Chuffnell Regis

[Gopher]

6 hours ago, Graham T said:

Here's a view of how this corner looks in natural light.  Still quite a lot to do of course, mainly around the tops of the cutting, including the fencing on this side (which I'm looking forward to enormously...)  But I don't think I will do much more to the meadows along the river and the banks themselves, apart from some bushes at the base of the rock face.

 

I will need to add fencing on the station side of the river too of course, but I'm not quite sure how everything will be laid out on that side yet, so don't' know exactly where the railway boundary will be.

 

Looks brilliant Graham - the rock face turned out very well.  Love this scene, and the way it merges so well into the back scene

[Graham T]

1 hour ago, MrWolf said:

You were comparing yours to a penguin. A more beige white would stop that. 

I suspect that it's carrying (and flying) capacity would be severely limited by the bird's high lead content? 

 

Yes indeed, the scale weight is probably a tad out!

 

And thanks, I will give him/her a touch of beige.

[Graham T]

52 minutes ago, Gopher said:

Looks brilliant Graham - the rock face turned out very well.  Love this scene, and the way it merges so well into the back scene

 

 

TVM Clive

[Graham T]

To have a bit of a break from scenery, I treated myself to one of my favourite parts of layout building - wiring track.  What passes for a fiddle yard at Chuffnell Regis has now been wired, and surprisingly everything seems to work.  I now need to glue the track down.  I'll also add some ply fences along the sides, to make things a little safer when I lift the unit up onto the shelf above.

 

That gave me a chance to test drive my new soldering iron, and also to try using flux for the first time.  Didn't seem to work out too badly all in all - but of course I now have some new burns!

 

I'm still pondering whether to make another one of these, so that I have some more capacity, or to go for a traverser.  Any thoughts gratefully received, as ever!

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Graham T

[Graham T]

And a final play around this evening with some Woodland Scenics foliage clusters.  These are just placed in position right now, nothing's glued down.  But I'm quite pleased with the effect, although I think I might add some flock to the clusters here and there to vary the colour a bit, and also put in a few straggly hawthorn bushes to break up all the green.

 

What do you think?  Too much?

 

Also - you can play "spot the falcon" if you like.  She's back at her nest, waiting for her mate to return.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Graham T

[Graham T]

The birds got mildly tweaked.  I don't think I'll do anything else to them now, as if you didn't know they were on the layout then I don't think you'd ever spot them!

 

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Graham T

[Gedward]

 

21 minutes ago, Graham T said:

I don't think I'll do anything else to them now, as if you didn't know they were on the layout then I don't think you'd ever spot them!

 

That's one of the charms of looking at layouts like this. Finding those little details that you don't see straight away.

 

[Graham T]

So, here are the fruits of this evening's labours, such as they are.  I tinkered a bit with the "fiddle yard", double-checking the alignment of the ends of the tracks and then fixing them down.  Then I made a start on some fascia panels, from black mounting card.  As you can see there's a small gap at the top of the hill rising over the tunnel mouth, due to the bodgery that passes for carpentry at Chuffnell Regis, so I will have to make a narrow strip of scenery to fill that in; but that shouldn't be too much trouble (I hope!)

 

I've also glued down the bushes on the far side of the cutting, but the rest are all still just loose.  I won't fix down the ones on this side until I've done the other run of fencing.  Then I will need to add some telegraph poles (I'd like to hear what brand people think are the best please), and lightly sand down and re-varnish the river.  All that will be left for this side of the river will be the distant signal then - which I'm sort of dreading, to be honest!

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Graham T

[MrWolf]

These were heavily modified Airfix / Dapol items. 

The moulding for the insulators was a bit better than the Ratio ones, but they have better steps.

There's probably some very deluxe ones available in brass or suchlike though!

 

[Neal Ball]

The scenery around the cutting and river looks great Graham.

 

Re: Telegraph poles, I’m sure Wizard probably do some luxury ones, but I was very happy with the Ratio ones. I’ve bodged them about a bit to increase the number of insulators. I think they show a good representation and accept that they are not 100% accurate.

 

Spacing and location was an issue, they should be a lot further apart, but that didn’t look realistic. Plus they should be on the closer side of the line, where I thought I would knock them all the time. It’s all a compromise that I was happy with.

[Graham T]

10 hours ago, MrWolf said:

These were heavily modified Airfix / Dapol items. 

The moulding for the insulators was a bit better than the Ratio ones, but they have better steps.

There's probably some very deluxe ones available in brass or suchlike though!

 

 

I like the paintwork on those Rob.

 

Having had a rummage in the stash I see that I've already got some Ratio poles.  The insulators do look a bit anaemic, but that can probably be rectified.  Another question I have though, is how many insulators should there be?  (I appreciate that might be a bit like asking how long is a piece of string...)

 

I saw some nice (and expensive) poles from Express Models, but they are having supply problems - and some people had commented that the insulators might not be right for UK?  Anyway that's a moot point.

 

So I think I'll probably use what I have.  As long as I can make them look right I'm not too worried about accuracy!

 

I also found an exceptionally useful page here, by Brian Lambert, for telegraph poles and loads of other things railway-related.  WARNING!  Clicking that link may cost you several hours of your day

[Graham T]

2 hours ago, Neal Ball said:

The scenery around the cutting and river looks great Graham.

