Aston On Clun. A forgotten Great Western outpost.

[MrWolf]

Hello Les, 

 

It doesn't surprise me that there's a link after all, I worked with a chap named Ellul on a number of pipeline projects, who had been born in Cardiff as his grandfather was on wartime supply convoys. The initial coincidence was that one of my sister's school mates shared the surname and although no direct relation, her grandfather had also been a merchant marine. 

Travelling in an opposite direction, my friend's wife is Swedish of Finnish descent, but found several English names in her family tree from around 1918, they were British merchant seamen who had settled in Finland.

 

Twenty years ago, I was working on a project which was being filmed and the lead cameraman shared the same misspelled German surname as relatives of mine from the 1860s, (Down to a mistake in an English church birth registration) as soon as he told me that I knew we were distant cousins 

 

Small world and all that. 

 

Rob

[Winslow Boy]

There used to be a running joke on my father's side of the family involving the spelling of the surname, in that everyone spelt 'there' way was related. How much truth there was in it was questionable, but there was some controversy when someone did some family history research and found that names had changed.

It was quite easy to do, given that until the eighteen fifties there wasn't much consistent record keeping made, especially if you moved around.

[lezz01]

I have very little information about my natural parents as I grew up in care and any info I have comes from my social services file. The people I refer to as mum and dad were my foster parents who raised me and loved me. I would like to know my Maltese relations however I gain comfort from the fact that we, the Maltese, are all cousins.

Regard Lez.     

[Winslow Boy]

It does sorta come back at you as my late mother went to school with a Maltese lad whose descendants then married someone from my father's side of the family. One of the things the couple did was to go to Malta to trace the husbands family. 

[MrWolf]

From family trees to the twisted wire version:

 

 

A base coat of grey primer with be followed by assorted acrylic washes.

 

 

Thanks again to @MAP66 for the tip about tea dust, it certainly adds to the trunk and can be lightly sanded if t looks too coarse.

 

[Neal Ball]

6 hours ago, MrWolf said:

From family trees to the twisted wire version:

 

 

A base coat of grey primer with be followed by assorted acrylic washes.

 

 

Thanks again to @MAP66 for the tip about tea dust, it certainly adds to the trunk and can be lightly sanded if t looks too coarse.

 

That looks great Rob. 

[Mikkel]

Yes, looks really good. And highlights how worthwhile it is to spend a bit of time on the bark. I didn't and regret it.

In fact, trees seem to be one area where there are no quick wins - at least for the prominent ones. I'm enjoying watching this develop and picking up good tips as ever.

 

[Neal Ball]

27 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

Yes, looks really good. And highlights how worthwhile it is to spend a bit of time on the bark. I didn't and regret it.

In fact, trees seem to be one area where there are no quick wins - at least for the prominent ones. I'm enjoying watching this develop and picking up good tips as ever.

 

So much so, that after my loco and endless carriages, I’m thinking I need to do some trees! 🌲🌳

[MAP66]

9 hours ago, MrWolf said:

hanks again to @MAP66 for the tip about tea dust, it certainly adds to the trunk and can be lightly sanded if t looks too coarse.

 

That's looking excellent , I knew you had it in yer Rob, just needed rooting out 😁

 

If your done with the wire, I would now suggest adding the sea foam next before the washes as the stalks will need grafting onto the wire using superglue gel and an accelerator. The join is then disguised by smoothing over with more gloop (filler). When all that's done give the white filler areas and all the florets of seafoam a dusting of grey primer. For my Oak, I then used a combination of rattle can chaos black (Citadel) and a very dark matt green and matt brown and sprayed the seafoam and some of the finer branches.

 

Then, For the washes as dark as you can get them. I use 2 colours german black brown and a very dark grey (almost black) and dilute them to consistency of milk and then load your brush and let the paint flow down the trunk and thicker branches starting from the top and working downwards. You may need several coats, the idea being to reach a stage where you can see all the bark detail nicely detailed with the paint in all the crevices. It's fine to use the brush to work the paint in as well if any parts are getting missed. For the finer branches you can just paint them starting from the tips and working back towards the trunk using the same colours straight from the pot or only slightly thinned down. 

 

Whatever method you adopt, when it's all dry you can see if you want to add any further detail in places on the trunk or larger branches buy adding small blobs of filler, good for broken branch stumps, larger cracks, crevices etc or more root detail. I try to have a good colour reference photo of the tree I am modelling to refer to.

 

If your happy with how it looks after the washes, then you can start adding in the various colours using paints working mainly on the raised areas, try and keep the recesses darker where the washes have collected. I used dry brushing, normal painting and weathering powders to get the desired effect I was after.

[MrWolf]

Thanks all for the encouraging words. If I can offer any advice, it would be to bind the trunk and main branches tightly with half inch masking tape. It will save a few hours waiting for many coats of glop to set.*

 

The necessity of earning some cash is preventing me from getting on with it until later this afternoon. 😡 

 

Could be worse!

 

* @MAP66 actually brought that up a few pages back!!

 

 

Edited January 10 by MrWolf
General illiteracy

[MrWolf]

I've already done a little tea break research on trunk colour for Ash trees.

 

 

I've also been looking at the formation and density of the canopies.

 

 

 

 

This is going to need some thought and another read up!

 

I like this gnarly specimen, but I think that I will get some practice in first!

 

 

 

 

[Winslow Boy]

Rob be a bit careful of what you see on the web as not everything will be correctly labelled. 

 

Those first two photos were differently Ashes but I'm not certain about that last one. I think I've said before that Ashes don't have very fine branches at the ends of there limbs so they tend to have a more open canopy. 

