Life in a Northern Town

[Neil]

1 hour ago, JZ said:

What about squaring up the image in photoshop and making a decal?

 

I have made transfers for various items but for painted signs nothing beats painting. Actually I quite like faffing about with stencils.

[mullie]

1 hour ago, Neil said:

 

I have made transfers for various items but for painted signs nothing beats painting. Actually I quite like faffing about with stencils.

I for one would like to see the stencilling process if that is possible. 

 

Martyn

[Neil]

10 hours ago, mullie said:

I for one would like to see the stencilling process if that is possible. 

 

Martyn

 

No problem, I'll try to remember to take snaps as I go along. It'll be a little while as the base coats need to go on and harden off before I can start.

[Neil]

I've applied a bit more colour to Stubbs, these bits don't need the underlying paint to thoroughly harden. Stencil lettering often needs to be corrected by drawing bits of with a fine brush and thinners so once the black background goes in I can set a start date for the fiddly bit.

 

 

To the left is the proof of concept card cut out and to the right the prepared window units ready to be glued in place from the rear of the structure.

[Neil]

OK, I've made a start on the stencilling. It's been a bit two forward one back but progress has been made. After a false start using the image directly from the internet (thought I might get away with it but a bit too skewed) I found some fonts on the internet which were a reasonable match and set off cutting out. I printed out three on one sheet of A4 just as the ink was running out. The top one, I'm happy with 'ironmonger' but not 'FR Stubbs' so I've tackled that again on the lower example where I've tweaked the lettering to better match the real thing.

 

 

The remaining image was used to set out the background, masking out for the white border.

 

 

Humbrol matt white was brushed and stippled on the inside of the tape. I wasn't bothered about an even coverage, in fact the patchier the better.

 

 

The next stage when the white is dry will be to mask off the border and paint in the black background.

[Neil]

You join me with the white border having been masked off and the black background painted in and dried. The first stencil used was that with the 'ironmonger' lettering and the two horizontal lines. This came first because it was easier to register the 'FR Stubbs' to the 'ironmonger' rather than the other way around.

 

 

After stippling through the stencil with white paint.

 

 

Usually the centres of letters like O and R will be tagged to the outside. I did this for the first few painted signs I tackled but I find I get a better result touching in the centres with background coloured paint. The shape of the letters flows better and it seems easier to paint a shape in the centre than touch up the letter itself.

 

The stencil used for the 'FR Stubbs' and the sweeping tail of the R has little registration holes cut into it (indicated with the arrows) which are used to line up this stencil with the horizontal lines and the first and last letter of 'ironmonger'

 

 

Here's the result; just need to cut and stencil 'fireplace      specialist' and then I'll restore the centres of the O B and Rs.

 

[Neil]

Another day and another stencil, this time for the smaller, lower lettering.

 

 

It's usually the S that's troublesome but today both Es on the left gave me grief. You can see the repairs with tiny slivers of masking tape. However all came good in the end.

 

 

The secret with stippling is to use a brush with stubby bristles, to be sparing with the paint, building up in layers and to use a vertical motion so you don't cause the stencil to drift off target.

[mullie]

48 minutes ago, Neil said:

Another day and another stencil, this time for the smaller, lower lettering.

 

 

It's usually the S that's troublesome but today both Es on the left gave me grief. You can see the repairs with tiny slivers of masking tape. However all came good in the end.

 

 

The secret with stippling is to use a brush with stubby bristles, to be sparing with the paint, building up in layers and to use a vertical motion so you don't cause the stencil to drift off target.

It is really interesting to see how you achieve the effect, thanks for posting. 

 

Martyn 

[Neil]

1 hour ago, mullie said:

It is really interesting to see how you achieve the effect, thanks for posting. 

 

Martyn 

 

You're most welcome Martyn. It's the ability to ask questions and get timely answers that's one of the advantages of internet forums.

[Neil]

Today I completed the final part of the signwriting, filling in the missing bits of letters with a fine brush and steady(ish) hand.

 

 

It's not perfect but it captures some of the idiosyncratic style of the original. Feeling pleased with myself I took the structure out to the layout and while there is another structure to go to its right I felt there was still something missing.

 

 

Turning round ninety degrees it's easy to see what; just the outline of other stuff on the backscene is enough to suggest other habitation. On its own the building looks bleak and incomplete. I must press on with its neighbour so I can complete the backscene here.

 

[Stubby47]

2 hours ago, Neil said:

I felt there was still something missing.

 

So, so close, but the last 'S' looks wrong to me.

[Captain Kernow]

That's absolutely top stuff, Neil. Really interesting to see how you did it, too.

Many thanks.

 

[Not Jeremy]

Wonderful and inspiring stuff Neil, just think what could be achieved in a bigger scale (ahem!)

 

Simon

[Re6/6]

Lovely stuff Neil. 

[Neil]

17 hours ago, Stubby47 said:

 

So, so close, but the last 'S' looks wrong to me.

