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A New Start


C&WR
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Ooohhh   ............

 

The Long Haired Controller has said she wants a new kitchen more!

 

What are you waiting for   ...................................................          the sooner that kitchen is finished      .......................................    

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Well that chair and lamp look absolutely wonderful. I generally say "sorry for the horrible close up" on my stuff, but no need here, they look perfect!

 

Believe me, that's one of my key phrases normally.  I blame Andy Y for teaching me to take good photos ;)

 

Ooohhh   ............

 

 

What are you waiting for   ...................................................          the sooner that kitchen is finished      .......................................    

 

Waiting for?  Lottery win, big bank blag, The Small Controller finishing School so there are no more fees to pay?  Sadly new kitchen won't be happening in a hurry & therefore to preserve marital harmony have great fears nor will my shed...

 

You will have to make do with another preview of the art deco station building:

 

IMG_2292.JPG

 

I've also made nearly enough progress to show the full build of the goods shed, less the final fettling touches...

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Right, here goes.  A minor delay on the goods shed to the roof over the weekend so can't yet post a build thread.  However there was a little more on the art deco building.

 

I've had in my mind's eye how the doors to the lift module should work and been mulling over options. Essentially the look I was going for is something like this, but in red:

 

cargomaster%20-%20doors%20closed.jpg

 

Perhaps a bit knocked around like the one on the left here:

 

p15.jpg

 

As for materials I had some rather lovely shiny red wrapping paper left over which I thought would do the trick, but this was pinched by The Long Haired Controller to wrap an urgent present.  I was clearing up after dinner the other night when a seed was planted in my mind by a heavy foil food container - if modelling metal why not use metal?  Sadly the recycling had been taken away before I could get at the carton & I had a couple of days wait to get my hands on one.

 

So, having cut some decent sized pieces & flattened them out I made some concertinas.  These fitted neatly in the doorways:

 

IMG_2293.JPG

 

I then borrowed a tip from a military site to get the weathering effect.  The other reason for the delay was that I was determined to use red spray paint rather than the black I had in stock, and a rattle can is essential to the job:

 

IMG_2294.JPG

 

The so called salt weathering is used to give chips and cracks.  In short one damps the base material and sprinkles table salt on it.  When this has dried give the lot a coat of spray paint.  When that has dried chip away:

 

IMG_2303.JPG

 

I rather like the effect:

 

IMG_2302.JPG

 

These are a bit rough, so I may have another pop, possibly with some heavier weight foil.  The only other thing is that my railway modelling is all a bit "ideal world" so the sky is always clear, the sea blue, graffiti not invented and finally things not badly weathered.  

 

Could I be in for a new direction of urban decay?  I have recently been inspired by some factory buildings I see often which I reckon I could scratchbuild:

 

Low%2520Relief%2520Factory%2520Project.j

 

I think these would lend themselves very well indeed to a scenic break, possibly even running alongside a platform, the doors to be seen as fire exits.  I had the red brickpaper already, styrene strip will be just right for the window frames, and I have some more offcuts of heavy card from the art department so I treated myself to the Scalescenes concrete texture & have a little project in hand...

Edited by C&WR
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That does look very good indeed - nice technique with the salt - I might just have to give that a go. Just one thing with the concertina doors - aren't the panels a bit wide? I would have thought you needed to halve them again judging by the prototype photographs.

 

 

That said though, I have to say your texture paper modelling is very tight and accurate - the lift module looks great and I look forward to seeing it in situ.

 

Another thing you can do with that takeaway foil is make a corrugated tin hut :)

 

 

http://www.lnrmodels.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/the-joy-of-sheds.html  (shameless blog post ;) )

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Hi

 

I just love your ingenuity, that is what true modelling is all about in my mind. Not heard of salt weathering before, sound a neat way to get that chip paint effect and your example proves it works well.

 

Can't wait to see it when it is all put together.

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That does look very good indeed - nice technique with the salt - I might just have to give that a go. Just one thing with the concertina doors - aren't the panels a bit wide? I would have thought you needed to halve them again judging by the prototype photographs.

