Railway arches and workshops, plus girder road bridge

[Dr.Glum]

Hope you're not bored with arches. I have a lot to do! The present task is to create a module (no.8) to fill in a stretch to the right of the previous module (no.7), as described in this thread:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/topic/4578-railway-arches-with-workshops-underneath-4mm-scale/

 

The following photo shows the triangular area between two boards that is (ultimately) to be filled with a road and other 'ground', at a height of 4.5 inches below the baseboard level. This thread describes construction of the wall that will run along the left-hand side of the triangle.

Note the 500 watt electric fire: that has seen quite a lot of use in the past few weeks. Typically, loft temperature has been between 6 and 8 degC when I open up in the evening. Fifteen minutes use of the fire will raise the temperature at waist height to about 13 degC and that is usually enough for comfort, as the temperature in the peak of the roof will be higher, and that's where your head is. If your head's warm . . . .

[Note: I'm 5ft6in and even I have to slightly dip my head when standing in the centre. That's not ideal, but I'm so lucky not to have intrusive roof beams. So I'm well satisfied.]

 

The backing is as before: 5mm foamboard, with overlays of 2mm greyboard. There will be 2 arches on the left, then the road bridge under the railway, then 3 more arches. The following photo (distorted be the camera view) shows early work):

The road aperture will not be cut until very late on. The left 2 arches are on a section that is at a slight angle to the rest of the module, and also at an angle to the previous module. Big error! I planned that this module would overlap the existing one, but failed to allow for the fact that the backing is 5mm thick! Doh! I had to cut back the foam board, champfer the back of the 'new' end, and glue on thinner extension card pieces, all because there were mounting points behind the right-hand end of module 7 and I didn't want to lose them by cutting that module. Several days later . . .

 

It took a long time to design the bridge unit, before I could cut any card. Lots of hunting through railway books, seeking bridge photos. The following image shows the girder element, before it was sprayed with Halfords grey primer. (One wonky strut yet to be detached and reglued.) Only a week later did I wonder if I could have made what I wanted using Wills girder bridge units (SS57 Vari-girder). Doh again!

I prefer using the Stanley knife because its bulk lets you see and feel whether you have got it straight/vertical when cutting. Almost hidden is an X-acto handle with a scapel blade in it, for cleaning any feathery edges. The screwdriver is for wiping away any excess white PVA glue, my favourite for sticking things.

 

The image below (more camera distortion) shows the bridge nearly finished. The stone pediment to the brick wall is covered with a detail from the Scalescenes R005 Large Station building. The overlay (yet to be fitted) is 1mm stiff white card, and the Scalescenes brick paper is stuck on with Smith's Glue Stick (Rmweb 3 recommended - thank you Gentlemen). This I store in a plastic bag with a few drops of water, sealed up with a tie twistie.

 

In the early nineties I was building 7mm wagons and carriages, and decided I would buy an Olfa cutter useful for van ends or compartment tops. I never did use it for that, but it had proved invaluable for these arches. The only drawback is that, cutting 2mm material, the edge it creates is not quite normal to the surface (i.e. not at right-angles). It is only slightly off, and I defy anyone to notice it once the arch overlay is glued to the backing.

In order to be uniform with the nearby arches on the first module I built, I am committed to a variation from what Scalescenes designer intended. I may have been in a hurry to use the cutter then, but I couldn't find a centre and radius that matched the arc of the printed edge of the brickwork. It seemed to me (rightly or wrongly) that you could not match the print with a complete semicircle and two straight verticals. That meant that I was cutting too much out at the top of the arch, revealing white paper on the printed arch infill or workshop. I detirmined that if the arch infills were moved up 2mm, the gap could be covered, and the new white paper strip at the bottom could be covered with brick or stone 'footings'. So that's what I did. When I do arches that will not be near these ones, I'll try again, to find a centre and radius that matches the printed arcs. (For the record, my current settings are: radius of cutter is 47.5mm, centre of arc 24.5mm from bottom of arch overlay.)

 

The following photo show progress with various elements.

 

Unfortunately I was careless when smoothing down the arch infill for the right-hand arch: I allowed bubbles to be trapped. Push them with a finger and they stick down. Wait 10 seconds and they are back. Oh buggrit! The following picture shows the result of teasing the edges with a blunt knife and peeling the paper off. Mainly it comes away cleanly, leaving just a very thin glazed finish on the card. The lumpy bits were gently scraped off with a knife blade held in the fingers. Time to stick another layer on, paying more attention this time!

 

I only started card modelling about 18 months ago, so I have no experience of how durable spray glues and glue sticks are. The ease with which I removed the brick paper above rather feeds my prejudices. I've tried to avoid using the glue stick for any major structural gluing (e.g. the card arches to the backing), but you end up with composite structures which include paper stuck to card within the layering. So am I worrying unnecessarily? How long have glue sticks been around? Anyone got any twenty-year old card and paper buildings that are still struck together?

