a sense of achievement when I get there.

 

Being honest, I don't think it would matter much what I was modelling.  I never lived in the UK, never went trainspotting, and have no attachment to particular locos or stations. Modelling what I like would have been a long and disastrous affair, since I don't really know much about trains.

 

Modelling a specific location at a specific time is just easier - so many less decisions to make.

 

 

[aardvark]

Well, that's the last of the stone walling for now.

 

 

There is more to do, but that will have to wait until the buildings are made and planted, and perhaps the background hills also made and planted.  That last curved section in the foreground is plonked, and will wait for the goods yard to be made before being glued in place.  You'll note I made yet another mistake with the baseboards, as the wall was intended to go against the exposed edge of the plywood.

 

So ... buildings.  I suspect that I've been avoiding these.

 

One question please - I going to make all the buildings removable to avoid (unnecessary) damage, and wonder how to strengthen the back wall of the goods shed.  I'm thinking to follow Paul Bason's* lead and use Slater's planking over a double 40-thou plasticard carcass.  A ceiling will brace the top of the shed nicely, but the bottom can only have partial floors due to the need to fit around the laid track.

 

I suppose it will be OK - it has to be -  as the only alternative I can see is to make the track removable with the shed, which doesn't sound particularly practical.

 

 

* Scratch-Built Buildings: a Practical Look at How to Make Your Own Scratch-Built Buildings, BRM Book No.4, Paul Bason, 2008.

 

 

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by aardvark
manually restored lost image

[aardvark]

It's a quiet Sunday morning at Aardvarktown, and as a break from cutting out windows in a SmartModels RES03 Cottage, I'm revising my CAD drawings for the goods shed based on the higher resolution image from BritainFromAbove (click to enlarge).

 

 

 

It looks to me that the 3 windows on the goods shed are all different! Odd that.

 

To my eye, it looks like the top of the middle and right windows are at the same height, but that the bottom of the left and right are at the same.  All appear to be the same width, the left and middle windows could be the same height, but the right window is taller. All are 8-pane windows.

 

Or maybe my eyes have become deranged after prolonged squinting at tiny rectangles of cardboard

 

The two loading doors appear to be identical, despite the image showing one set closed and one open.

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by aardvark
manually restored lost images

[aardvark]

On 15/02/2022 at 13:27, aardvark said:

...  the only alternative I can see is to make the track removable with the shed, which doesn't sound particularly practical.

 

Well, I'm wrong ...

 

7 hours ago, Chubber said:

Some more pictures ...

 

... recently posted pictures by @Chubber show a removable engine shed complete with track, so I stand sit corrected.

 

Perhaps anything is possible, if you think about it long enough.

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, aardvark said:

Perhaps anything is possible, if you think about it long enough.

If you think about it long enough, it will be too late.

[Signaller69]

On 15/02/2022 at 02:27, aardvark said:

I'm thinking to follow Paul Bason's* lead and use Slater's planking over a double 40-thou plasticard carcass.  A ceiling will brace the top of the shed nicely, but the bottom can only have partial floors due to the need to fit around the laid track.

 

I wouldn't overthink it, planked plasticard either side of a single sheet of 40 thou will be sufficiently rigid, just be sure to make that wall separately and weight it on a flat surface while it cures, before attaching it to the ends of the shed.

 

I would say that the 3 windows on the sea facing side are all different, with the right and middle both having the top at the same height, but the middle window does look shallower. The left window is definitely lower, but it could I suppose be the same size as the middle window, it is hard to be certain?

[Gedward]

On 09/02/2022 at 08:48, westerhamstation said:

Hi Aardvark, as 26power says, the Goods shed looks likes it needs to be a touch longer and a bit squatter. it is one of those things that only you can tell if its right. if it looks right for you it is right. All the the best Adrian.

 

I think sometimes we get a bit too concerned with trying to match real world prototypes exactly. And unless you have the space of Heaton Lodge, it will always depend on compromises. You may get the dimensions down exactly right and it still looks wrong. For me, the simple answer is go with what looks right on your layout, over what is right on the prototype. At the end of the day we're building a diorama, a small snapshot, of a small piece of the world.

 

Edited February 26, 2022 by Gedward
Editing copy and typos

[aardvark]

I’ve been off the air for the past weeks due to a major weather event on 28 February: actually 4 large-scale slow-moving weather systems, each bringing heavy rainfall, one after another, impacting pretty much every city, town and village from Maryborough Queensland to Sydney, a distance of 1200km down the east coast of Australia.

 

The nearest official weather station recorded 520mm rainfall on 27/28 February, although I've heard several unofficial reports of a metre in 24 hours.  That would be 4,000 tonnes of water on our block, not counting run-off from higher up.