 

Now you point it out you're very right. Curses, I had been working from memory and thought the doors went flatter when closed. It will be a pig to remake these with the extra folds, but then again I had made the originals very tight and stretching them out was also a pain.

 

I also think the salt weathering might be a little less apocalyptic when I do remake these as I can damp the doors, then dip them in the salt so just the trailing edges and the apexes of the folds are chipped. To be honest the second cost of paint was too thick & I'd started chipping before it was properly dry so at the very least it needs a repaint.

 

That said though, I have to say your texture paper modelling is very tight and accurate - the lift module looks great and I look forward to seeing it in situ.

Thanks very much! What I achieve is mainly because of a lot of use of Scalescenes/Railwayscenics kits then my own scratchbuilding. Practise, practise... 

 

Another thing you can do with that takeaway foil is make a corrugated tin hut :)

 

 

http://www.lnrmodels.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/the-joy-of-sheds.html  (shameless blog post ;) )

Thanks for that! Blog page bookmarked. I really like that way of making wriggly tin & may give it a bash - I know commercial jigs are available, but half the fun I have is improvising.

 

As posted above my previous attempts were done by delaminating corrugated cardboard (a particular kind of cat food box used to wrap an eBay purchase worked very well) but this did come out a bit over scale:

 

Shelter%202.jpg

 

My excuse is that it's corrugated asbestos!

Edited by C&WR
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Hi

 

I just love your ingenuity, that is what true modelling is all about in my mind. Not heard of salt weathering before, sound a neat way to get that chip paint effect and your example proves it works well.

 

Can't wait to see it when it is all put together.

Thanks, Kal. What I have been trying to do is model in the spirit of John Ahern, although while he did a lot of his work when products available today didn't exist or were not available because of the war in my case it is just to save money!

 

I don't claim to be particularly proficient, and with the exception of the Bell Inn (with which I took great liberties) do not claim to be building from life. What I do try to do is produce an impression of what might be seen in the real world.

 

As referred to above the art deco building is purely a conceit to see if I could build it. This was inspired partly by my love of the style and partly by Jaz challenging me to do so n the other place! At the moment this building will not fit on Wallington Super Mare and I have no prospect of a new layout for some time, although the factory plan above (I think the real thing is actually a vehicle servicing depot) is giving me ideas about a plank/inglenook at the least...

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C&WR love the roof of the art deco station building. Something to be really proud of.

And ana interesting idea with the salt weathering. I wonder if you put a layer of 'faded' paint on underneath first then did it and used copydex on the salt (so it is not likely to rip the undercoat off)  if you could should an older paint job 'shining' through

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C&WR love the roof of the art deco station building. Something to be really proud of.

And ana interesting idea with the salt weathering. I wonder if you put a layer of 'faded' paint on underneath first then did it and used copydex on the salt (so it is not likely to rip the undercoat off)  if you could should an older paint job 'shining' through

I was thinking something like this, but only got so far as to wonder how to leave the base finish on :)

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Thanks, Jaz & freebs.  I must admit I was a bit lazy about how I did this, relying on the metal of the foil underneath to show through as the bare meta, which I would then have dirtied up with some thinned enamel washes.

 

Probably the best & simplest tutorial I have found for the techniques is here.  This one is very good for a more blotchy appearance which is achieved by letting the salt dissolve a little.

 

Nice idea re the glue, Jaz, but I suspect that Copydex is the last thing needed!  The idea is that the salt just brushes off. bearing in mind the technique is generally used on AFV models more than twice the size of railway stuff I think the salt itself is a bit big, when mixed up with glue as well that would probably leave huge bare patches.  See the failed attempts in the first link for what I mean...

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Hi C&WR,

Quote
an interesting idea with the salt weathering. I wonder if you put a layer of 'faded' paint on underneath first ....

I am not sure if it is any use to what you and Jaz are considering but   ................    many years ago   ..................   are you sitting comfortably?  :whistle:

 

 

if a coat of paint was to be removed to reveal something underneath [i.e. in your case, raw metal, rust or undercoat], the first surface was left to dry completely   .........
Then a light smear of grease [car stuff] would be applied to the place where the top coat would be removed.
At this point the top coat was applied and allowed to dry.
Then just rub the dry top coat and it should just drop off revealing the lower surface   ....

