Grindleford Station Hope Valley Line 1960s BR - Station Café build

[ben pez]

Stunning work!

 

Makes very enjoyable reading your thread.

 

Cheers

 

Ben

[emt_911]

Yet another masterpiece.

[vulcan product fan]

I keep lookin and you continue to impress . Great work on the bridge portal mate keep em comin .

[Alister_G]

Thanks all of you for your encouraging comments.

 

 

This afternoon I continued with the tunnel, adding the wing walls.

 

We left it last night looking like this:

 

 

So the first thing I did was attack it with a scalpel, to remove some of the cladding on the buttresses:

 

 

 

Don't ask me why I did it this way, 'cos I can't give a sensible answer, just stoopid, I guess.

 

I then took some more of the 80thou black plasticard, and cut it to size:

 

 

 

Then I divided it through the centre, diagonally, to form the shape of the wings:

 

 

Then, I cut off the point on the ends:

 

 

and glued the offcut back onto the top, to form the square pillar:

 

 

Then, I trimmed the back of the wings on a slight diagonal, to take account of the batter on the buttresses:

 

 

Then I attached the right hand wing:

 

 

and did the same on the left. Here you can see the reinforcing strip that the wing wall glues to:

 

 

 

Then I clad the wings in the stone sheet:

 

 

Finally, I built up and clad the pillars on the end of each wing wall:

 

 

I went round the whole thing with the filler, covering all the gaps:

 

 

And that's about it, ready to paint:

 

 

You tend to forget just how big these structures are, here's a Dapol 00 figure, looking very much dwarfed by his surroundings:

 

 

I began to doubt myself, had I built it too big? But on checking, it's just about bang on, the tunnel opening just accommodates two running lines with a standard separation.

 

This evening, I may start painting.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[Andrew P]

Great work as always Al, I'm looking forward to seeing it painted mate as your eye for colour and detail is just amazing.

[LNER4479]

Hi Al!

 

I keep looking in and 'liking' - but haven't got round to posting until now.

 

Cracking work so far on a cracking prototype location. Hope Valley is a lovely route which I travel over fairly regularly and always enjoy the Edale - Grindleford stretch (although it was completely shrouded in mist on Friday!).

 

Only thing that worries me is those blue boxes on wheels when you're got all that lovely steam stock to run...

[ben pez]

Yet more fantastic modelling al!

When ive been scratch building bridges on my own layout ive had the same thoughts as you...is it overscale? Even though two running lines with locos on it have about 10mm clearance to the side walls of the bridge!

Its not until ive built up the embankment/scenery around the bridge then it starts to look more in scale and the right size.

 

Cheers

 

Ben

[eastwestdivide]

For the tunnel lettering, might you do better creating a vector path for the cutter from a photo of the original?

I'm sure I've seen a font with that kind of squared-off "O", but can I lay my hands on it?

 

 

Edit: Sackers Square Gothic isn't too far off. Here's a preview from fonts.com, after doing a "search by sight" to try and match the characteristics.

 

Trouble is, the O on the tunnel lettering has diagonal corners, while the U corners seem to be more curved (hard to get the contrast on your photos earlier in the thread. Trainee stonemason?!

Edited August 22, 2016 by eastwestdivide

[Alister_G]

That's great, thanks, I too was sure I knew of a font which more closely matched the original, but I was bu**ered if I could find it.

 

I'll install that on the PC and have another go.

 

Regarding Vector paths, I'm sure it is eminently possible to create them from the photo, but not with the software I have, nor is it a  skill I currently possess.

 

Al.

[eastwestdivide]

...

 

Regarding Vector paths, I'm sure it is eminently possible to create them from the photo, but not with the software I have, nor is it a  skill I currently possess.

 

...

 

Well I've got the software (Photoshop and Illustrator), so I gave it a go, but I'm b***ed if I can work out how. I suspect you need higher contrast, and a bit of weedkiller.

[Alister_G]

After the much appreciated help of eastwestdivide today, this evening I redid the cutting file for the headstone on the tunnel, using the font he'd found.

 

Then I took the existing section of the model, and cut off the top layer of plasticard with the letters in it:

 

 

Then I gave it a going over with a file, to remove the last traces of the old lettering:

 

 

and stuck on the replacement:

 

 

 

I think that looks a lot more like the prototype:

 

 

That done, I gave the whole thing a first coat of Humbrol Acrylic Matt Stone (No.63):

 

 

 

Beginning to look like the real thing now:

 

 

The tunnel will now be left to dry completely until tomorrow night, when it will get a second coat, and then on Wednesday I should be able to start weathering it.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

After reading this thread last night, Jason (JCL) dropped me a PM to say he'd successfully traced the carvings on the headstone, and sent me a cutting file for my Silhouette.

 

I asked him if it was possible to do the same for the Midland Railway crest, which adorns the arch keystone on the prototype.

 

Sure enough, an hour later I received another cutting file, bless him.

