Gill Head: Kirkby Luneside's neighbour

[Sasquatch]

I spot the difference. Ballast bin, benches and lamps!🤣

Seriously though, given the 1-76 scale, that's pretty spot on. 

Will you make the benches from scratch or use the etched Shirescenes ones? (you get a trolly and barrow as well for 6quid!!!) 

 

Great work as always Jeff

Regards Shaun.

 

PS. Is it really hot up there in Cumbria or are you far enough North to escape it. My mum's in Romford, and I was looking on Ebay UK to get her an In-Window Air conditioner but you poor lot don't have them back home. I suspect they're a bit risky when it comes to break-ins anyhow. 

[Rowsley17D]

Really looking the part and the place, Jeff. Yours looks even better than the real thing with its pots on the chimneys! Scalelink do some nice Midland benches and Yorkmodelmaking NE benches look the part too.

[Physicsman]

Morning (just) Shaun and Jonathan.

 

It's fairly warm in Cumbria - about 30C - but the whole heatwave will only last for a few days. Tomorrow we'll be down at around 20C. As always in the UK there is a media frenzy when it gets a little warm or cold. In 6 months time there'll be an over-reaction when it snows for the first time in 4 years. How will we cope if it gets "really" cold, down below zero (sarcasm intended). How did we cope in the past?

 

A late reply as I was in the observatory in the early hours. All set up, waiting for the moon to get to an acceptable altitude, a look at Jupiter - then the cloud came in, and not a single image taken....

 

Moving on, I've not given a lot of thought about the detailing of the platforms, benches etc. I'll bear in mind both of your links and I've had Sankey suggested for signage. All these things will be looked at later in the year.

 

I've actually (I know it's mad) been looking at the ways I can improve a mark 2 building. It's a bit of fun, but there's no harm in planning.

[Allegheny1600]

Hi Jeff,

I absolutely applaud your attitude with regards to trying harder each time you build something - bravo!

As my beloved says “good enough, isn’t good enough”.

 I suppose it’s fine if one isn’t really bothered but when one has a passion for something, one is driven to keep trying harder and harder every time - the aim, I guess, to try and achieve “perfection” but in my experience, that is something that always dances away, permanently out of reach!

Doesn’t stop us trying though.

John

 

Philosophers anonymous!

[Rowsley17D]

I've too have been looking at how to improve things. The track on the station approach is un-prototypical with two crossovers. Now that I have a plan that @Middlepeak kindly put on my thread there should be scissors which I was afraid to do at the time and a double slip. I know it will always be at the back of my mind until I do something about it.

[Physicsman]

John, Jonathan.....

 

I am VERY grateful that, by one means or another, I seem to have a bunch of extremely knowledgeable, sensible, motivated people contributing to this thread. I applaud the fact that you, too, along with others like Rob, Jay, JohnB, David, Steve, Shaun etc (forgive me if I haven't mentioned you here) have the desire to CONTINUE to improve. Excellent, I completely concur!

 

You've kind of summed it up, Jonathan. Once something "niggles" it sits in the back of your mind and won't go away until you do something about it. I remember discussing EM with Jason around 2013. Although his wonderful Bacup layout was 00 it was clear that he wished he'd built it in EM. The seed of doubt persisted for a year after the start of KL2 and then something had to be done about it. All my beautifully laid 00 track was ripped up and replaced with EM.

 

I've spent the last 3 hours in the Bunker. I re-positioned a downpipe, painted some ridge tiles and did a number of trivial things, totalling maybe 40 minutes. The rest of the time I've been looking at the station building, measuring and sketching and pondering ideas. I'm going to let this issue "dwell" for a couple of months, though I'll be making a few enquiries regarding materials for "build 2" . Please don't think I'm unhappy with the current model, I'm delighted with how it has turned out. But I've set myself a challenge, even if it's a while before anything happens.

 

Now before those of you with a memory point it out, there is my Hell Ghyll Sidings 00 project that's well planned out. That isn't being shelved - it'll just get mothballed, temporarily, of course!

 

Ok, that's enough philosophising. I'm a graduate of John (Allegheny)'s school of pontification, you know!! 🤣🤣

[Sasquatch]

2 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Hi Jeff,

I absolutely applaud your attitude with regards to trying harder each time you build something - bravo!

As my beloved says “good enough, isn’t good enough”.

