'O' gauge ? first tentative steps. Corrugated goods shed part 3: Painting and weathering

[David Siddall]

Scribing and filing coping stones can't be as bad as cutting and fixing roof tiles on an old dairy building

Hmmm... I'll let you know my take on that when I get to roofing ;-)

 

Meantime, a detail of the disused 'bay' side of my platform – my 'might have been' was once a through station however the track which ran into the bay was removed when the rest of the branch was closed. All that's now left is a headshunt a couple of hundred yards from the platform end so the bay will just be scruffy ballast with weedy growth and maybe a bit wild-sown shrub. The scale cutout of my station building design laid on the platform proves that it 'will' fit twixt the end of the bay and that annoying baseboard joint without further reduction in length albeit the toilet extension should I think to be moved to the other end?

 

 

And for no other reason than it's another step along the scenic road here's a photo of the backscene board which will block the view of the fiddle yard. I've decided that the track entry will be masked by an occupation bridge approached by quite steep embankments and so have ordered a 'small girder bridge with railings' from Skytrex. I had a close look at one of these at the Bristol show and was rather taken by its character.

 

 

David

[Barnaby]

Looking good, looking really really good.

 

You make it look so easy to do and following the steps as you show it can, be so I'll be watching all your moves closely for adaption onto my layout  .

I mean your "HOW TO DO's" will be my "MUST DO's". 

Thanks for taking the time to explain and show your methods.

 

Regards

[David Siddall]

That's very generous of you to say so Barnaby but I'm not sure I deserve quite such an accolade! To be honest most of what I've attempted so far is just me being inspired by and attempting to follow the example of the many highly accomplished modellers who contribute to RMW on a regular basis. My main reason for keeping the thread going (...apart from the fact I enjoy writing and (mysteriously) a few folks seem to enjoy the results!) is the advice and encouragement I receive every time I try something new and which constantly challenges me to try to do things a little bit better than before. I find the whole experience a bit like belonging to a club with a huge and amazingly diverse and knowledgeable membership whose clubroom is open and accessible 24/7 – can't be bettered IMO :-)

 

And um... I certainly wouldn't know about 'making things look easy' either. What you're not seeing of course are the hours of head-scratching, frequent cock-ups ...the first, second and sometimes third attempts before I get things right(ish)... and neither do you get to hear me turn the air a rich shade of blue when my skills don't quite achieve the picture I've got in my mind and I'm trying to recreate ;-)

 

TTFN... David

[Donw]

Two things make this thread interesting firstly you are approaching much of this as new and therefore  the things you are discussing are those that face many others starting in 0 gauge. Secondly you explain it well and explain the difficulties you found. When someone clearly elucidates the problem it is easier for others to offer advice.

 

BTW your placing of the station building could be moved to allow a bit of room between the end of the track and the start of the building. I think that would be normal. Obviously moving the Gents to the other end but keeping the main body where it is would achieve that effect.

Don

[David Siddall]

Cheers Don... though I thought I had the elucidating under control (I do apologise, it obviously sneaks back unless I keep taking the tablets ;-)

 

By the magic of digital technology the front and rear elevations of my station building design have now been flipped horizontally (one quick click) so that the toilet extension is now at the opposite end of the building and I've narrowed the wooden screen around its entrance to allow the whole building to sit a little further from the end of the 'bay' as suggested.

 

I've also made sufficient progress on the side elevations to enable me to start hacking (by which of course I mean precision cutting) foam core so I can trial place the building in three dimensions to see how it looks.

 

 

 

TTFN...

 

David

[spenc]

Hi David

Your 121 DMU is coming along nicely is the motor bogie still running quite?the layout looks good like the platform edge have you got any pictures of the layout full size look forward in seeing it progress.