 

Re: Telegraph poles, I’m sure Wizard probably do some luxury ones, but I was very happy with the Ratio ones. I’ve bodged them about a bit to increase the number of insulators. I think they show a good representation and accept that they are not 100% accurate.

 

Spacing and location was an issue, they should be a lot further apart, but that didn’t look realistic. Plus they should be on the closer side of the line, where I thought I would knock them all the time. It’s all a compromise that I was happy with.

 

I think we have to make loads of compromises with our modelling.  For me it's the "look and feel" that's important; if I can manage to get that right (or even close) then I'll be happy!

[Neal Ball]

2 hours ago, Graham T said:

 

I think we have to make loads of compromises with our modelling.  For me it's the "look and feel" that's important; if I can manage to get that right (or even close) then I'll be happy!

I’m definitely in that category!

A couple of cruel close up of my telegraph poles. Up to the signal box each pole has 10 insulators, beyond there are 4. At the moment they run to beyond the water tower, I need a couple of extra ones to take them to the station building. I also need to get poles to the goods shed as well. They are not high on my to do list.

 

At the real Henley, the poles carried a few more wires to the signal box.

 

I would suggest having a look at similar size terminal stations and take a view from there. Which BLT would you compare closest to? Marlow? Ashburton? St Ives? I’m thinking in terms of activity etc.

 

 

 

 

 

[Graham T]

Thanks Neal, that's a good idea.  Not sure which stations to look at, but perhaps I'll start with my Paul Karau books.

[Graham T]

And now for something completely different.  A swan's eye view of the bridge at Chuffnell R.  With not a bus to be seen (or indeed a train for that matter...)

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Graham T

[Graham T]

Just a quick snap of what I got up to last night (stop sniggering at the back!)

 

Still lots and lots to do here:

• finish painting the rock face
• static grass and bushes along the top of the tunnel mouth
• make some hawthorn bushes for this side of the top of the cutting, and then figure out where the other bushes should go
• varnish the river (again...)
• make the fence for this side of the track
• telegraph poles and distant signal
• probably lots of other stuff that will occur to me later...
   

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Graham T

[MrWolf]

Looking really good Graham, your rapid progress is making me want to get stuck into more landscaping. 

 

When I get a minute!

[MrWolf]

Sitecrash duplicate post, sorry!

 

 

Edited February 2, 2022 by MrWolf
FUBAR

[Graham T]

39 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

Looking really good Graham, your rapid progress is making me want to get stuck into more landscaping. 

 

When I get a minute!

 

It's the bit I enjoy the most, by quite a stretch.  And I find it can be progressed pretty fast too.  A tub of static grass goes a long way!  (And also gets absolutely everywhere...)

[Graham T]

41 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

Sitecrash duplicate post, sorry!

 

 

 

I was agreeing wholeheartedly with the FUBAR part.  This is taking "intermittent" to a whole new level.  Can't get onto the site for ages, and then there's a flurry of activity in the brief windows when people can actually post something...

 

Anyway I had better get back to work

Edited February 2, 2022 by Graham T
snafu :)

[Graham T]

I put down another layer of varnish on the river earlier.  Even though I'd lightly sanded it, and then cleaned everything up, there are still a couple of strands of static grass in there!  I think I'll have to hide them with some strategically placed ripples...

[Dawnflyer]

Hi Graham,

I have been working on motorising the Airfix/ Dapol turntable and think I have a few solutions to the common problems of bridge track feeds and indexing etc. 
So here hopefully is photos of my track feed arrangement, can give others if required.

 Loving your layout especially the scenery which I will try and match when I get round to that bit.

Regards

Barry

 

[Graham T]

Hi Barry, glad you like Chuffnell Regis - thanks.  

 

I'm putting off tackling my turntable at the moment - it's firmly parked in the "too difficult" category for now!  But I might well come back to seek your advice when I do eventually make a start on it.

[Graham T]

One of the advantages of (mostly) working from home is that I can take short breaks from time to time, making little bits of progress on Chuffnell R.  Today I managed to produce a couple of items of home-grown greenery...

 

I wanted a tree leaning over the river, so had a look at making something using seafoam, but that looked too flat and two-dimensional.  I got some rather grotty plastic tree trunks from the interwebs a while ago, so chopped most of the branches off one of those, sprayed it with brown acrylic, and then super-glued on some small clumps of rubberised horsehair.  A bit more paintwork on the trunk, and then a good dusting with some mixed flock, and it was looking ok.  So I drilled an angled hole into the river bank, plonked it in there, and then added some weeds around the base to try and make it look a bit more natural.  The glue is still wet in this pic, but it will dry clear and then shouldn't really show at all (I hope).

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Graham T

[Graham T]

Also, I really liked @BroadLeaves idea of putting some straggly hawthorns on top of the cuttings.  The ready-made buddleia I bought had some white bushes included, so I tried some of those, but didn't really like how they looked.  You can see one in the pic below (which will be getting removed I think).

 

So, it was time to make something.  Out with the trusty horsehair, and some mixed flock.  Then, seeing as I don't have any white flock, and obviously I'm far too impatient to wait for some to come through the post, I decided to repurpose the white flowers from the buddleia bushes.  A fiddly job but worth the effort in the end I think.  Please tell me if I've been wasting my time!

 

 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Graham T