Stockrington - Mojo ignited. Thanks, Heljan!

[jukebox]

Lots on non railway stuff still happening at Chez Jukebox, including my annual bloodsport battle with my herbaceous boarder, a 20 year old grove of Bougainvillea.  It always wins.  Managed to find a miniature Joanna Lumley for Jeff over at Kirkby Luneside, too.

 

In between all that, I nipped out to the shed and had another crack at airbrushing bridge bricks:

 

 

 

Much, much happier with that look.  I'll progress hand painting the details during the week, and also playing with some acrylic washes for the mortar.  

 

Then I shall go to town on it with weathering...

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited May 28, 2017 by jukebox

[DougN]

That's a lot better Scott... I am looking forward to seeing more of this bridge... I think you are really onto the right track!

[jukebox]

More little steps this week.

 

I filled in the mortar panels with a cream shade to represent aged concrete, and coloured the capping stones a grotty brown.

 

I will tone down the latter with a lighter shade is it's a little too harsh for my taste.

 

 

I also started picking out individual bricks with complementary colours to bring the brickwork to life.  Whilst the photos show the bulk of the brickwork is uniform, on a model, that tends to translate to a rather 2D look, so I take a very fine (10/0) brush, and charge with with some of the component colors I used to mix the terracotta up with.  

 

Last night I used the Phoenix Brick Red, and tonight I'll add the Floquil Rust.  I just randomly pick a handful of single bricks and colour them.  It's a judgement call, and the photos don't really do it justice, but it does make a big difference.

 

 

I do still have to the mortar wash, and weathering, so these highlights will get toned down. but I think they add to the character amnd make it less model-like.

 

Not a job to be done after too many coffees. Or wines.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[freebs]

Looking brilliant Scott. I personally struggle with colouring brickwork - as you said it's very easy to make it look too uniform and model-like

I'm really looking forward to seeing the mortar and weathering. It's all really coming together now!

[jukebox]

Thanks freebs - the surgeon-like task of pick out individual half bricks is one that needs a strong magnification angle-poise and patience!

 

But the results are worth it:

 

 

I used just two highlight tones - a brick red and a rust.  They are close enough to the base colour not to be obvious, which is the idea:

 

 

I also used a wash of dirt to tone down the capping stones, and picked out the arches with the chocolate colour.

 

This last shade was gloss, so today I gave the whole shebang a burst of Testors Dullcoate - the flattest matt varnish I know.  It does a great job of taming the gloss.

 

Here's the bridge, with the bullnoses placed in position but not glued, just to show where it's all at:

 

 

I'll apply the acrylic mortar washes this weekend, and then attach those bullnoses permanently, before I go weathering crazy with lime washes.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[grob1234]

Nice bridge

[jukebox]

So here's the part where you have to have a bit of courage the first time you do it - taking a perfectly good looking bridge and throwing muck at it.

 

I start by using an acrylic wash to fill the mortar joints of the brickwork.

 

Whilst the lime mortar will be rather white, that's too harsh for a model, so I use a cream.

 

With the bridge on it's side so the surfaces are flat, I wet down the area I'm going to mortar, until there is ponding on the surface.  When I take a brush, charged with a 50:50 paint:water mix, and touch it to the ponding. The capillary action takes it into the joins.  When I do this part, I have the surface I am mortaring on a slight downward incline, and work from the top.  I add more charges of paint, diluting with charges of water if it is too heavy. 

 

Soon, the water ponds at the bottom of the panel, so I use a paper towel to wick the excess water up.

 

 

There is a point during the process where I reach a "sweet spot" - enough of the initial water has been displaced by the mortar paint/water , and the brickwork starts to take on an authentic look.  Hard to explain, other than when you see it happen, you recognise it looks "right".  When I get to that point, it's brush down.

 

 

Using this method, the brick faces themselves do get a film of wash on them, so they are dulled down a touch. On an older structure like this one, this is not so important, but I'll need to experiment with how I do this work when it comes time to build my station, as the brickwork there needs to look a little more pristine.From my experience with the big bridge, I know a toothbrush can be used to scrub a lot of the patina away - but it will take some of the enamel underneath with it.

 

I mortared the underside of the arches the same way, but was a lot heavier on the mortaring paint, and was sure to turn the bridge right way up as it dried, so that any runs flowed the way gravity would take them.

 

You can see in the top photo, this mortar wash has even filled the gaps in the capping stone - I mustn't forget to make up the handrails soon, so I can do any patching to the finish before the bridge is ready to install.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[DougN]

Scott spot on there this is really achieving what you wanted. It has the uniformity from a distance but detail in close! You have really achieved a match to the prototype photos you put up a while ago!

