Braeside Models: The Scratchbuild Commissions of Brian McCulloch

[brylonscamel]

Walk the Talk

I've been invited - I suspect out of desperation - to give a short talk at the Abingdon Exhibition on Saturday afternoon.

My aim is to encourage modellers to have a go at scratch-building and add life to their buildings.

I'll bring the little east coast harbourside diorama as a talking piece.

If anyone is thinking of making a day of it, your company would be very welcome.

 

[brylonscamel]

Thurso Goods

With help from an RMWeb contributor, I was able to reproduce a model of the goods shed that used to sit at Thurso, alongside the station terminus.

 

It's a type of wooden structure that was once common across the Highland Railway.

 

[David Bell]

Lovely work Brian.

Cheers

David

[Portchullin Tatty]

Looks good Brian.

 

The Highland goods sheds were notionally to common designs but the reality was a bit different.  Yours seems, to me, to be unusual in that it did not have an office within it (and hence no brick chimney) and the windows have either lost their mullions or had the windows changed outright.

 

I think they are also all built on a brick or stone plinths; I think yours has been lost in the midst of time as the ground was built up with muck or fill.  I think it is still visible rail side though?  Mind you, mine doesn't have a plinth either!

 

On my shed, I found that the ends warped over the top of the railway entrance doors and then broke.  I had to introduce some metal bracing to overcome this.  Hopefully the same does not befall you!

 

 

[26power]

Excellent model making, but I think the sides on the real thing are/were “board and batten” construction?   i.e. where the joins between boards are covered with a small batten.  For example, some of the pictures of Brora goods shed here show this in close up:

https://her.highland.gov.uk/monument/MHG32875
 

Of course, you might already be aware of this!

[Ben Alder]

HR goods sheds, as Mark says, were the same but different, especially when it came to offices. There were internal ones, external ones and it seems some with none... It is difficult to ascertain from photos the extent of alterations over the years , particularly from the board and batten exterior where any changes  can soon blend in to the existing structure. Wick was a case in point, with a demolished attached office that when newly done showed up as a ghost on the replaced wall cladding, and a few years later had blended in with the remainder of the structure. Every external office seems to have been different, which is strange considering the apparent uniformity of the basic  shed structure, and Thurso had an extensive attachment that vanished in the early sixties, its presence  indicated by the footage. It was one of the many aspects of railway operation that appeared to have been unrecorded in image - there are glimpses in several photos, but two pictures have emerged that show the building. Here is a crop from one of them. As an aside, the doors were latterly a chocolate brown as opposed to the overall creosote, but by the eighties they had faded to be indistinguishable from the equally faded walls.

 

[brylonscamel]

On 12/05/2023 at 23:45, 26power said:

..  I think the sides on the real thing are/were “board and batten” construction?   i.e. where the joins between boards are covered with a small batten.  Of course, you might already be aware of this!

Yes, the batten construction was something I was aware of and I did fudge, partly due to our budget.

Nigel's version of Thurso coincides with the last days of the shed and I struggled with a test piece to get the combination of repaired and original battens, which remained a feature of the shed.

The layout is quite big and has broad sweeps of landscape so the overall proportions, colour and weathering of the shed should be enough to capture the spirit of the building.

I have some thoughts on adding battens to any future timber structures. The joinery style is used widely in Scotland, so I need a good method.

Using the cutter, I can get a sheet of styrene with equally-spaced strips to represent battens. It needs refining to get the right spacing and material thickness but it shows promise ...

 

 

 

Edited May 14, 2023 by brylonscamel
text amends

[stevel]

I believe Evergreen make a board and batten styrene sheet, in various spacings, item 4542 that may be of use.

[brylonscamel]

On 12/05/2023 at 13:38, Portchullin Tatty said:

I think they are also all built on a brick or stone plinths; I think yours has been lost in the midst of time as the ground was built up with muck or fill.  I think it is still visible rail side though?  Mind you, mine doesn't have a plinth either!

 

These things seem to raise all sorts of questions, even when they belong to a standard design pattern and you have reference photos! I can't see evidence of the brickwork in photos but we may be missing the angle that reveals the rail-side constrution.

[Gilbert]

If you can get it this is also really good..

https://www.northeasternscalelumber.com/products/board-batten.html

Chris H

 

 

[brylonscamel]

On 12/05/2023 at 13:38, Portchullin Tatty said:

 I found that the ends warped over the top of the railway entrance doors and then broke.  I had to introduce some metal bracing to overcome this.  Hopefully the same does not befall you!