 

While our own house remained dry, several homes in the area were destroyed by landslides, many many homes and businesses were flooded, roads were made impassable by floodwaters, landslides, wash-aways and fallen trees. The area lost power, phones, internet, and water. With no communications, there was no EFTPOS or ATMs, so cash was in short supply, along with food and fuel. With no communications, emergency services had to revert to using paper maps (remember those?) and satellite phones. It took 6 days for communications to be restored.

 

A mammoth clean-up operation continues. Many families will be in temporary accommodation for months while their homes are cleaned and re-built.

 

There are many stories: here’s a couple: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/06/next-level-destruction-nsw-residents-detail-the-moments-floods-devastated-their-homes

 

Things are slowly returning to some resemblance of normality. Today, I managed to stick a piece of paper to a piece of cardboard. It all seems so meaningless when there is so much hardship about.

 

I'm not sure many will read this post as RMWeb is having problems of it's own.  "Basic mode" appears to mean no notification emails, so even the fewer followers of this thread will need to go out of their way to read this.

[Ian Smeeton]

Thanks for the update.

 

On a zoom call last night to some Australians, it does sound quite frightening. As one put it, it makes Storm Eunice look like a storm in a teacup.

 

Glad to hear that you are all safe and well.

 

Sticking cardboard to paper, or vice versa helps keep the real world at bay.

 

Regards

 

Ian

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, aardvark said:

I’ve been off the air for the past weeks due to a major weather event on 28 February: actually 4 large-scale slow-moving weather systems, each bringing heavy rainfall, one after another, impacting pretty much every city, town and village from Maryborough Queensland to Sydney, a distance of 1200km down the east coast of Australia.

 

The nearest official weather station recorded 520mm rainfall on 27/28 February, although I've heard several unofficial reports of a metre in 24 hours.  That would be 4,000 tonnes of water on our block, not counting run-off from higher up.

 

While our own house remained dry, several homes in the area were destroyed by landslides, many many homes and businesses were flooded, roads were made impassable by floodwaters, landslides, wash-aways and fallen trees. The area lost power, phones, internet, and water. With no communications, there was no EFTPOS or ATMs, so cash was in short supply, along with food and fuel. With no communications, emergency services had to revert to using paper maps (remember those?) and satellite phones. It took 6 days for communications to be restored.

 

A mammoth clean-up operation continues. Many families will be in temporary accommodation for months while their homes are cleaned and re-built.

 

There are many stories: here’s a couple: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/mar/06/next-level-destruction-nsw-residents-detail-the-moments-floods-devastated-their-homes

 

Things are slowly returning to some resemblance of normality. Today, I managed to stick a piece of paper to a piece of cardboard. It all seems so meaningless when there is so much hardship about.

 

I'm not sure many will read this post as RMWeb is having problems of it's own.  "Basic mode" appears to mean no notification emails, so even the fewer followers of this thread will need to go out of their way to read this.

Glad you're OK. As far as I know, most BRMA members have suffered little more than minor damage. We've had it bad here too but being on a ridge we didn't get flooded, just more than the usual amount of standing water round the house and in the yard. The railway room stayed dry too.

[aardvark]

Not to belabour the floods, I am taken by the following graph for Brisbane:

 

 

(taken from  the article NSW, Queensland floods on track to be among country's worst-ever natural disasters, Climate Council says)

 

Getting back to modelling, the paper/card situation mentioned above relates to the front door for the SmartModels RES03 Cottage, which has cutouts for windows. The first attempt to cut these was disappointing, to say the least (as was my attempt to take a picture):

 

 

I think my problem is in getting the opposing cuts from each corner on each side of the cutouts to meet. The problem is not as apparent in the cutouts for the windows and doors in the cottage wall:

 

 

... so I either did something different there or its a "cruel closeup" thing.

 

The wonkiness of the door may or may not be apparent in the grand scale of the layout, but I think I'll have a second go.  I may well replace the RES03 with a custom-build cottage more in keeping with the prototype cottages at sometime, but, in general, having another go when you're not happy something is the way to go.

 

I read that Doug Dickson aka Chubber uses a "stiletto" to put a hole/indent at the corners of the cutout, which might help align the cuts.

 

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by aardvark
manually restored lost images

[Graham T]

Perhaps drill a very small hole in each corner of the cutout first?

[westerhamstation]

Hi, you might find it easier to use a scalpel with a !0a blade, rather than a craft type of knife. All the best Adrian.

[westerhamstation]

Hi, you might find it easier to use a scalpel with a !0a blade, rather than a craft type of knife. All the best Adrian.