 

That's an interesting take, to my eyes it would be the first S I'd want to tweak a bit to get closer to the unusual rather squared off look of the originals. However I worry that further tweaking runs the risk of making things worse rather than better and there's part of me that's happy with some imperfections in a model; I feel that they make a model less sterile and in some way more believable providing it's not overdone.

 

 

13 hours ago, Not Jeremy said:

Wonderful and inspiring stuff Neil, just think what could be achieved in a bigger scale (ahem!)

 

Simon

 

I would need a considerably larger garage. :)

[Stubby47]

Er, how's this ?

 

[Neil]

Splendid.

[Neil]

It's been almost a month since I last posted progress on the layout. In part this is because my focus had turned to producing this dubious item for the light railway .....

 

 

.... and partly because I had a big tidy up of our guest bedroom as a friend was coming to stay for a few days. At the weekend we took a trip to Aberystwyth on the train and called in at the splendid Vale of Rheidol shop. It has a brilliant selection of books both prototype and modelling but it was an Alphagraphix kit of a DVLR station building that caught my eye and came home with me in my rucksack. Because the model is destined for Northern Town and because Northern Town lives in the garage I won't be using the kit for the final building as I worry about damp setting in. I also wanted a model of one of the smaller DVLR station buildings like those at Dunnington, Murton or Osbaldwick, so I copied the kit on the printer and then cut the print out to match the layout and size of the smaller buildings. I built a simple card structure to match the dimensions of the chopped up print outs and then glued them on as overlays.

 

 

Here's the old place holder light railway station on Northern Town .....

 

 

..... now replaced with the DVLR model.

 

 

With the proof of concept model finished I can now move on with confidence to the final build in plastic. I printed out another set of overlays but in black and white which I'll use as cutting templates for the fiddly panelling, doors and windows. It'll save me a huge amount of time marking out and hopefully give a more accurate result than ruler, pencil and try square.

[Neil]

A false start and a bit of a rethink have happened over the last few days. Using PVA to stick the paper print outs of the DVLR station building to plasticard set of some warping, pesumably as the paper shrunk.

 

 

I remembered that years ago I bought in some self adhesive printer paper so after some difficulty (printing on the backing rather than the self adhesive paper) I got a full set of print off that I could peel and stick to the plastic. Result, all has stayed flat and level.

 

 

Cutting out the tracery is a bit of a faff requiring good levels of concentration so I only do a bit per session. It's difficult to see if the cut out panels are level and in line from the front but turn the sheet over and checking is much easier.

 

 

I'm about half way through the process now so it's not a rapid technique but it is very satisfying seeing the characteristic design emerge. The walls will be good practice for the doors and windows which will be even more fiddly. It strikes me that this building would be a natural for laser cutting but the customer base would be pretty limited.

 

Finally on Friday night's running session the new Thomas based loco was paired with the two carriages hacked from Tomy trackmaster Annie and Clarabel. Really quite please with the ensemble.

 

[john new]

With card you often need to put paper onto both sides to stop the warping.

[Neil]

15 hours ago, john new said:

With card you often need to put paper onto both sides to stop the warping.

 

Ah yes, I was a bit surprised to find it happened on plasticard too.

[Neil]

Here's a lovely piece of nostalgia from and about the transition era. It's a useful reminder of how dirty and drab the world looked then; a pet bugbear of mine is models set in the past but using a modern palette of colours. 

 

 

[Captain Kernow]

Well, I say, old chap, how absolutely splendid!

 

[Neil]

For a variety of reasons model making was very much on the back burner last month, in fact I've only just resumed it this side of Christmas. Here's the result of a few afternoons cutting and sticking plastic.

 

 

The tracery has all been hand cut from 20thou plasticard chosen so that it would match the Evergreen planking.

 

 

The windows are cut from 10thou though the glazing bars on the doors are scribed lines filled with paint. The green paint will be sanded down and repainted in a more muted shade, it'll do as an undercoat. The glazing for doors and windows is cut from an old CD case.

 

Finally I've stumbled across a new (to me) set of DVLR images on this website here.

Edited January 1 by Neil

[Neil]

Well it's a couple of weeks on since my last update. Firstly I'd like to share this image that cropped up on  facebook group that I'm a member of. It's reproduced here with the permission of its owner but I'd be grateful if it wasn't reposted elsewhere as I don't have permission for that.

 

 

It's of Low Ousegate in York, sometime during the fifties. It caught my eye because it reminds me very much of the paintings of Atkinson Grimshaw but it also serves to illustrate that there's a lot of stuff out there on local history sites that can add to our knowledge of time and place. As modellers we can tend to be a bit blinkered in our choice of sources.

 

Not all my time has been frittered away on the internet; I've also made some progress with the DVLR building. As ever a case of steps back as well as forwards, the first coat of green paint was a bit of a disaster but fortunately enamels come off with white spirit even after drying overnight. I'm far happier with this shade and finish but there's still a way to go before I can call the job done.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 14 by Neil
Add link to works of John Atkinson Grimshaw