 I suppose it’s fine if one isn’t really bothered but when one has a passion for something, one is driven to keep trying harder and harder every time - the aim, I guess, to try and achieve “perfection” but in my experience, that is something that always dances away, permanently out of reach!

Doesn’t stop us trying though.

John

 

Philosophers anonymous!

Don't forget a few mistakes now and again is the best learning curve. 

 

Regards Shaun

[Physicsman]

14 minutes ago, Sasquatch said:

Don't forget a few mistakes now and again is the best learning curve. 

 

Regards Shaun

 

Completely agree. I've made PLENTY of those!

 

As somebody pointed out a couple of weeks ago, in another context on another thread, if you put stuff onto a public forum then you can EXPECT and MUST ACCEPT to take a degree of (hopefully constructive) criticism/ suggestions - WHERE NEEDED.

 

I've found this to be the principal driving force behind my improvement as a modeller in the 12 years I've been on RMweb. So, so helpful to get feedback.

 

About a week ago I sent Steve (Ramrig) some 2009 photos of my then "layout". We had a (little) chuckle. Hum hum. I was pleased with my work at the time.....then I looked on here. How many mistakes had I made? (Track geometry and depth, non-protypical, non-accessible sections, scenics, materials, mixed-time periods, unsafe working practices in the line....etc etc)

 

Anyone not prepared to take (even a modicum of) criticism is deluded. So thanks, Shaun, keep the advice coming! And I MUST visit the Grim Squatch-site more often. Possibly the only place I've seen on here where insanity persists on a larger scale (model size-wise) than on this thread!

Edited July 19, 2022 by Physicsman

[Sasquatch]

It does take a certain amount of courage and a bit of madness to share one's work on a public forum. One thing I deplore though is modeling snobbery. I regard myself as a mainstream modeler because nearly all my locos are RTR and I use bog standard OO rail. (mind you there's so much of it I'd need another couple of lifetimes to do otherwise.)

Everyone has their own skill set, taste and style and shouldn't be discouraged by "It's still a train set if the curves are under scale" etc. 

The best thing about the forum is all the encouragement, positive feedback, sharing of ideas and advice.   

But. I condone criticism. When someone has taken the time to share their efforts, I'm pretty sure criticism isn't what they're looking for.

Criticism should be confined to the manufacturers who ask ridiculous prices for models that have been around for decades and lack of basic items in favor of such things as 3mm track systems that don't have models to run on them. (Sorry about winging on your wonderful thread).

I've got to get to work before it gets too hot...

 

Regards Shaun

[Physicsman]

Shaun, you can whinge as much as you want to on here.

 

I think there are areas of snobbery on this Forum and some of the people involved certainly don't want to be criticised in any shape or form.

 

I remember a few years back having one of my anti-snob rants, railing against those who see anyone modelling in EM as a snob. Neil (anotheran) came up with the cracking comment: "I don't think you're a snob because you model in EM, but because of all those stone walls you build!!"

 

 No doubt someone took him seriously. We do what we like for our own reasons. However, there ARE people on here who love the adulation but don't like the merest hint of criticism, however helpful those comments might be. They play their punters along and have no intention of listening to any useful advice offered. I find that contemptible on a public forum.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Physicsman

[John Besley]

Basically if we don't improve all the time what were working on we'd still have 1960 's Triang stock and Wren 8f's... Along with the odd 08 and Jinty, oh and an early Brittania 

 

Matchbox road vehicles and those awfull Merit people who must have been related to Flat Stanley....

 

Now look at us what have we got and we're still improving the game.

 

I've just remotered my locos with HLG kit motors and 60:1 gearbox

[Ramrig]

Deleted post.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Ramrig
Not sure what happened to the post

[Ramrig]

Hi Jeff

Well, that station building is an excellent piece of workmanship. You should be mightily proud of yourself. There is so much more feeling of achievement than using a ready to plant or card kit of a station building. You can sit back and say “I built that” , but knowing what you are like, it will be I could have done that better or this better. Personally I think you are just getting withdrawal symptoms from lack of DAS use 😉

Keep up the excellent standard you have set. Signal box interior next 😉   after your astronomy  break
 

Steve

not sure what happened to the previous post?

Edited July 19, 2022 by Ramrig

[Neilgue]

Guess Where I went today...