 

I'm envious of that excellent reproduction you've created. It looks just like the real thing.

[Schooner]

Obligatory response:

 

[MrWolf]

4 hours ago, Schooner said:

Obligatory response:

 

 

I've just played that and now I have the resident M-P fan repeating it...

 

Repeatedly.

 

(Jolly hockey sticks remix.)

[MrWolf]

4 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

Rob be a bit careful of what you see on the web as not everything will be correctly labelled. 

 

Those first two photos were differently Ashes but I'm not certain about that last one. I think I've said before that Ashes don't have very fine branches at the ends of there limbs so they tend to have a more open canopy. 

 

I'm envious of that excellent reproduction you've created. It looks just like the real thing.

 

That's very kind of you to say. I'm sure that you could manage it, so far it's been twisting wire together, bending it to something like the silhouette picture I downloaded and then caking it with a mix of PVA and wall filler.

Have a go, I think that you will be surprised.

 

That odd looking tree appears to have been pollarded or had its main branches blown down. The strange appearance is it fighting back.

 

I pinched it from here:

 

https://cronodon.com/NatureTech/Ash.html

 

 

[Donw]

My things seem to be moving on.

 

There is plenty for that mouse to do on my workbench/layout/garage etc.

 

Spelling of Surnames was down to the vicar. Child being christened local (probably unable to write) says the name in some local accent vicar who maybe unfamiliar with the name  writes down how he thinks it could be spelt. Next generation new vicar from a different region to the first spells the same name differently. You can find it in old parish registers where the name changes. 

 

Don

[brumtb]

14 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

That's very kind of you to say. I'm sure that you could manage it, so far it's been twisting wire together, bending it to something like the silhouette picture I downloaded and then caking it with a mix of PVA and wall filler.

Have a go, I think that you will be surprised.

 

That odd looking tree appears to have been pollarded or had its main branches blown down. The strange appearance is it fighting back.

 

I pinched it from here:

 

https://cronodon.com/NatureTech/Ash.html

 

 

Ash Die Back is changing the appearance of current Ash trees.  We have an established Ash at the bottom of our garden and over the past few years when it comes into leaf there is less foliage.  I'm sure there was much more leaf cover back in the 50s, even 20 years ago, so Ash trees in the 1930s were probably much fuller than they are today.  As to fighting back, yes, they'll send up fresh growth  when they've been completely cut down so there is always hope of regeneration.

Tony

[Winslow Boy]

1 minute ago, brumtb said:

Ash Die Back is changing the appearance of current Ash trees.  We have an established Ash at the bottom of our garden and over the past few years when it comes into leaf there is less foliage.  I'm sure there was much more leaf cover back in the 50s, even 20 years ago, so Ash trees in the 1930s were probably much fuller than they are today.  As to fighting back, yes, they'll send up fresh growth  when they've been completely cut down so there is always hope of regeneration.

Tony

Unfortunately once they are inflicted with it they never really recover. So any new growth doesn't get far before it dies off.

Ash are very prone to shedding limbs at the slightest provocation.

[MrWolf]

From what I have seen of Ash die back, it's the young trees that are most affected, not a good sign for future generations if we lose another of the most typical and most useful trees.

[Nick C]

14 hours ago, Donw said:

Spelling of Surnames was down to the vicar. Child being christened local (probably unable to write) says the name in some local accent vicar who maybe unfamiliar with the name  writes down how he thinks it could be spelt. Next generation new vicar from a different region to the first spells the same name differently. You can find it in old parish registers where the name changes. 

The same with Censuses - so you can sometimes see the name change spelling from one census to the next...

[MrWolf]

A little progress on experimental Ash tree #1. 

I've been busy this week and battling the second part of the annoying cold that everyone has been getting around here.

 

I've been reminded by @Bluemonkey presents.... that I need to get it done and build those AERO wagons....

 

Many grey green washes, a little dry brushing and general breaking up of the colour and I thought a little more about the canopy.

 

I initially thought about using postiche, but I don't think that I have enough fine branches for it to work.

 

Ready made canopy material I prefer to use in the background, I've seen it too often in rather flat slabs on branches, which is fine for Lebanon Cedar, but not much else.

 

Amongst the stash was some Woodland Scenics poly fiber, which I haven't used for years.

It's easy to tease out into more 3d shapes, so I used that, secured with a light dusting of grey primer to blend it in.

 

 

The grey shows it up as a particularly untidy bush (fnaar fnaar etc) so it's getting a trim.

 

It's not as dense in the flesh, only time will tell!

[MrWolf]

A dose of firm hold hairspray and some "leaves" applied using a sieve. A wire tea strainer would be better, but somebody would not be happy if there were bits of the wrong kind of tree in her tea.

 

 

 

Tomorrow I'll give it a waft of acrylic matt varnish to get rid of the waxy sheen on the trunk and secure the leaves permanently.

Then it's a case of whitening the dead branches and getting it planted.

[Neal Ball]

That looks great.

[Bluemonkey presents....]

Excellent modelling. Looks just the part and ready to be felled to produce the wooden deck of your Aeros. Great job Rob.

[MrWolf]

Not had much time to do anything else this week as I've been building a contraption.

 

Or rather a rack for bottles of spirits using bits of old brewery pipework. Originally it was going to be just straight piping, but I found an old steam condensation trap and bypass and it was just too tempting to make something arty that gives the idea of an illicit still.

 

 

 

 

No room in The Profanium at the moment, so I have had to borrow a bit elsewhere.

 

I have managed to measure up for a post for the field gate below the tree and a few fence rails nailed between it and the tree in typical fashion.

 

 

I've temporarily planted the tree to get the measurements for it.