A 'Quickie' out of doors - now Palin's Yard

[Mike]

Cracking job.

[peter220950]

 

"The pavement area looks brilliant, as do the cobbles through the point work. I don't recall, did you scribe them in plaster?

It's all looking very "together", and I particularly like the significant vertical development you have included. I think it helps create an atmosphere.

Best

Simon"

 

Thanks for the kind comments, the cobbles/sets were done with Giles's excellent set stamper, and saved hours of work, definitely a tool to keep for future use!

 

Peter

[L&Y]

Particularly like the mirror stainless you put at the end. Had me fooled for a bit. Thought you'd made a whole new scenic board! Great stuff. In the two and a half years you've been working on this I haven't made a whole lot of progress. So time to stop dreaming and build another layout myself. Suitably inspired by yours. Think it may take a little longer than this and I doubt it will ever be this good. But I just feel the need. Keep posting the updates. And when you exhibit it let us know where and when! Really it looks ready.

[peter220950]

Happy New Year to all, three guesses what I got for Christmas? The grandchildren gave me the mother of all coughs and colds which has seen me out of circulation for the past three weeks.

 

So there's been very little modelling done in the last month, even more concerning I think I've gone off alcohol, still with the money saved I feel another 08 coming on.

 

Before I went down with man-flu I finished work on the faked building interiors, using light boxes and pictures behind windows and doors to hide the fact that the buildings were only about an inch deep.

 

 

Some vans have been started to provide traffic for the loading dock.

 

 

And the rear half of the warehouse in front of the turntable was completed.

 

 

 

This took me up to the week before Christmas when things stopped until the last couple of days when the clear Perspex front fascia has been cut and polished.

 

 

The raised end pieces are to stop the aluminium name board supports falling onto the public.

 

Once cut and polished the back of the acrylic was masked

 

 

and sprayed black, to hide the board edge, this gives a finish that's protected by a layer of acrylic, and was backed with a black PVC tape to protect the paint from getting scratched.

 

 

Being a bit anal I had to get black screws to fix them

 

 

 

Next will be attached a piece of a magnetic strip to the back face, below the layout front, which will revise a fixing point for the drape.

 

 

Now I seem to be getting back on my feet I hope to get the grass down, and some shrubs and bushes planted to soften the landscape a bit.

 

Peter

[Simond]

Peter,

 

Glad you're feeling better, good to see you back!

 

Happy New Year!

Simon

[peter220950]

Not much done this week, but at least I'm getting a bit more enthusiasm to get things done.

 

First problem to address was handling the boards, one of the down sides of using doors is the inability to pick them up without gripping the top surface, and damaging it.

 

I have reused the old spacer pieces used to stack the boards face to face, and cut them down to provide something to pick them up by. It's a pain to have to keep screwing them on and off, but it does provide a degree of protection to the layout when moving boards around.

 

 

And even after a 400 mile round trip yesterday, down to Kent and back in the snow, I still felt like tackling the initial scenic works to the second board. A layer of green 'undercoat' scatter and infill ballast was glued down to the exposed areas, it's a bit vibrant, but shouldn't actually be seen when the grass is applied.

 

 

 

Flushed with success I finally but the bullet and made a start on grassing, something I think I have unconsciously been avoiding for some time, however I dug the Grassmaster out and mixed up a trial batch of grasses, using different colours and lengths of fibre. The plan was to tackle a small trial area, to see how I got on, but it went quite well and I ended up doing the whole board. Once the initial mix of grass had been applied and the surplus vacuumed up a sprinkling of fine 'soil' was sieved over the area, and then again given a vacuum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having overcome my grass phobia I can now move onto the other board, before getting some more texture and variety into the grass, and build up some undergrowth and shrubbery.

 

Peter

[peter220950]

Between bouts of coughing and spluttering I managed to get a bit of work done on the layout today. The second board has had its grass applied, together with a further coat of fine 'dirt' to the trackway leading to the loading deck.

 

 

 

The ashed area was then treated to a bit of sparse grass and a start was made on some vegetation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the track had some wheel ruts added.

 

 

 

Finally the drape system was tested out. The Perspex fascia panels have had a magnetic strip attached to the rear.

 

 

 

And second magnetic strip is then attached, trapping the drape.

 

 

 

I'm hoping to get down to Bristol on Sunday to pick up some bits and pieces of shrub and ground cover.

 

Peter

Edited January 20, 2017 by peter220950

[Tove]

This just get`s better and better,excellent stuff.

 

(watching quitely!)

 

Brian.

[Giles]

That is looking superb Peter!

[3 link]

Looking good Peter,

 

It's amazing how a bit of greenery brings things to life.

 

Martyn.

[peter220950]

Time for a quick update, the first layer of static grass has had a second layer of long fibre muted dead grass colours, to tone things down a bit.

 

Before

 

 

After

 

 

And a start made on adding clumps of grass and undergrowth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's still a lot to do, but it's beginning to take shape, so I thought it was time to put the layout up and take stock. It's getting close to the stage where I can start to do a 'to do list' for the whole layout, rather than individual bits.