(I'll put up more photos as the work progresses.)

[PhilH]

Push them with a finger and they stick down. Wait 10 seconds and they are back

 

Did you puncture with a pin to let the air out? That usually works.

[Fen End Pit]

I would really recommend WHSmiths own brand glue sticks for doing large areas. For some reason they seem a bit more 'peelable' than other brands and you can actually go back and have a second go once you have stuck the paper down in the wrong place!

 

David Barham

[Dr.Glum]

Thank you PhilH for replying with the pin-prick tip. Doh! I've used that idea in the past with recalcritrant wallpaper, but it never occurred to me that the same could apply here. More buggrit.

Thanks David for the confirmation, you'll see I said I'd been using Smith's Glue Stick.

 

There has been some progress, concentrating on the bridge. During Christmas I had a ride on the train from London Bridge to Charing Cross, closely examining the numerous bridges on this stretch. In every case that I saw, there was no brickwork hiding the ends of the spans, only the brickwork of the buttress on the 'outside' (road side). From above the buttresses were 'L' shaped. So I've had to cut the back of my buttresses back.

 

I made a mistake with the order of building the box sections of the buttresses. I was well on with the left hand one before I realised I was making it less easy to avoid joins in the brick paper at the front edges where they'd be most visible. The photo below shows that the left hand buttress is mainly already built onto the backing sheet, whereas I've now made the the right hand one as a unit that I have papered before I glue the buttress into place. The best I can do before attaching the left hand front face is score and glue the folds of brick paper to the 2mm edges of the front face.

You're looking at the two buttress fronts laying over the middle of the bridge backing. The left hand one has the large flaps of brick paper that will have to be glued to the sides while I also glue the front face on. Much easier will be the right hand one, which only has one small flap of paper to glue when the unit as a whole is glued in place.

 

Once they are fixed, I'll have to decide what relief brick areas and string courses or parapets will be needed to dress all that boring plain brickwork. And be harmonious with the adjoining arch sections. I find that aspect of building quite, dare I say it, fun!

Cheers, Tony

[Badger]

I have used 3M spray mount to do this sort of thing, it is expensive but works brilliantly, plus if you are careful you can re-position things.

Bob

[Dr.Glum]

I have used 3M spray mount to do this sort of thing, it is expensive but works brilliantly, plus if you are careful you can re-position things.

Bob

 

Hello Bob,

Yes that's what I used when I first started sticking brick paper to card last year and used up the can. I've just been and checked my spray cans and discovered that I bought a new can in Smiths which I had forgotten about. So many thanks for mentioning it and leading to my re-discovery. Doh!

 

Last year I also tried out Maplin's CC85 spray glue, 500ml for (then) 5.73GBP. It sticks OK, but comes out in an uncontrollable stream like an elephant letting go! So I'd consider it for quick rough gluing of heavy card sheets together, but not a job like this. I also tried Bostik Fast-Tak repositional, 150ml at 2.99GBP in Focus D-I-Y. Again, the spray was uncontrollable and I ended up with patchily soaked brick paper which affected the ink-jet printer ink. Ironically, this was actually OK on some sections of blue brick retaining wall, as it looked like water staining in the brickwork. (Well, it did to me: it's a remote part of the layout. )

Cheers, Tony

[Dr.Glum]

So I seem to be obsessed with arches and workshops: when I was browsing RMweb I came across Hornsey Broadway by Wibble, who has some workshops under arches that I really admire and should bring to your attention.

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/topic/7989-hornsey-broadway/

 

Meanwhile, back at home, apparently there are new contractors Bodgit & Crapley on the contract! I had a problem.

 

I'd been eager to get the bridge span stuck on, because that had to be done before the buttresses could be attached. Yeah, well, got that wrong then. Apparently I was too eager, for although I checked some measurements before sticking it on, something didn't look right. Higher one end than the other, possibly by a millimetre? Eventually I was convinced there really was a millimetre discrepancy, but was it the span, the buttress tops, the bottoms of the buttresses and the arches, or what?

 

Buggrit! The span would have to come off, so I levered it off, with the result you see in the photo. At least card as a modelling medium helps you here. It was going to be quite possible to dress these surfaces so that it could still be reattached and no-one would be any the wiser.

 

To my shame, it took ages to track down the cause. First I had to do some shaving to get the bottoms of buttresses and arches in a definite straight line: not to easy when the piece is over 24 inches long.

Having spent ages measuring and remeasuring, I'd eliminated everything I could think of to explain why it wouldn't line up level. Doh! It's so obvious in hindsight. When I had stuck the bottom web onto the girder, I had not cleaned off the excess glue on the back of the join. In my defence, I forgot because I was too busy making sure the visible joins on the front were all as properly made and as clean as I could get them.