 

 

I hope to avoid any warping! It affected some of my earlier models, especially open structures like goods or engine sheds. Foamex is my current material-of-choice for carcasses and it seems to hold it's shape well without relying on bracing, even at 2 or 3mm thickness. I found Cyano/Superglue and 'UHO POR' are good adhesives when using high-density polystyrene. Cyano for structural joints and POR for layering materials onto the structure, including porous materials (card etc.) and non-porous (sheet styrene etc.). With these adhesives you don't get differential drying issues which can bedevil laminate construction.

Edited May 14, 2023 by brylonscamel
bad grammar

[brylonscamel]

14 minutes ago, stevel said:

I believe Evergreen make a board and batten styrene sheet, in various spacings, item 4542 that may be of use.

 

6 minutes ago, Gilbert said:

If you can get it this is also really good..

https://www.northeasternscalelumber.com/products/board-batten.html

 

 

 

Oh! Thanks Steve and Chris - much appreciated info!

[Ben Alder]

Thumbs up for the Evergreen - a great time saver, and available in three widths as well although the 4543 is the one I most use. Here is a crop showing the footage of Thurso shed - it did exist but latterly debris had built up so much around it  that it was hardly apparent.

 

Edited May 14, 2023 by Ben Alder

[26power]

5 hours ago, brylonscamel said:

Yes, the batten construction was something I was aware of and I did fudge, partly due to our budget.

Nigel's version of Thurso coincides with the last days of the shed and I struggled with a test piece to get the combination of repaired and original battens, which remained a feature of the shed.

The layout is quite big and has broad sweeps of landscape so the overall proportions, colour and weathering of the shed should be enough to capture the spirit of the building.

The context you describe helps understanding of the choices made.  Looking at the Highland Council pictures of the Brora shed it is surprising how small the cross section of the battens are/were, and that they are more semi-circular than square cornered.

[brylonscamel]

Room for a wee dram?

 

The latest contribution to David's Glasgow Queen Street is on the workbench.

 

A set of Glasgow tenements moves a little closer to the phases I enjoy the most; carving stonework, adding surface architectural details, windows, doors etc. before moving onto paintwork.

 

I'm keen to place a shop or bar at ground level. With this in mind, the bay windows on one block start at first-floor level.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 22, 2023 by brylonscamel

[curlypaws]

I'm really looking forward to seeing how the tenement turns out - that's a real part of Glasgow's character and history.

[brylonscamel]

Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew ..

A little slice of Kent Fire Brigade has been running alongside Glasgow tenements, Aberdeenshire hotels and research for another commission!

 

It has emerged from the drawing board fairly quickly and I am happy with how sharp it looks.

 

Like most buildings, I find the beauty in them revealed whilst producing the initial drawings and in early assembly. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dj_crisp]

Looks amazing!

[brylonscamel]

2 hours ago, dj_crisp said:

Looks amazing!

Thanks  - I hope to crack on with it soon! It'll be great when I get the main bay on and the roof with another couple of quirky chimneys.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

From someone who makes hard work of Metcalfe kits that is amazing modelling.

 

Mike.

[brylonscamel]

On 21/06/2023 at 07:03, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

From someone who makes hard work of Metcalfe kits that is amazing modelling.

Cheers Mike - it wasn't so long ago that I started out with Metcalfe kits.

[curlypaws]

I love seeing the different stages of it coming together. Your finished models are stunning, so it helps show all the work that goes in to making them look so good.

[brylonscamel]

4 hours ago, curlypaws said:

I love seeing the different stages of it coming together. Your finished models are stunning, so it helps show all the work that goes in to making them look so good.

Thanks - in which case I'll carry on with posts that show my 'workings out'!

[brylonscamel]

There are a couple of diorama models and resin-cast buildings that found new homes or were broken up. Before that, I messed about with combining them into photo-friendly scenes.

This is one of my favourites ..

 

[Captain Kernow]

On 23/06/2023 at 17:47, brylonscamel said:

There are a couple of diorama models and resin-cast buildings that found new homes or were broken up. Before that, I messed about with combining them into photo-friendly scenes.

This is one of my favourites ..

 

Outstanding, Brian. It's really, really difficult to tell the difference with the real thing, especially with the lighting, which is just right.