Steve

[David Siddall]

Thanks Spence, now that the motor bogie is fitted to the body the latter's acting a bit like a sound box which is a tad frustrating – albeit it isn't too bad and the noise isn't too dissimilar to the real thing. I found some dense black packaging foam the other day so am thinking of filling the guard's compartment to within about 10mm of the windows so the motor is enclosed which might stop the resonating effect – it certainly works with box vans! I'm also thinking of enclosing the worm and gear in a thick plasticard box but I'll see what effect the foam has first. What it really needs is several hours running in under load but that's a bit of a challenge on a 14' end-to-end layout :-/

 

Talking of which... I'm now at the stage where I can start basic scenic work – I've made a quick mock-up of my station building design to check its proportions and I'm waiting for my occupation bridge kit to arrive before I finally secure the backscene between the scenic section and the traverser. The track side of the platform needs brick cladding and then the main and loop should be ready for ballasting though I still need to work out where any uncoupling magnets are going to go.

 

 

 

 

The final trackplan is as below. Track for the loop is built but has been moved out of the way in these photos. Two more turnouts and track panels for the sidings to build, after which the permanent way will be complete :-)

 

 

BFN... David

[PatB]

Thanks Spence, now that the motor bogie is fitted to the body the latter's acting a bit like a sound box which is a tad frustrating – albeit it isn't too bad and the noise isn't too dissimilar to the real thing. I found some dense black packaging foam the other day so am thinking of filling the guard's compartment to within about 10mm of the windows so the motor is enclosed which might stop the resonating effect – it certainly works with box vans! I'm also thinking of enclosing the worm and gear in a thick plasticard box but I'll see what effect the foam has first. What it really needs is several hours running in under load but that's a bit of a challenge on a 14' end-to-end layout :-/

Way back, when dad and I built an 0 gauge DMU using some Triang coaches and a Lima motor bogie, we killed two birds with one stone by folding up a box to enclose the mechanism from lead sheet flashing.  Dead easy to work (just wash those hands afterwards ), provided plenty of adhesive weight and dampened the noise of the rather crude gears most satisfactorily.  Later in life, when I worked in noise attenuation, I found out why .  When it comes to blocking noise, weight is your friend.

[greenglade]

love the station mock up David, I keep reading all of the threads here and get very jealous that I can't get on and start one of my own...

hopefully I will be able to change this situation in not too distant a future..

 

Regards

 

Pete

[David Siddall]

... killed two birds with one stone by folding up a box to enclose the mechanism from lead sheet flashing ... provided plenty of adhesive weight and dampened the noise of the ... gears most satisfactorily.

Now that's an interesting piece of advice Pat... now I wonder where can I find a small piece of redundant lead flashing?  :-)

 

 

...get very jealous that I can't get on and start ... my own... hopefully I will be able to change this situation in not too distant a future...

You know what Pete? That sounds just like a description of me before I managed to make a start on my current project. You'll get there :-)

 

Cheers both...

 

David

[David Siddall]

The parts for the occupation bridge which will hide the entrance to the traverser arrived from Skytrex today...

 

 

...prompt service (48hrs), nice crisp girder mouldings, cleanly cast whitemetal stanchions, slightly weird resin deck (...a bit like a large bar of soap with a shiny film on the flat side). However... just a little disappointed that a product advertised (and indeed invoiced) as a 'Small Girder Bridge with Railings' comes without ...any railings :-/

 

Hey ho! I got 20% off the bridge kit (Easter offer) so no matter. I need styrene sheet and strip so I'll add some 1mm straight brass rod to the order – good old Eileen's Emporium!

 

David

[spenc]

Hi David

Mine was ok at first but now has got a bit of a noise but like you i only have 10ft layout so i need a rolling road to give it a good run in or a nice big club layout.I also need a small alan key so i can adjust the worm & gear i was wondering if packing around the motor might do but reading what PatB has said that sounds like some good advice.The layout looks great the mock up for station building is good.

Steve

[Barnaby]

David if you read the description carefully it gives you a clue.

 

O Gauge Small Girder Bridge with Railings (Metal posts supplied) (Beam length 208mm Span 180mm x 92mm wide)

I think they must mean you to supply the wire railings yourself.  Is there anything in the packaging about the fitting of the wires?

 

It's a little bit of a liberty being taken with the description.