 

Typically used to save removing chrome badges or door handles, when repainting part of a car   .............    cheap-skate really but very effective, if done well.....   :yes:

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Random Scratchbuild - Pallets

 

Spurred on by discussion between freebs, acg_mr & others thought I'd have a bash at making some pallets.  Luckily I had some spare styrene strip about & there are plenty of pallet images on the web along with companies advertising them to get dimensions from.

 

It appears that the standard UK pallet is 1200 x 1000mm which I worked out as 3' 11 1/4" x 3' 3 3/8".  To scale 16 x 13mm is good enough for government & trainset work.

 

Here's what came out:

 

IMG_2305.JPG

 

Anti-clockwise from bottom centre as follows.  Lacking a "chopper" to get consistent lengths of styrene I taped one 13mm length to the cutting mat, then used this as a template. I then used another piece of tape, sticky side up, to lay the bottom deckboards (the three prongs of the fork) nice and square with one of the runners (the horizontal piece) and then glued the remainder of the runners across.  

 

In this picture the runner is on the tape rather than glued to the deckboards.  Pausing to empty the dishwasher & let this set I then peeled the tape off and stuck on the top deckboards.  The first attempt is propped up against the tweezers.

 

I think this looks a bit too narrow in the deckboard dimension & measuring it it has come out as 12mm rather than 13.  As I was using 1.5 x 1.5mm styrene strip for the runners and 0.5 x 1.0mm for the deckboards this gives a total height of 1.6mm, or 4 4/5" to scale.  A standard pallet is 162mm or 6 3/8" so while I thought my pallet looked a bit bulky it is actually a bit thin!  I've also used nine deckboards for which there is precedent, although seven seems very common too.

 

Anyway, a pleasant diversion from folding little bits of tinfoil.  Any errors in the conversions are because I'm shattered, and not a reflection of the work I do with numbers all day.  Also amusing to learn pallet lingo... 

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  • RMweb Gold

freebs! where are you freebs! he's beaten us to it! :O

 

 

 

Deckboards and Runners ey?

 

There's me calling them "thin bits" and "thicker bits" :)

 

 

 

I'm glad to hear that I'd got the dimensions roughly correct, anyway, I was working on 16mm square...

 

Nice work, as always mate.

 

Al.

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I'm here, I'm here, I'm here! What have I missed? 

 

Oh dammit!

 

Nice work Seeanddoubleyouarrrrrr, 

 

when you've made a dozen can you post 'em up to Yorkshire please? ;)

 

All I've managed to achieve tonight is 3 steps to the Goods Shed office...

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Thank you, both!

 

when you've made a dozen can you post 'em up to Yorkshire please? ;)

 

I could see how time goes!  This really wasn't a difficult task.  The only thing that would slow me down is a lack of styrene.

 

I'm trying to think through how long it took, but I settled down at the computer to look up some details of what a pallet actually looks like & get dimensions at just after 20:15 last night & then cutting the first bits of styrene before doing The Small Controller's bedtime routine of a story (we're running through the Jennings books at the moment & to my delight he finds tales of naughty schoolboys very funny for some reason) cleaning teeth etc which took from 20:30 to 21:00.  I then did the gluing of the runners to the bottom deckboards, took 15 minutes or so to do some chores while this dried, and then glued on the top deckboards after that.

 

I then set up the camera & tripod, took the pictures, edited them and had them uploaded to Picasa before 22:15.  Therefore I reckon, including research and photography, what you see there took less than an hour and a quarter of actual modelling time.  The 25 minutes between photo upload & my post was taken up by trying to convert the thickness in mm into scale size & composing the post.

 

That's a long way of saying that having worked out what I need to do if I set up a production line I could probably bash out at least four of these an hour!

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It sounds so much like my routine...

 

whenever I'm in the kitchen, putting the kettle on etc, I always lift down the latest project and have a little tinker

 

Doesn't sound like long at all

 

My sticking point is lack of styrene too. I had a look at stocks last night and found I've enough half round to complete half a run of guttering on one side only of the Goods Shed. 