[aardvark]

24 minutes ago, westerhamstation said:

Hi, you might find it easier to use a scalpel with a !0a blade, rather than a craft type of knife. All the best Adrian.

 

Yeah, I do.

 

I use the craft knife for "big" cuts, scalpel for "small". I'm sure I used a scalpel on the door cutouts, but can't remember what I used on the wall cutouts. Perhaps that's what the difference was.

 

[26power]

On 15/02/2022 at 02:27, aardvark said:

So ... buildings.  I suspect that I've been avoiding these.

 

One question please - I going to make all the buildings removable to avoid (unnecessary) damage, and wonder how to strengthen the back wall of the goods shed.  I'm thinking to follow Paul Bason's* lead and use Slater's planking over a double 40-thou plasticard carcass.  A ceiling will brace the top of the shed nicely, but the bottom can only have partial floors due to the need to fit around the laid track.

 

I suppose it will be OK - it has to be -  as the only alternative I can see is to make the track removable with the shed, which doesn't sound particularly practical.

 

 

* Scratch-Built Buildings: a Practical Look at How to Make Your Own Scratch-Built Buildings, BRM Book No.4, Paul Bason, 2008.

 

 

Maybe you’ve already thought of this, but if the buildings are going to be removable then it would be worthwhile considering how to arrange them so that they go back in the right place each time they are removed.  And do so easily.  I think you might find that putting them in place and removing them will happen most when you are building them.  Thereafter there wouldn’t seem an awful lot of need to remove them regularly?  You might also need to think about how to fix them in place, e.g. if the layout is to be portable?

 

For the “thin” goods shed wall I wonder if you could incorporate into the walls some brass rods that would fit into holes in the baseboard?  Or long thin bolts if you need to secure them?  Either would seem to be suitable for holding the bottom of the wall in the right place, at least in two dimensions.  And the latter in three, if needed.

 

Hope these thoughts help.

 

Sorry to hear of the flooding.  The graph you shared was informative!  Don’t think I heard about it on UK TV or in my newspaper.  Or perhaps I did and didn’t realise the severity of it.

[aardvark]

7 hours ago, 26power said:

Maybe you’ve already thought of this, but if the buildings are going to be removable then it would be worthwhile considering how to arrange them so that they go back in the right place each time they are removed.  And do so easily.  I think you might find that putting them in place and removing them will happen most when you are building them.  Thereafter there wouldn’t seem an awful lot of need to remove them regularly?  You might also need to think about how to fix them in place, e.g. if the layout is to be portable?

 

For the “thin” goods shed wall I wonder if you could incorporate into the walls some brass rods that would fit into holes in the baseboard?  Or long thin bolts if you need to secure them?  Either would seem to be suitable for holding the bottom of the wall in the right place, at least in two dimensions.  And the latter in three, if needed.

 

Hope these thoughts help.

 

Sorry to hear of the flooding.  The graph you shared was informative!  Don’t think I heard about it on UK TV or in my newspaper.  Or perhaps I did and didn’t realise the severity of it.

 

Thanks for your thoughts.  Everything helps - I'm a beginner, hoping for input from those more experienced.

 

My general plan is that "ground" level is at least 5mm above plywood, so that buildings, signals etc can sit flat on the plywood and into some sort of opening or "socket", and be removable.  Even the track sits on 5mm foam throughout.

 

I'm inclined to make the buildings removable as I find the baseboards a tad on the heavy & cumbersome side to move on my own.  The two boards that are 1200x600mm are workable, but the two that have most of the buildings, are 600-800 wide, so maybe 15-20% heavier. I didn't think that through.  I could call on Mrs Aardvark to assist, but honestly, I've rather not.

 

I currently have 2 baseboards up in the garage, which seems acceptable to all parties, but all 4 would not be.  So the buildings etc will come off and be stored inside for safekeeping when the layout is stored in the garage.

 

I like you idea of reinforcing the "thin" wall with brass rod, and will attempt to store it away for future reference.

 

[26power]

“Socketing” is the word I should have used!  Glad some of my thoughts of assistance.  I had forgotten the baseboards were quite big and/or heavy.

[aardvark]

RMWeb is back, which is good.  Lots of images have been lost, which is very sad.

 

I doubt I will find the enthusiasm to replace the missing photos in any of my threads, unless someone tells me of a special interest.  Other content creators may tackle this onerous task, but some, such at the late Allan Downes, are no longer with us.  I've seen posts from 2016 that are without images, so it's more than a year's worth that has been lost.  Perhaps the older stuff will be restored later.

 

The new URL's (web address) aren't quite the same as the old, so bookmarks and search engine results no longer work without hacking.  More discouragement.