 

regards

[greenglade]

Hi David

 

The shiny film as you put it is due to it being cast from a one part mould, this will need to be flattened by sanding down, it is not the finished surface. Basically this happens due to the mould having no top, the shiny part being the area left open to air when the mould was filled with resin. This is usually slightly oversize to allow for sanding down to finish. Best way to flatten this would be to glue some aluminium oxide paper onto a flat surface and sand down this area until your happy with it, the finished part should be perfectly flat with sharp corners.

 

Regards

 

Pete

[PatB]

Now that's an interesting piece of advice Pat... now I wonder where can I find a small piece of redundant lead flashing?  :-)

Borrow a ladder and wait for your neighbours to go out for a couple of hours?

 

Seriously though, a good DIY store should be able to sell it by the square foot if you can't scrounge some.

[David Siddall]

Hi David

Mine was ok at first but now has got a bit of a noise but like you... .I also need a small alan key so i can adjust the worm & gear... what PatB has said that sounds like some good advice. The layout looks great the mock up for station building is good.

Thanks Steve... the key (sorry) to cutting down noise on the new Easybuild motor bogie seems to be getting the worm and gearwheel as tightly meshed as possible. Any noise (according to Shaun) is the spiral of the worm tapping against the teeth of the gearwheel. I made the motor mount-adjustable (one slightly elongated hole so that the motor can swivel slightly giving a much tighter mesh twixt worm and gear than standard (i.e. a fraction less than locked up solid ;-). I'm guessing the mesh has eased a bit with use and handling (the motor bogie's been on and off numerous times during the build so far...and I dropped it ...twice!). I'm going to experiment with boxing in the gears and motor and then re-set the meshing when I finally get round to painting the underframe and bogies.

I think they must mean you to supply the wire railings yourself.  Is there anything in the packaging about the fitting of the wires?

I agree Barnaby. Nothing mentioned anywhere about the railings and definitely no instructions – but then again there's nothing in the kit which really warrants them. There are however dimples to indicate where the girders need to be drilled to take the stanchions, likewise in the stanchions themselves for the railings.

 

Not a major issue, after all 1mm straight brass wire can be had for a few pounds; just a bit of a 'I wish I'd known' thing :-)

 

The shiny film as you put it is due to it being cast from a one part mould, this will need to be flattened by sanding down, it is not the finished surface. Basically this happens due to the mould having no top, the shiny part being the area left open to air when the mould was filled with resin...

 

Ah ha, now I understand... cheers Pete! Though I was wondering if there might be another way which will avoid sanding – a bit of a mucky job for the spare bedroom! The road surface which runs over the bridge will be a rutted track (well that's the picture in my mind anyway) so I think I might just try glueing a sheet of card over the top and creating the surface with something like DAS?

 

Borrow a ladder and wait for your neighbours to go out for a couple of hours? Seriously though, a good DIY store should be able to sell it by the square foot if you can't scrounge some.

I think I'll try the retail alternative as opposed to the felonious one there Pat thanks all the same. Didn't realise you could buy it in such small quantities. Also asking if anyone's got any going spare around here might just provoke a decidedly dodgy response at the moment – Tintern Abbey took a major hit a week or so back :-/

 

 

TTFN...

 

David

[Mike Bellamy]

 

 

The shiny film as you put it is due to it being cast from a one part mould, this will need to be flattened by sanding down, it is not the finished surface. Basically this happens due to the mould having no top, the shiny part being the area left open to air when the mould was filled with resin. This is usually slightly oversize to allow for sanding down to finish.

 

 

 

There is no reason for them to produce parts like this that still need to be finished by the customer. Phil Traxson of Port Wynnstay Models has been demonstrating resin casting at shows up and down the country and he uses a thin piece of clear plastic on top of every mould. By starting at one end and then carefully placing it over the mould, all of the surplus resin is pushed over the edge at one end and it leaves a perfectly flat surface that is ready to use with no extra work.

 

I'm surprised that Skytrex still do this as Phil was demonstrating at Warley a few years ago and a couple of Skytrex staff were there watching him as I recall them mentioning that they use the same resin - in which case why didn't they learn the technique for getting a flat back to a casting!