 

It was well worthwhile, as almost straight away I found that the backscene support I had fabricated occupies the same threaded inserts as the lighting rig upright, so it has been a worthwhile exercise.

 

Speaking of back scenes, today saw receipt of a new cloudy grey sky that will need to be mounted,

 

 

Now it needs a method of fixing without bubbles to be sorted.

 

The first task to erect the layout was to get the buildings and lights out of the roof.

 

 

The layout was put up on the landing, to save humping it all downstairs, the starting point being the folding ladder.

 

 

 

Followed by the over complicated support framing

 

 

And the layout, fascia board, and supports

 

 

All in all it was a useful exercise, as it's highlighted a couple of minor niggles, that had occurred as a result of only putting bits of the layout up in isolation.

 

There are a couple of unfinished bits of board, and the weathering needs bringing through from the one end to the other. At present there's an unfinished chunk in the middle, but it has given me a list of things to do and a feeling that I've broken the back of this 'quick' project. Just as well as there are a couple of other designs maturing in the background.

 

Finally a few gratuitous shots of the whole thing to date, next up will be sorting all the back scenes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Off now to sort out the sky backscene, and how to blend it into the mirrored end of the road,

 

Peter

[Mike]

Hitting the like button just isn't enough, excellent work Peter or as we say Bostin.

[peter220950]

Mike,

 

Thanks for that, much appreciated, though you managed to build and complete several layouts in the time I've been pithering around with this one.

 

You'll be pleased to know one of the ideas for the next one could well involve a small branch line in Stourbridge!

 

Peter

[CourthsVeil]

Peter,

the third of the "gratuitous" shots above tells us how valuable a mirror at the end of a layout is.

Well done all this !

Regards

   Armin

[PMP99]

Very nice. Love the electricity sub-station (if that's the correct description!)

 

Graham

[L&Y]

Just keeps getting better. Can't wait to see it with the sky added. Fantastic job.

[peter220950]

Another month of small steps, some backwards, but progress nevertheless. The first arrival was the new sky backscene, but it immediatly threw up a problem

 

 

Not only would it look strange having sky down to ground level, but the printed scene is about 40mm shy of the board anyway. I have been long thinking it needed something to finish the joint off, and favourite at the moment is some sort of retaining wall.

 

Next job was a storage and transport solution for the Perspex front protectors, firstly pieces of mdf were cut to the same size.

 

 

The panels of mdf were then laid out on the base of what will become the carrier, and had holes drilled for locating dowels and were covered in double sided tape.

 

 

Black foam backed velvet was then attached to the panels.

 

 

And the panels were attached to the carrier.

 

 

New timber pieces have been made to help lift the layout without squashing the grass and scenics, these form the front of the box, and hold it all together in transit.

 

 

 

After a break for the weekend of our Club Exhibition, I moved onto the 'coal' for the wagons on the tippler. I had wanted to avoid real coal, as the dust is likely to make a mess. After an abortive purchase of some black fish tank gravel, which turned out to be round pebbles covered in resin, I found some stuff on Ebay which looked quite good.

 

 

A problem then became apparent, the 'coal' weighed around 250 grammes, and the tippler can't handle it without turning the voltage up, this in turn means it slams back down too fast. Rather than mess about rewiring with resistors in the return circuit I looked around for an alternative.

 

Vermiculite looked to be a suitable light material,

 

 

And a quick dip in black acrylic seems to fit the bill.

 

 

Rather than continue to be bogged down with detailing buildings and back scenes I decided it was time to clean the track of glue and grass fibre and test the layout. It's due down at Taunton at the end of April, and I would rather take a working layout than a big diorama. Loco's were run over the whole thing, and seem happy enough, the pain of three link couplings reminded me that I need to also get the Sprat and Winkle couplings fitted, so a set of stock for the layout is being sorted out, and fitted with couplings. It's going to be a bit of a mixture of Dapol wagons and kit built vans in the short term.

 

 

 

 

It's our Club open day next weekend so I might take the opportunity to take it out for a shakedown run to see what falls off the layout in transit.

 

Peter

[peter220950]

Well I didn't get to take the layout out at the weekend, due to other commitments, but I have managed to get some movement on an area that was becoming a bit of a block to progress, namely the back scene.

 

I had made a start on the surround to the turntable, but to be honest it was a bit of a bodge.

 

 

 

Not only had it been cobbled together with bits of old ply, the angles weren't quite right and I later discovered that the rear fixing point was actually used as a lighting rig support, so needed a rethink.

 

Yet another lesson learned is to put the back scene in first and build the buildings up to them, I had done it the other way around and it seems to have been giving me a mental block to getting it finished.

 

The starting point for the Mk2 was to make a template for the shape of the buildings surrounding the turntable, then mdf profiles were cut and a new set of parts were cut and glued together.

 

 

New brass brackets were cut to clip it to the lighting rig support,

 

 

and the whole thing is now a bit more substantial.

 

 

 

Next was the factory board, where there is a need to access the Fiddle yard. Panels of mdf were cut to suit and will meet in the middle on the other lighting rig support, using the magnetic strips already on the bar.