 

This thread was a sort of diary of my slow progress, and has been significantly devalued.  The other value I found in RMWeb was in reading through inspirational threads for encouragement, tips and tricks.  That doesn't really work when the photos are gone.  Of course, I got what I paid for.

 

If something like this had happened at any of the IT companies that I worked for, there would have sackings and legal action.

 

 

[Signaller69]

1 hour ago, aardvark said:

RMWeb is back, which is good.  Lots of images have been lost, which is very sad.

 

I doubt I will find the enthusiasm to replace the missing photos in any of my threads, unless someone tells me of a special interest.  Other content creators may tackle this onerous task, but some, such at the late Allan Downes, are no longer with us.  I've seen posts from 2016 that are without images, so it's more than a year's worth that has been lost.  Perhaps the older stuff will be restored later.

 

The new URL's (web address) aren't quite the same as the old, so bookmarks and search engine results no longer work without hacking.  More discouragement.

 

This thread was a sort of diary of my slow progress, and has been significantly devalued.  The other value I found in RMWeb was in reading through inspirational threads for encouragement, tips and tricks.  That doesn't really work when the photos are gone.  Of course, I got what I paid for.

 

If something like this had happened at any of the IT companies that I worked for, there would have sackings and legal action.

 

 

I'm in much the same boat regarding the loss of images and not bothering to go through several threads to replace them, unless someone asks about something. 

I have decided to carry on and post new photos of what I'm doing going forward though, and hope you will feel able to keep us up to date with Banff as it is such an interesting project.

 

All the best,

Martyn.

 

[aardvark]

Thanks Martyn, I'll see what I can manage.

 

I wouldn't be holding your breath if I was you, as I'm an irregular and infrequent poster.  Come to think of it, I'm an irregular and infrequent modeller.

[aardvark]

Well, it's taken 3 months, 2 floods and dose of covid, but I've finally actually made something ...

 

(drum roll please)

 

 

It's the SmartModes RES03 cottage I've been poking at since February, a passing likeness to the cottages at Scotstown.

 

 

It's probably the first thing I've made since attempting and being very frustrated by something off the back of a Corn Flakes packet when I was in a little-un.  There's a lot wrong with the construction, but I've learnt a bit, and I think it will do for a start.  I'd give myself 6/10 and a panda stamp.

 

One day I will attempt a version that is a little more befitting the prototype, but it won't be today. Or tomorrow.

 

I've no idea of the dimensions of the prototype cottages, but the RES03 110mm (27’6”) is weirdly reminiscent.  The first house that my wife and I owned in Brisbane, built 1920, had a 27’6” frontage, or 50 links.  It always amused me that a link was 6.6”, a decimal Imperial unit if you will, rather than, say, 6½” or 6 19/32”.

 

So 110mm / 27’6” is probably correct.  A 1st-pass estimate off of the above photo seems to support this.

 

Anyway, here’s the model loosely in situ.

 

 

The single line out of Banff runs behind these cottages, and whilst I won’t be attempting the whole row, there’s room for 3-4 model cottages.

 

I think the next task will be the engine shed.  I read somewhere that windows are the soul of a building, and that you should start there (perhaps Allan Downes?).  Here is a crop of the main engine shed windows.

 

 

Plans from the GNoSRA have them as a scale 26x12mm.

 

 

[aardvark]

I've previously had a couple of attempts at locating windows for my layout buildings, each ending in confusion.  It is likely that I am being too exact with the required dimensions, but I don't quite see the sense in spending good money for parts that then require major surgery.

 

Last August, after due diligence, which included reading the Guide To Using The Silhouette Cameo Cutter thread twice, I came to the conclusion that making my own windows was the way to go and invested in a cutter.  It's a fair investment, but I figure I can make all sorts of things with it that my shaky hands would otherwise struggle to produce, and that, when I'm done, Mrs Aardvark might find use for it, or I'll on-sell it.

 

Only recently have I opened the box, created a design for this window, and cut the first part.  I'm delighted with the result.

 

 

That's 12x24mm frame, 0.7mm wide in 10-thou styrene.

 

Yes, 24mm, not 26mm.  When I came to do the design, which I do in 3D in SketchUp, comparing against the photo in the previous post, I found the 26mm dimension from the GNoSRA plan was wrong.  Oh well.

 

[Graham T]

Nice.  Look forward to seeing what you make next!

[Ian Smeeton]

Cottage looks great.

 

You are far ahead of me with the silhouette cutter.

 

I haven't mastered CAD yet, let alone paid out for one.

 

Regards |& Keep posting

 

Ian