Bridport Town - Carrying On

[DLT]

On 07/05/2023 at 00:35, DLT said:

Thanks for all the comments guys.

Bridport has a local outing shortly, to The Exeter Gauge 0 Group's show (my own club) in Whimple on June 17th.

Full details here:  ExeGOG Show

 

Five days to go till the show at Whimple!

Full programme now on this page:  ExeGOG Show at Whimple

And the Group's site here:  https://www.exeter-gog.net/

 

Anyone coming?

Cheers, Dave.

[DLT]

Whimple Show was a great success!

Bridport Show tomorrow.

[john new]

2 minutes ago, DLT said:

Whimple Show was a great success!

Bridport Show tomorrow.

Should see you there.

[DLT]

On 28/07/2023 at 18:35, john new said:

Should see you there.

Good to meet you at Bridport John, I trust you had a good day.

We had a great time with Bridport Town, met many residents and discussed Bridport, it's industrial history and it's many old buildings.

Luckily I remembered to take my folder of survey photos, that many of the structures were built from.

Next job is to finish the backscene.  I've raised it by two inches, which has made a huge difference visually, and added a mirror to each end board.

None of the commercial backscenes I've looked at appear sufficiently "Dorset Hills" so I am looking to revive my landscape painting skills...  Hmm.

[john new]

4 minutes ago, DLT said:

Good to meet you at Bridport John, I trust you had a good day.

We had a great time with Bridport Town, met many residents and discussed Bridport, it's industrial history and it's many old buildings.

Luckily I remembered to take my folder of survey photos, that many of the structures were built from.

Next job is to finish the backscene.  I've raised it by two inches, which has made a huge difference visually, and added a mirror to each end board.

None of the commercial backscenes I've looked at appear sufficiently "Dorset Hills" so I am looking to revive my landscape painting skills...  Hmm.

Yes, lots of interest in the demo I was doing.  Trouble with doing demos though is too little time to look round the show.

 

Hopefully Calum’s video will have captured most of it.

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by john new

[DLT]

Had a great day at the Bridport Show, with lots of interest from the local residents.

We were in a sunny position underneath the big skylight, so it got a bit warm in the afternoon. 

But we were right next to the "Exhibitor's Refreshment Facility" (tea-urn) so a lot of tea was imbibed.

Took a few photos on my phone, they weren't very good but here's a sample.

 

 

 

[MrWolf]

I think those photos are plenty good, especially as I can't get to see the layout in the flesh. The details and paintwork are genuinely inspiring. I particularly like things such as the drainpipe fixed to the post on the end of the overall roof and the brick bases, little things that are often missed or under finished.

[PaulRhB]

 

Well I lost count of the stops at Bridport, each time to be met by friendly conversation with Dave’s team and plenty of action. I even resisted another invite to play as I was enjoying just watching trains on there after operating on our layout. 
 

The new backscene is perfect :) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shiny, the cleaner got carried away!

 

 

 

 

What have you done Dave? 🤣

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a big thanks for letting my new L&B stuff run 

 

 

 

 

 

Lovely. 

[roundhouse]

Its a superb layout and it was one of he few layouts that I got to watch a Warley. I do like the modifications carried out since I last saw it. Just shows what you can get in a smallish space with O-16.5.  

[Mike Bellamy]

Thanks Paul. Agreed about the backscene having seen the way that was developed on NGRM with almost daily updates. Some of your photos also show the use of mirrors at each end - most effective - and of course well done to David for "flying the flag" for 7mm NG.

.

 

[SteamLance]

I completely missed it at Warley, as I forgot it was there! Gorgeous layout though, inspired me to buy a closed van from one of the traders. 

And the Garratt and single Fairlie really suit the scene!

[Donw]

Its is a real pleasure to be allowed to operate Bridport.

 

Don

[mudmagnet]

Had a fantastic weekend operating Bridport Town. The first time I've been operating for a few years. 