 

Mike

[PatB]

I think I'll try the retail alternative as opposed to the felonious one there Pat thanks all the same. Didn't realise you could buy it in such small quantities. Also asking if anyone's got any going spare around here might just provoke a decidedly dodgy response at the moment – Tintern Abbey took a major hit a week or so back :-/

 

 

TTFN...

 

David

Should be possible.  I can get it in square footish sizes here in Western Australia and, given that WA retail is fairly poor in terms of what can be had generally, I'd say that would mean it should be available in those sort of quantities anywhere.

[David Siddall]

The mock-ups proliferate... I reckon the proportions of the occupation bridge are going to work rather well, not too imposing, appropriate to the location yet sufficient to distract the eye from the entry to the traverser.

 

 

I think I need to look at a few more photos of real-life occupation bridges to decide whether it should feature piers at the end of the girders or not. Also whether the steps leading down from the lane should be a single fall or have a break in the middle. But that's the nice thing about mock-ups, you can tinker quickly and cheaply until you've created an effect that fits with the picture in the mind's eye and is yet suitably prototypical.

 

TTFN...

 

David

 

PS: I'll have to test which will prove to offer greater retail availability Pat, rural south-east Wales or WA  – by which I'm guessing you mean Western Australia? I'm currently not prepared to put money on rural south-east Wales ;-)

[David Siddall]

I never cease to be amazed by the authenticity you can build into 7-mil models!

 

I've had the idea in my mind for a while that 'Little Shuffling' could do with a barrow crossing at the end of the platform to disguise the adjacent baseboard joint. In the past and in smaller scales I've constructed several barrow crossings either from kits or scribed styrene sheet but never before have I felt motivated to construct one – or to be more precise half of one, so far – from individual timber sleepers so that it featured the correct texture and a couple of prototypical knot holes.

 

 

OK... it took rather longer than scribing a bit of styrene to get to this stage but it doesn't half look nice – even with half the timbers still needing staining :-)

 

David

[flexible_coupling]

Excellent result - I'll try that myself! Is there a "standard" width across the track/sleeper length that is most appropriate for use?

 

Also - whose sleepers are those? They look great.

[David Siddall]

I spent a while looking at photos and barrow crossings seem to come in various shapes and sizes (and materials) so I went with a single sleeper width which spans four on the track – this was the photo which inspired mine.

 

The sleepers which form the crossing are some spare 'Timbertracks' ply ones left over after creating my plain track panels. To get the right height across the track the sleepers of the crossing are glued to mounting-board spacers.

 

One thing I would mention is that if you run early Heljan diesels (e.g. a Hymek as I do or I believe 47s) you'll need to check clearances – early Heljan flanges are quite thick and the wheelset back-to-backs are slightly narrower than say a Slaters wagon wheel. There are several helpful contributions about this earlier in my thread which got me out of a hole with my first hand-built turnout's check rails (the relevant bit is here).

 

D

[David Siddall]

Currently distracted by my 'other' hobby. Didn't actually intend to buy a new caravan over the weekend but um, it just sort of happened! Surprising amount of space under its long dreamed about fixed double bed – certainly sufficient for storing a small portable workbench, tool box and a wagon kit. Even sufficient perhaps for a portable 'micro' layout.

 

I wonder... ;-)

 

David

[greenglade]

Currently distracted by my 'other' hobby. Didn't actually intend to buy a new caravan over the weekend but um, it just sort of happened! Surprising amount of space under its long dreamed about fixed double bed – certainly sufficient for storing a small portable workbench, tool box and a wagon kit. Even sufficient perhaps for a portable 'micro' layout.

 

I wonder... ;-)

 

David

Hi David....

 

I know you said you'd like more room for your layout but isn't this going a bit far??.....and it's mobile too...

 

Pete

[2ManySpams]

Currently distracted by my 'other' hobby. Didn't actually intend to buy a new caravan over the weekend but um, it just sort of happened! Surprising amount of space under its long dreamed about fixed double bed – certainly sufficient for storing a small portable workbench, tool box and a wagon kit. Even sufficient perhaps for a portable 'micro' layout.

 

I wonder... ;-)

 

David

 

 

Oh no David....I'll have to pop round with the anti-caravan kit (petrol and matches)