Great Southern Railway (Fictitious) - Signalling the changes...

[Skinnylinny]

1 minute ago, Compound2632 said:

 

That step (he he) is not a deStroudlification, rather, a correction.

Well, the Stroudleys didn't have lower footboards at all (with the exception of short ones at guards' compartments)...

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Skinnylinny said:

Well, the Stroudleys didn't have lower footboards at all (with the exception of short ones at guards' compartments)...

 

Yes, but my narky point was that the Hornby footboard does not represent a Stroudley feature, or one that any 19th century carriage designer would have come up with, at all.

[Regularity]

Shock horror! On a generic model, Hornby made a mistake…!

[Compound2632]

32 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Shock horror! On a generic model, Hornby made a mistake…!

 

They deviated from prototype literacy. Sorry, I get a bit defensive since with others I was involved in influencing Hattons to produce prototype-literate (James' phrase) models, i.e. as far as possible avoiding features that a 19th-century carriage designer would certainly not draw and including things that he most certainly would. Despite which, being focussed on the external appearance, I let the BR Mk1 luggage racks slip though...

[Edwardian]

13 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Shock horror! On a generic model, Hornby made a mistake…!

 

Yes, they made several!

 

They did so by not reflecting the way real coaches of this ilk were made.

 

For instance, the designer has not really though about the solebar, appearing to conflate the idea of a steel channel solebar with that of an upper footboard.  What we have is a protrusion like the bottom of a steel channel solebar, though it seems not to a steel channel solebar, and there is no upper protrusion. So, perhaps the feature is intended to be an upper footboard, except it isn't, because it's too shallow for that function. 

 

There are numerous such solecisms or features just poorly done on the Hornby coaches.

 

However, some of the 4-wheelers are an excellent basis for real Stroudley coaches - so, yes, omitting the lower footboard supplied would be a re-Stroudleyfication. Adding it in the way Hornby intended would be a solecism, unless the height is modified to something prototypical, in which case its a de-Stroudleyfication!

 

With de-Stroudleyfication, these coaches can be made into prototypical or prototype-literate generic/freelance coaches, as Linny has shown. The Hattons ones are better detailed and avoid such unprototypical solecisms, but it's a question of horses for courses.  For instance, the WNR sensibly does not need a Lav. Composite (Hattons tooling for its 6W Comp), but would benefit from a Luggage Composite (which Hornby does produce), so I'll have a number of additional tasks such as sorting out both heights of footboard and fitting gas pipes, vac cylinder, sensible buffer heads, and (Heaven help me!) window bolections, in order to bring the Hornby 6-wheeler up to the standard and prototypicality I'll start with when it comes to adapting the Hattons versions, but this avoids a complicated hack, so may be worth it!   

 

[NeilHB]

They look lovely Linny, and I really do like the colour scheme! 

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Adding it in the way Hornby intended would be a solecism,

 

Introducing Jan Solec, a Croatian-born member of the Brighton C&W Drawing Office staff, who did sketch out footboards at the height used by Hornby, having in mind the rail-level platforms that were standard on the railways of his homeland. 

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

There are numerous such solecisms or features just poorly done on the Hornby coaches.

My point was that over the years, Hornby (and Bachman, and Heljan, and… and…) have a history of getting into a bit of a pickle even when it is a specific prototype, with drawings, photos, books, and even the real thing to be able to go and look at and measure.

[Skinnylinny]

A little something more...

 

 

Edited November 11, 2021 by Skinnylinny

[Corbs]

Heck, that's good.

[Skinnylinny]

Thank you! This was one of those serendipitous moments where the lighting worked out beautifully, the speed of the train is just right to suggest a gentle amble through the countryside, and the music just cuts at the correct moment. I'm really pleased with it! 

[Skinnylinny]

Another little bit of work - this time a quick project. An eBay seller called "Fair Price Models" sells laser-cut model buildings in 4mm and 7mm scale. I thought that one of their small half-relief shops looked interesting, so an order was placed, and it arrived this morning. 

I really can't complain at the price! (£2.99 plus £1.50 p+p). The kit provides a nicely-layered shop frontage, and a basic MDF shell for the main building, to allow the builder to use whichever stone/brick paper or plastikard they wish. Personally I'll be using Slaters Flemish Bond plastikard for the walls. the shop frontage, windows and lintels are cut from thin "laserboard", which takes acrylic paint nicely (it does warp slightly if too much water is introduced, although nothing that pressing under a heavy book didn't flatten out). 

I'm so delighted with how quickly and easily this has gone together so far, that I've ordered a few more kits from the seller already - a row of terraced houses, and two slightly more ornate shop frontages, one of which will become a pub, and the other a bookshop.