[Neilgue]

A second post to beat the 10 MB limit...

 

I had a nice time clambering around the vicinity of the viaduct. The slopes are a lot steeper than I thought and I had to be careful not to slip and plummet to my death. I had a bad bout of vertigo a few years ago and my balance has never been the same since and so I could not get to some of the places I wanted to.

 

But anyway I had a great time and took lots of pics. These have had some preliminary tweaking. Probably a bit overdone and will probably be toned down a tad when I get home to my desktop.

 

Cheers, Neil

[Physicsman]

Fantastic, Neil!

 

No need to say great pics, as you're a known adept at the photo lark.

 

I thought I heard someone moving around in the Bunker. Now I realise it was you, clambering across the gill to get another photo angle.

 

Hope you're having a great time with your family. Feel free to post any further pics you see as relevant!

 

 

[Physicsman]

A far cry - and 380,000km away - from Gill Head, here's a mosaic from a couple of night's ago.

 

The principal crater is Copernicus. Both it, and Kepler to its left, are surrounded by bright "ray" systems caused by material ejected from the craters during their formation by meteoritic impact. Over 500 million years ago.

 

The mosaic is derived from around 15,000 video captures totalling 40Gb of data, over a total of around 3 minutes in 8 sections.

 

The scale of the picture is around 600 miles (1000km) in the E-W and N-S directions.

 

An animation showing the context of the image is also shown for reference.

 

 

 

I'll post another mosaic on here when further processing has been done.

 

 

[Physicsman]

Here's another mosaic, this time of 5 separate images. I've rotated the image to put south at the top. If you look at it full-screen it feels like you're in orbit.

 

You can see the features here on the animation pic in my previous post - at the bottom.

 

[PeterBB]

Wow.  Superb manipulated images 

[lambiedg]

Beautiful lunacy in the best possible way

 

D

[Physicsman]

Thanks to Peter and David.

 

Although these files are jpegs compressed from the original TIFs, they can still be enlarged several times before pixellating.

[Alister_G]

On 18/07/2022 at 23:19, John Besley said:

Loverly looking building, you just want to walk inside and smell the typical station smell, polish, dust, oil lamps etc... 

 

That would make for a stunning outdoors photo diorama... Not too many people bite the bullet and build one just for the purpose.

 

Ladmanlow springs to mind as the only one to get it spot on for location etc.

 

Thank you for those kind words John, but I have to say that at the moment Ladmanlow is sailing perilously close to being Jeff's pet hate, as it has had nothing much done to it in nearly a year.

 

It's sort of a one-trick pony, in that it was built for a purpose, to photograph against nature, but as a result of that, I haven't really got scope to expand the core layout. I have as you know added various extra modules and buildings, but the main boards of the sidings and embankment haven't been touched, and there's only so many times I can take it out and photograph it before it gets a bit repetitive.

 

It's probably due a refresh of various bits - the static grass is beginning to look a bit threadbare for one thing.

 

Cheers,

 

Al.

 

[Physicsman]

Al, just remember that you are doing this to please YOURSELF, not the punters on here. If YOU enjoy what do you do with it, that's all that matters.

 

Clearly, a lot of people on the Forum enjoy what you are doing and it's held in high regard.

 

At the end of the day, enjoy whatever you're doing and don't feel obliged. Easy words and I sometimes don't follow my own advice. Especially when I'm already planning behind the scenes while trying to find a few clear nights to pursue my main "hobby" (aka obsession).

[MrWolf]

Whilst we were enjoying our way of keeping cool over the weekend, hurtling around the hills and woods on the old bikes, I came across this gnarly old hawthorn growing out of a stone wall as it probably has for a century.

I thought it might just appeal to you.

 

It certainly would make an interesting modelling challenge I think!

 

 

 

Edited July 23, 2022 by MrWolf

[Physicsman]

For anyone interested in scenic work on layouts, irrespective of scale, please go to the Narrow Gauge Forum (between Site Information and Garden Railways on the Home page), "Narrow Gauge Modelling"....

 

Look at Steve (Ramrig)'s "Beat the Drum" 009 layout, recently exhibited (last weekend).

 

If he gets some recent pics on you'll see a lovely bit of work - loco, tractor, bridge, trees, sheep, vegetation....

 

Please pop over and have a look!

Edited July 24, 2022 by Physicsman
Spellings