[jukebox]

Scott spot on there this is really achieving what you wanted. It has the uniformity from a distance but detail in close! You have really achieved a match to the prototype photos you put up a while ago!

 

Thanks very much, Doug - not quite done yet; I'll be going to town with the lime wash under the arches - which won't get a lot of viewing in normal circumstances - but also at the haunch of the arches, where the lime weeps profusely on the prototype.

 

I've run out of time tonight, but it's a job best done in small steps so as not to overdo it, so will have a crack during the week.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[jukebox]

Sunday night down under, and here's where we are at:

 

It was time to add the serious weathering.  The Idle bridge has copious weeping lime.  So I started experimenting with the piers, using an acrylic light grey/off-white;

 

 

I used various washes - everything from neat paint, to very watered down, layered, left to dry, then over topped:

 

 

Eventually, I got a result I was pleased with 

 

 

Today I nipped upstairs and soldered up some handrails using 0.45mm brass wire from Alan Gibson. Plenty of flux and a steady hand did the trick.  The risers are over height - I will drill holes in the deck and embed the railing to the correct height;

 

 

This is the state of play tonight

 

 

Still a bit more work to do on this side with the lime deposits - some lighter stains plus a few weeps above deck level.

 

 

The lime looks severe, but so was the prototype.  The anglepoise light highlights the stains under the arches - in reality, these will always been in shade, so won't look out of place.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[aussiebrfan]

Awesome job on the bridge.

 

G

[jukebox]

Almost across the line!

 

I had some trouble with the butt-splice solder join on the handrails - it was never going to be strong.  I cured that by taking a single strand from some electrical wire, and wrapping it across the join before I re-soldered it - now the join has a flexible backbone, when it cracks the solder during handling.

 

I filled the edges of the deck with DAS and gave the top a coat of matt black.  This will all be ballasted when in place on the layout.

 

I used some gun black to get the bulk of the brass dark, and will just give it a coat of matt black on those handrails and it is done:

 

 

 

 

 

The handrail holes are filled with blutack, to keep the things in place - I will need to remove on to slide the bridge into position. You can see I've pushed one in a bit for at one end. Easy to fix!

 

When I come to terra forming, there will need to be about 10mm of plaster as streambed in the middle spans.  I'm watching Jeff's water effort over at Kirkby Luneside closely, although I'm looking for a slightly deeper and broader body of water to go under this bridge.

 

That particular problem is a long time from needing to be solved

 

Next job: Ballasting.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[jukebox]

And that's a wrap for the bridge - it was fitted in place and the trackbed either side re-instated, ready for ballasting.

 

The centre-to-centre, and clearances to the turrets are tight, but so long as I am carefull when I ballast that I don't shift them from where they are set now, all should be well.

 

Whilst I've a green A4 that could recreate the reference shot from On Great Northern Lines, it's boxed and stored, so I grabbed 60012, which is close at hand.

 

 

 

Despite the reduced length, I'm happy with the proportions ~ for me, it delivers a "plausible reality" that this was a bridge built around the same period as the one over the Idle, a little further North up the line.

 

 

 

Down the track, when I start terra-forming, I'll flow plaster under the arches to form up both river banks and bed, then use a to-be-determined water material to create the flow.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[tjf4375]

That bridge is really really nice, great work on the painting and weathering!

[runs as required]

Congrats on the wonderful bridge

 

And those two pics of the A4s are interesting - I'd always thought (though I never saw them for real) those early BR class 8 blue A4s looked much more like the original Art Deco liveries than the Victorian GW Brunswick Green I knew them in when I worked at the 'Cross.

But that white lining divides up the Blue Streak rocket like a sliced loaf!

 

dh

[jukebox]

With the bridge in place, my focus is back on ballast.

 

I loaded on of those nifty little needle nozzle bottles with dilute PVA, and had play with it on my test tracks, to see if it would be easier than using a brush.

 

 

The answer is emphatically yes!  It is so much easier to use the nozzle (about 0.5mm dia, I believe) to work the far side of the rails - remembering that at least half the ballasting has to be done from the front of the layout, so I need a reliable way of delivering glue into the cribs "blindly".

 

 

The nozzle is such a superior way of doing this - no need to try and guess how much glue is being transferred on a brush, and the tip can be used to "pull" the glue in the cribs, using surface tension, to get it exactly where it needs to go.

 

 

The only mis-step I had was the first attempt - where I'd diluted the glue too much, and applied too much in each of the cribs.  When I then spooned the ballast on, the capillary action wicked the glue up into the ballast, and it clumped, so it did not lift away, even though I applied a vacuum within a few minutes of dropping the ballast.