Drat.

 

I usually like to put the gutters in before tiling

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I wonder   .........................   what if   ...................

 

if I set up a production line I could probably bash out at least four of these an hour

 

If you kept the 3 x runner strips in 3 long lengths [taped down at a few places along their length]

 

- you could mark the width of each Pallet along them and glue sections of 9/7 Deckboards along a complete length.

 

When dry the Bottom Deckboards could be glued to the other side  .................    then cut them into single Pallet lengths when they are completely dry  .......     :yes:

 

That might be faster and maybe easier to line up the Runners too  ......   what do you think  .....

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  • RMweb Gold

I wonder   .........................   what if   ...................

 

 

If you kept the 3 x runner strips in 3 long lengths [taped down at a few places along their length]

 

- you could mark the width of each Pallet along them and glue sections of 9/7 Deckboards along a complete length.

 

When dry the Bottom Deckboards could be glued to the other side  .................    then cut them into single Pallet lengths when they are completely dry  .......     :yes:

 

That might be faster and maybe easier to line up the Runners too  ......   what do you think  .....

 

You've been watching how I make doors, haven't you... :)

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Yes, I went to that from the link at Post 98. I thought it worth mentioning, as my first thoughts were similar to those in the link or maybe track.

 

At the same time, I also had a derailing issue - with the front bogie on H Potter Castle Loco, which rather confused the HST issue too. The Castle turned out to be Muggle Fingers on my part - the Bogie joining Bar at the Loco end, has a hole which has to sit around a small rim, when it is screwed to the Chassis. It is easy to sit the hole, in the bar, onto the rim, as opposed to round it. This simply restricts the swing to one side - so derails the bogie  ....   

 

I hope you solve your problems and that it isn't the track. Are those troublesome lengths laid on Gaugemaster, Ballasted Foam?

 

 

J

I've only recently come across this fascinating thread. Please forgive the out-of order response.

 

For the record, I've used countless metres of  Gaugemaster Ballasted Foam. (over a period of time, I don't dare dwell on the cost) and I'm a huge fan. It's virtually indestructible and paints very well, brush, airbrush or powders, and is very forgiving of dodgy baseboard surfaces. I'm currently working on between track infills, trying to get a similar foam I can dress with ballast. If I can't get that I'll use balsa, pinned down, not glued.

 

Oh yeah, and one particular good point: - you can pull it all up without destroying the track.

 

Tony.

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Thanks for your input, Brass0four, and welcome.  jcredfer and I are aficionados of the Gaugemaster stuff too.  I'm not sure i would have had the patience to ballast all my track, little as it is, and I wanted something that wouldn't all fall off when I folded the baseboard up!

 

Nice picture of the naval engagement, by the way.  My Brother-in-Law is a retired RN Officer and I had a very happy attachment to HMS Birmingham which was affiliated to one of my Regiments!

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Ho! Ho! Ho!

 

Finally the last day of work for the Christmas holidays.  I got home to find a little package, ordered to augment The Small Controller's Christmas train.  

 

Inspired by some posts on the eBay Madness thread I decided to do a little bit of work myself, and thanks to a decorations vendor on Amazon found what I wanted:

 

IMG_2307.JPG

 

Maybe a touch blasphemous, sorry:

 

IMG_2309.JPG

 

And in close up, riding on the Crocodile, the contents of my parcel:

 

IMG_2306.JPG

 

A slightly early Happy Christmas to RMwebbers!

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Thanks for your input, Brass0four, and welcome.  jcredfer and I are aficionados of the Gaugemaster stuff too.  I'm not sure i would have had the patience to ballast all my track, little as it is, and I wanted something that wouldn't all fall off when I folded the baseboard up!

 

Nice picture of the naval engagement, by the way.  My Brother-in-Law is a retired RN Officer and I had a very happy attachment to HMS Birmingham which was affiliated to one of my Regiments!

 

OT! - Interesting. As a Fireman one of my worst incidents was HMS Glasgow on the Tyne - damned if I can recall the date: late 70s early 80s - several workman died. Ship fires were always a nightmare - no handy windows to jump out in a flash-over! lol

 

Tony.

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