 

 

The back scene sheets were then framed up with timber to help keep them stable.

 

 

 

The panels can now be cleaned up and given several coats of varnish ready to attach the back scene. Not quite sure how I'm going to attach this, 3M spray, double sided tape, or wallpaper paste seem to be the options, but I suspect I may be ordering replacements!

 

This afternoon was spent lining the second 70 litre Really Useful box to ensure the finished panels are protected whilst in transit. The storage boxes for the buildings, lighting and fascias now take up more room than the boxed up layout, I just hope it will all fit in the car.

 

Once the back scene is fitted I think I should be ready to take it down to the SWAG meeting in Taunton at the end of April, it won't be finished, but I'm hoping people will be able to see its getting there.

 

Peter

[peter220950]

The layout finally got its day out yesterday, a round trip of 85 miles to Club and back to see how it packed and travelled.

 

It seemed a bit of a tight fit at first,

 

 

though a bit of a repack when I arrived indicated that I could almost get the Club stand in as well, it left the two big building boxes to find there own way to an Exhibition, but I think that if I get the roof box on I can travel single handed, not likely to happen, but interesting to find out.

 

 

Anyway the layout seemed to go together well, with only a small bit of damage, as I thought the tippler is too vulnerable, it has too many moving bits with big weights on the end.

 

 

I re-soldered the upright, but the same thing happened on the way home, so there's some thinking to do about securing the weights in transit.

 

Otherwise apart from a 10 second break in power to one board that was a little puzzling it all went well, so we'll in fact that I completely forgot to take any photo's. It took about an hour and a half to put the stand and layout up, and an hour to strip, but I was taking it slowly so I hope this will improve with practice.

 

This morning I took it out of the car and re-erected it to sort a couple of issues noted last night, the board joint isn't quite level, having been worked on in the bedroom with a slightly different set of supports, so there's a tiny bit of soldering to do. Of more concern was the loss of power to one board again, this time for a long time. A further investigate convinced me it was a loose wire in a socket.

 

 

Needless to say this seemed to do the trick for about ten minutes, then it happened again, so I spent the rest of the morning chasing a fault that seems to be a break in a feed wire, so that's down for replacement tomorrow.

 

Other than that it seems to be on track for its trip to Taunton at the end of the month, it won't be finished, but it should be presentable. There's a lot of weathering to do to the main factory building, a lot of detailing, which will take months, and a lot more work on the stock. Unfortunately I'm away on holiday for two weeks, so I will only have a couple of days more to progress it for the SWAG meeting.

 

Anyway a couple more gratuitous shots to bring things up to date.

 

 

 

 

 

I hope to get the sky paper attached and some Sprat and Winkle couplers on loco's and stock, but that's probably as far as I will get by 30th.

 

Peter

Edited April 7, 2017 by peter220950

[peter220950]

Well the layout got its first proper public outing today, at the RMWeb gathering in Taunton, it didn't help that I was sited next to the stunning O gauge Sherton Abbas layout, but us mere mortals have to have something to aspire to!

 

It performed well, with no real heart stopping moments, I need to concentrate on stock and loco's for a proper sequence, and the layout needs a lot more detailing, but on the whole it was a good day.

 

 

 

 

The back scenes are still not right, and I'm looking into a one piece vinyl that will attach to the existing boards, but the addition of some sky certainly improved the look of the layout. Unfortunately there won't be much progress now for a few weeks, as I have to have a minor hand operation next week, which will curtail my already compromised dexterity for a bit. Hopefully once sorted I can get back to some serious modelling.

 

Peter

Edited April 30, 2017 by peter220950

[mudmagnet]

I enjoyed watching and viewing Palin's Yard yesterday.

 

Impressive buildings and appreciate the work you have put in so far as looking very good.

[peter220950]

Many thanks to Mudmagnet and all who stopped by at Staplegrove and said nice things, I finally managed to get the layout out of the car yesterday, and it's now safely stored away pending a revisit when my hand is better.

 

Thanks also to Lady Ava for some nice shots of the layout,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing to do now except plan a cameo for the next couple of weeks, I must say I was a bit apprehensive about going into hospital, given the recent publicity about unnecessary operations,

 

 

 

 

 

But it's OK he worked for Spire Healthcare, I'm on the NHS

 

 

 

Edit

 

Oh b****r, just read my letter

 

 

 

 

 

Wish me luck!

 

Peter

Edited May 4, 2017 by peter220950

[pauliebanger]

Hi Peter,

 

The very best of luck. Just remind them it's for your hand.

 

Layout looks great to me, bud.

 

Kind regards,

 

Paul

[peter220950]

Well that seemed to go well,

 

 

Seriously thanks to all of you boys and girls out there who work in the NHS, or who have partners who do, you are much appreciated, we still have the best service in the world.

 

Back to the armchair to model for a bit.

 

Peter

[Mike]

Hi Peter, hope all goes well and you're soon back modelling. I'm still struggling with a manky hand even after a full course of antibiotics and 2 different creams each applied twice a day, but at least its not by right hand and I can still pick up a large class of G&T.

Edited May 5, 2017 by Mike