 

In the spirit of showing my mistakes, this is that that looks like

 

 

You can see where I tried to use a bit of force, to see if I could remove the excess, but it all just lifted away.  

 

The remedy was to half empty the bottle, top up with neat PVA to get a thicker mixture, and be a lot more frugal with the glue.  That gave me the results you can see in the first two samples.

 

I'm certainly pleased with this, and can recommend it as an improvement to the "Captain Kernow" ballasting technique.

 

And just for completeness, I'll include an overview shot of my ballasting test beds - with approximately 50m of ballasting to do on the layout, it was important that I have somewhere to practice before I commit to gluing on the real thing - these boards have been useful for all my testing.  Next time I ballast, it will be on the real thing.

 

 

Cheers

 

Scott

 

 

[jcredfer]

What happens if you use the glue from the bottle to put it on after the ballast is in position? 

 

J

[jukebox]

What happens if you use the glue from the bottle to put it on after the ballast is in position? 

 

J

 

There's no reason you couldn't use it that way, Julian - but then you have to have the ballast millimetre perfect before you apply the glue.

 

The reason I like the CK method, is that it's a lot easier to get the glue in the places it's needed, flood the area with loose ballast over the top, then vacuum excess away (to be reused).  But it's a personal thing, and I'd always suggest people should use the method they are comfortable with that gives *them* the best result.

 

For me, the bottle has great control - such a small opening, and it all comes down to how much you squeeze it.

[Sasquatch]

Great work on that Bridge Scott.

 

Very interesting read on the ballasting too, I'm dreading that task myself as I always do. Your idea of making test runs is the way forward. Time well spent.

 

Regards Shaun

[emt_911]

Hi Scott

 

I like the idea of using the bottle for glue application. A few test pieces are going to be required here once I find the right bottle.

[jukebox]

Great work on that Bridge Scott.

 

Very interesting read on the ballasting too, I'm dreading that task myself as I always do. Your idea of making test runs is the way forward. Time well spent.

 

Regards Shaun

 

 

Thanks Shaun!    Definitely make a few metres of practice track - it wont  take too long to get a feel for what works.

 

Hi Scott

 

I like the idea of using the bottle for glue application. A few test pieces are going to be required here once I find the right bottle.

 

Duncan - these are the beasties you want:

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/30ml-Precision-Tip-Glue-Applicator-Bottle-for-Quilling-Origami-Henna-Tattoo-New-/262501429078?epid=517432139&hash=item3d1e4def56:g:P2UAAOSwHMJYCbdE

 

Don't pay £7.95 or more for a local one - at £0.99 you've got nothing to lose! (and get the 30ml ones - there are some 10ml/15ml ones but I think they would be too small - and the bottles are narrower, so would fall over all the time)

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[grob1234]

Sorry if I have missed it somewhere, but how long do you reckon it would take you to ballast a meter of track using this method?

[jukebox]

Sorry if I have missed it somewhere, but how long do you reckon it would take you to ballast a meter of track using this method?

 

Hi Tom - stay tuned over the next week or so, and I'll tell you!

 

I suspect it will be quite efficient; for tedious or repetitive jobs, even with the iPod giving me background music, I tend to not want to do the same thing for more than an hour.  So over the course of a few nights, I'll see what sort of numbers I average.  Ease of access will have an impact - for tracks at the back of the layout, it's a long lean over, and that will slow me down.  If I could finish one metre of double track mainline in an hour as an average, I'd be happy.

 

Scott

[Rowsley17D]

Hi Scott, I reckon your estimate of an hour per metre is about right. I use the glue in fine tipped applicator works well for 009 too especially when getting into small areas around turnouts.

 

[jukebox]

A mainly photo based update this time.

 

The ballasting is going well - I am doing all the secondary tracks, using the coffee grounds ballast - hardly any of which will be seen from normal viewing angles

 

 

There's not much to say about these shots - they were taken after I'd finished the "up ramp" from the storage tracks, and had just flooded the 6ft of the derelict storage sidings with a load of ballast

 

 

The coffee is very light, and if I try to vacuum whilst wet, it lifts, so the technique for this stuff is to leave it overnight, and vacuum the next session.

 

 

 

 

It's been a little slow to start - mainly as access has not been simple. 

 

Curiously, I've had to be careful what music I play on my iPod while I am laying the glue down - I tend to get caught up in the rhythm of the song, so when I get something with 100 bpm (like Pink Floyd's Run Like Hell), I want to glue too fast, and I get sloppy!  I need to make up a "Ballasting playlist" of ballads and tear jerkers!

 

Cheers

 

Scott