[Edit: Has plasticard always been this brittle?! Trying to cut out two windows has ended up with a multi-piece brickwork jigsaw puzzle!]

Edited November 16, 2021 by Skinnylinny

[Edwardian]

Very nice, Linny. Look forward to developments. I have a couple of Fair Price building kits on the stocks.  They are very fairly price and have all the makings of a great base for a detailed model

[Skinnylinny]

Not much looking forward to wait for! Brick Plastikard applied, slate roof Plastikard applied, all that remains to add is the chimney and detailing such as guttering and downpipes. Oh, and the shop name and interior! Not bad for a lazy build on a rest day!



Yes, there are a couple of tiny spots which I'll touch in (the sill on the left upstairs window could do with a clean as the painter was a bit messy painting the window frame! And he only did one coat on the right-hand window, which is a bit patchy... Bloomin' cowboy builders...) but I'm really pleased with it, and now looking forward to the next one to arrive.

[Caley Jim]

4 hours ago, Skinnylinny said:

[Edit: Has plasticard always been this brittle?! Trying to cut out two windows has ended up with a multi-piece brickwork jigsaw puzzle!]

Plasticard that has been lying about for some time, especially if it's been exposed to light, can become brittle.  I have a sheet of 5 thou which has gone that way round the edges.  How did you cut out the window openings?  I always drill a series of holes just inboard of the edges, join them up and then pare back to the line.  that way you're not distorting the styrene with the knife/scalpel blade.

 

Jim

[Skinnylinny]

Hmmmm, might be time to refresh my stock, and save these sheets for bigger, window-free walls.

I found that even score-and-snapping the simple rectangular outline of the wall caused it to shatter into three pieces! The windows I ended up repeatedly scoring until I cut all the way through (from the rear) and that mostly avoided any more shattering (although I have suffered one broken brick next to a window, which I suspect I can mostly hide with some paint!)

[Caley Jim]

3 hours ago, Skinnylinny said:

I found that even score-and-snapping the simple rectangular outline of the wall caused it to shatter into three pieces! 

Definitely sounds as though it has hardened with age and exposure to light.

 

Jim

[Skinnylinny]

Which is odd, as I store my plasticard in the hallway, which has no windows! But age it might be, it's certainly a few years old. Hardening/embrittlement aren't so much of a problem once it's glued firmly to a building.

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Definitely sounds as though it has hardened with age and exposure to light.

 

UV in particular, as I'm sure Jim knows, as a dentist.

 

1 hour ago, Skinnylinny said:

 Hardening/embrittlement aren't so much of a problem once it's glued firmly to a building.

 

... and painted, which provides a barrier to the UV light.

[Andy Hayter]

Environmental degradation can also lead to brittleness.  By this I mean exposure to ordinary household chemicals - not necessarily the material itself, although many can be damaging in their own right, but things like the propellant (often a hydrocarbon) in sprays from deodorants to polishes.  

[Skinnylinny]

Off to the model shop today to pick up some more plasticard, but Station Road is definitely growing. About 1/3 the length of the backscene now has houses in some state of completion, so I suppose I'll be needing to get on with the groundwork and retaining walls to allow the line to disappear under a bridge soon!

I think the variations in height will be disguised by the upwards slope of the road to the right.

[Compound2632]

59 minutes ago, Skinnylinny said:

I think the variations in height will be disguised by the upwards slope of the road to the right.

 

It looks to me as if there might be some subtle gradation in poshness along the road?

[Skinnylinny]

That's rather the plan - smaller cottages near the smoke of the station at the left, larger ones to the right. The bookshop will be towards the right-hand end, along with the "nice" pub. The corner pub at the far left will be rather more... working class! 

[Skinnylinny]

Speaking of the fancy pub at the right hand end... I present The Thunder Child, renamed from The Linton Arms in memory of the 35 brave men of Linton who gave their lives in service of their country when their ship was lost in battle in the last years of the nineteenth century...

 

I promise the paintwork looks rather better in real life! But it'll get another coat of Bronze Green, and may lose an upper floor or two (being a four-storey building, it rather dwarfs everything else in the street!).

[Skinnylinny]

Today I have mostly been doing... pebbledashing. My first attempt at this left me rather disillusioned, especially after a few hours of carefully scraping off the unsatisfactory finish. This time, rather than using scenic scatter for texture, I went for chinchilla sand, which is rather finer. There are a few small areas I'm considering scraping back and doing again, but overall I'm fairly happy with this, and think that with some weathering and detailing it should pass muster against the backscene.