 

Took a few photos and have posted this one elsewhere, but worthy posting again. I have a few more to sort out.

[SD85]

Many thanks to @DLT for letting me operate the layout at Warley last weekend; it was really fun and is good layout to observe and run.

[DLT]

I know its a few weeks since, but my huge thanks to everyone involved in organising the Warley Show.  It all went very smoothly (from my point of view anyway) even the Voyage access system worked very well.

Massive thanks to The Team, Richard Mudmagnet and Ray Norwood (of this forum) and John Cavell (not of this forum) for spending such long periods operating.  The layout behaved itself, apart from one or two electrical gremlins creeping in.

Thanks as well to everyone who came to watch and said such nice things about the layout, and took so many photos.

 

Its strange how some things just keep on working. 

When I cleaned the loco wheels on Sunday morning, one of the Baldwins had a Romford driving wheel literally hanging off.  Yet it had been running perfectly up until closing on Saturday.

 

Now the dust has settled, its time to get back into shed and get modelling again.  The Weston Super Mare show is less than a month away.

 

My thanks again,

Dave.

[DLT]

Development of the backscene has been described over on the NGRMonline Forum, with plenty of advice and suggestions from the folks there, many of them with a lot more experience in this field than me.

 

Having long been dissatisfied with the blank back-screen on Bridport, over the summer I actually did something about it.  For a start it was too low, some of the roofs and chimneys almost reached the top of it.  I worked out that I could raise it by two inches without:

(1) Making uncoupling too awkward (yes I know its high time I investigated some sort of auto-uncoupling) or

(2) Making the sections too wide (when packed face to face) to store or transport.

 

I did this by splicing a 2-inch wide strip onto the lower edge of the screens, overlapped with a four-inch strip for strength.  This meant that I had to redo all the cutouts, redrill all the screw holes etc 2inches lower, but luckily everything lined up.  Even the extra 2-inches made a big difference to the appearance.  Here's a Photoshopped version:

Original:

 

Raised in Photoshop:

 

The end-screens couldn't be raised so I made new ones, and covered them with self-adhesive mirror-vinyl

Edited December 19, 2023 by DLT

[Donw]

This is one of the reasons I prefer to operate from the front. You can have a decent height backscene even when using three links.

 

Don

[DLT]

We exhibited at the Bridport show in this form, and the height made no difference to handling or operation.  If anything, packing was easier as there was more clearance between the sections when crated together.

Then it was a matter of working up a scene.  I photographed the layout and printed a view four times on a sheet of A4,  then did some trial sketches on them.

 

I wanted to feature some familiar Bridport landmarks, particularly the tall Westmill  and the distant cone-shaped Colmers Hill with it's half-dozen pine trees on the top.

 

 

The third sketch seemed to have roughly the right proportions.

 

Edited December 19, 2023 by DLT

[Donw]

I like the way you have tried several sketches.

 

Don

[DLT]

Next job was working up a drawing to full size, and getting the perspective looking right from various angles

 

 

Painting trials, practice with colour mixing etc took a while, but eventually I got the scene coloured, and tucked in behind the building to see how it looked.

 

To say I was pleased with the result would not cover it!

Edited December 19, 2023 by DLT

[DLT]

The plan was to do the painting off the layout, on decent art paper, then cut out the outline of the buildings and stick it to the backscene.

I also worked up a bit of view to fill the gap between the buildings on the right.  An alleyway, steps, and gate leading to a backyard.

 

[DLT]

As with everything else, it took a while to develop the sky.  Eventually I achieved some cloud formation that didn't look like flying saucers....

Only a small area was available for some background landscape, and Colmers Hill fitted in neatly.

 

 

Building cutouts were fixed with Spraymount

 

 

And at long last reunited with the layout:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2023 by DLT

[DLT]

Here's a before and after: 

 

[RobAllen]

Looks great! I'm impressed with your drawing and painting skills.

[Donw]

Superb work Dave.

 

Don