It turned out that there were quite a lot of tiny PVA blobs that were stopping the span going 'home' properly, so those had to be removed with a scapel. Then I had to clean up all the card that was lifted when the glued surfaces were so rudely sundered. Now there's a word: I am willing to bet a search of RMweb would not turn up another occurence.

Then lots of remeasuring (I'm bored now) before finally gluing the bridge in place. What a palaver!

 

Here are the two pieces of archwork, free-standing together without the backing layer. The module is nearly 3 feet long and the left hand two arches are constructed to be at a slight angle.

 

Note how the Letracote 103 coating has darkened the brick paper on the bridge span: that's the only area sprayed so far. The capping stones on the buttresses were a bit of a game. I wanted some shape to them, and to cut a long story short, plumped for balsa. I was never an aero modeller as a kid, so have very little experience of the material, except a memory of never being able to cut it cleanly. Off on my bicycle to the model shop to end up with a quarter inch by 3 inch 'plank'. I used a miniature saw to obtain the basic oblong blocks without too much raggedness. I cut the first two the wrong size, which was actually a blessing as I could practice the next stage.

Initially I attempted to shave off balsa so that the top would end up with 4 plane triangles rising to meet at a point in the middle. That proved to be far too demanding of my carving skills. On the second test piece I found I could reasonably carve curves in the two axes using a Stanley knife. Now the problem was that the knife would slightly dig in at the start of a shaving. I ended up with hollows. Hunt around, find a totally unused blade, and maybe this would be good enough. I cut two new blocks the correct size, marked them up in pencil, and with everything crossed (including eyes at times) spent ages carving.

Eventually I had two blocks that had promise. What to seal the balsa with? I found an old tin of Ronseal Clear Gloss Varnish, which was a bit treacle-like until I thinned it. Took ages to dry, so it was next day before I could touch them. In the meantime I had solved my lack of fine glass paper by finding my stock of emory (carborundum) paper. Grade 400 seemed about right for not leaving scratch marks, but also not clogging too quickly. I rubbed down most of the imperfections and slapped on another thick coat. Next day I cut the blocks to get the 'L' shape they need, which added a saw mark I didn't want: careless person. That was filled with PVA which was scapelled flat after a couple of hours. Then paint the whole lot black (for soot encrusted sandstone) and hope no-one see the bumps and dips. The first coat of Humbrol matt black left a hint of the balsa colour showing through in places, so a 2nd coat was needed, plus a top coat of letracote 103 to protect the edges.

 

Next I have to work out details of the workshops, and whether the lining walls under the brige opening will be integral with this module. Hey ho!

Cheers, Tony

[kandc_au]

Surely there is a clause where you deduct costs from Bodgit and Crapley for poor workmanship???

 

Looking good Tony.

 

Khris

[Dr.Glum]

Hello again,

 

I've now finished the two workshop arches. AAA Radio Cabs with open doorway and beyond that Wimble and Sons with closed shutter door. (I had to: I couldn't progress the module 9 that they will stand on until taxi firm's doorway existed.)

 

The picture below shows the interior of the light box inside the taxi arch. I lined the walls and floor with 'white' painted brick. Your view inside is limited, so the interior is pretty basic. There's just a bench (Airfix station seat) in front of a representation of an office wall. (Details of the way I make the light boxes and use the LEDs from a Christmas lights set are described in my other thread on workshops: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/topic/4578-railway-arches-with-workshops-underneath-with-lighting-4mm-scale/)

The only variation here is that the office is separately fitted with a yellow 12volt LED. I'm not sure it was worth the effort!

 

As a mock-up, I connected the lights and took a picture on the desk.

 

The 2nd door to the taxi firm is yet to be fitted. The internal window just shows up as dimly lit by incandescent light (just), but I wouldn't bother again. Also, I now don't think the yellow from 12volt LEDs is a good colour. The outside lamp on the far unit is from Walthers Cornerstone Series, item 933-1098 "Ornate Wall Mounted Light (3 pack)". This is a bulb running on 12 volts. As supplied it was far too bright. I measured the lamp's resistance as 51ohm and have reached a happy dimness by adding a 47ohm resistor in series (3 watt type from Maplin).

 

So next I'll have to make the mounting blocks so I can screw this module 8 to the baseboard. That will then let me offer up the module 9 that fits underneath and I can mark up some close fitting pavements and other stuff. Getting there, but blimey, I'm making a meal of it!

 

Cheers, Tony

(This thread is now finished: further progress will be in my thread about Module 9 that is the base for these arches:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/topic/8855-scenery-module-with-roadways-workshops-and-underbridges-oo/