 

So, I set to, and removed the date from the top of the headstone and replaced the arch keystone:

 

 

 

Whilst I waited for the MEK to evaporate, I carried on with some work on the bridge:

 

 

Then, the tunnel received its second coat of paint, including the new bits:

 

 

Thanks very much to both eastwestdivide and JCL. This wouldn't look half so good without your help.

 

Al.

 

 

 

 

[Andrew P]

Excellent changes Al, the power of the R M Web never ceases to amaze me.

[JCL]

Well that looks amazing. I was worried that the monogram would be too fine, but it came out really well.

 

And the power of the internet means I can get it from Canada to you in the blink of an eye instead of me drawing it, cutting it, putting it in the post, crossing my fingers, etc.

[vulcan product fan]

wow more great work the MR monogram looks great mate .........

[Alister_G]

Well there was just time this evening to give the tunnel it's first layer of base weathering.

 

So, with two coats of Humbrol Acrylic Matt Sand, we now add over the top several dilute washes of Humbrol Acrylic Black Green (No.91).

 

The wash is made by pouring a bit of the neat paint into a saucer, and then adding water until the saucer is half full. It's probably roughly 10 parts water to 1 part paint.

 

Then with a full brush, I cover the area to be painted, and then immediately dab most of it off with tissue paper. This is repeated about three times, and then some dry brushing to darken some areas.

 

Here's the results:

 

From this:

 

 

to this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll leave this to dry now, until tomorrow evening, and then see what needs doing to make it better.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

 

[vulcan product fan]

Again first class modelling looks great .

[emt_911]

Stunning work again. Another masterpiece

 

Edit for fat fingers

Edited August 23, 2016 by emt_911

[Andrew P]

Brilliant Al, I was trying to work out why it was Yellow Ochre to begin with. 

[Alister_G]

Brilliant Al, I was trying to work out why it was Yellow Ochre to begin with. 

 

I know. Every time I do one of these types of stone building, I do the first coat and then think "that looks far to orange / yellow" but it's great how well Matt Sand and Black Green work together to get the effect I want.

 

I'll wait to see how it dries, but I may have to add a bit of grey to the mix to match the prototype, it's not quite as green as I've gone - although it's amazing how it varies depending on the light.

 

Al.

[Alister_G]

Before I do anything else to the tunnel portal, I thought I'd take some photos, now it's dried, and in natural (albeit cloudy) daylight:

 

 

 

 

You can see that it doesn't look anything like as dark now it's dried, but it still has an orangey tint to it, which doesn't match the prototype all that well.

 

Here's a shot in artificial light:

 

 

Which if anything makes it even more orangey.

 

Compare this with the real thing:

 

 

 

My inspiration for colouring stonework is taken from just outside my kitchen window:

 

 

 

which is built using the same local stone that was used both at Bakewell and Grindleford.

 

My feeling is that I need to introduce more grey tones for the tunnel, but I would welcome your views.

 

I'm not going to touch the tunnel this evening, to give me time to gather your opinions, and instead will work on the bridge.

 

Thanks for looking,

 

Al.

[eastwestdivide]

I'd agree, greyer and less orangey would be better. The church might have the same stone, but it's evidently weathered differently.

 

Even in the sun:

Edited August 24, 2016 by eastwestdivide

[Sasquatch]

Hi Al.

That tunnel mouth is just brilliant modeling. What else would we expect from you.

If you remember I repainted most of the structures on my layout after finding the original colour was far too orangey being cinnamon based.

 

Looking at the above pictures of Totley tunnel mouth and that church there's two different things going on. The tunnel mouth has a mortar course which has not weathered the same as the stone. If I'm not mistaken that's Millstone Grit which turns almost black.

the church has weathered less and there's virtually no mortar.

To reproduce aged Millstone grit I used a coat of sand stone as a base which created the mortar also, then brushed the stonework with some darker stone colours before dry brushing on a pallet of charcoal, pewter grey and burnt umber. Lastly there's always a wash of moss added in patches. All crafters acrylics from the Folkart and Ceramcoat ranges. The sandstone has been discontinued but I have sourced some from the Apple Barrel range.

Experiment on a scrap of stone card, I found keeping a roll of kitchen paper towel handy comes in very useful.

(Note the moss needs yet to be added to the wall in this picture).

 

Hope this is of help to you.

Regards Shaun.

Edited August 24, 2016 by Sasquatch

[Alister_G]

Thanks very much to all of you for your comments.

 

I realised this evening that when I did Bakewell Station, I didn't use the Humbrol No.63 Matt Sand as the base coat, I used Matt Pale Stone No.121 instead, which is a much paler, less orange shade.

 

I still have plenty of that, I just need to restock with thinners, as it is an enamel, rather than an acrylic based paint, so a water / paint mix won't work.

 

As it happens, I was going to call at Hobbycraft anyway, tomorrow, for some other bits, so I'll get some thinners and then try a wash of the Pale Stone, and some dark Greys to see if I can more nearly match the original.

 

Anyway, in the mean time, I've been continuing with the bridge, adding the coping stones, and the brick arches, here's some photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Al.

[Rowsley17D]

Hi Al, do you not need a padstone at the end of the outer arches like you have where two arches join?