kirtleypete

I took some new video of Saltdean at the weekend.... ....as well as some new pictures. Peter

Excellent - look forward to seeing you, Peter

We'll be at Doncaster this weekend with Saltdean, and hopefully there will be a new video on Youtube on Monday. We're stand 21 at Doncaster, nice and close to the tea and coffee! ​Peter

i've just spent a happy hour putting together six seats for the platform, LSWR ones from Roxey which are close enough to LBSC. I painted them grey to match the barrows etc...then read the book. They should be red! Oh well, grey undercoat.............. Peter

The station building is finished enough to put in place...it's not stuck down, that will wait until I've set up all the servos that are inside it. I've got some seats on the way from Roxey, which is why nearly all my passengers are standing up at the moment! It's a shame I didn't check the shade of grey on the canopy before painting the second part....they're not the same, and it shows! It won't take long to repaint it. Peter

I've got the second half of the station building started; more Plastruct is on the way to do the canopy. Once the building is stuck down the gap to the right will be filled with planking. Peter

I use Woodland Scenics medium ballast, but I always mix two or three colours....the LBSC used beach shingle for ballast (it was free!), so I've use a mix of brown and buff with just a little medium grey. I just put some of each into one of the jars they come in, shake it all up and pour it on. Peter

I hope so, because they're glued down solidly now! Peter

Good question - actually the stuff I'm using isn't called that, but they're all pretty much the same. It's a white stiff paste which you put on using a stiff paintbrush by stippling it...the paste is thick enough to stay in place and you can form waves, small waterfalls, that sort of thing. When it dries it's clear. Woodland Scenics produce a version, there's one called Making Waves....the one I've got is called 'KJ0893 RIPPLE MAKER WATER EFFECT' but the pot doesn't say who makes it and I can't remember where I bought it. For moving water like a swift flowing river you can dry brush the wave tops once it's dry with white paint, it looks really effective in pictures but of course it doesn't move. Peter

Don't fall in! Peter

Your kind comments are greatly appreciated, everyone. Finally the damn ballast has dried enough to clean it up after what seems like months of waiting (but is actually about a week!). The 'waves' have dried too and I'm going to leave well along now, if I do any more I risk ruining it. The next job is to take the boards down so I can remove the sheet of plastic that is sandwiched between them, and then get the station building finished before putting up the third baseboard. The planks will cover the point rodding in due course but I can't add that yet as the signal box will be on the next board and it's best to do it all as one job. I went to a lot of trouble making the track from C&L components, using the correct pattern chairs and so on....now all you can see is the rail heads! Peter

Blimey, with you lot keeping an eye on me I'd better make sure it all looks believable! ​Peter

I wondered about that Emma and checked on the RSPB website which says if the water is calm they don't mind the sea as long as they keep near the shore. They just add a bit of colour, and I will be adding lots of gulls too of course. I'm very envious of you being able to hear the Bluebell from home! Peter

I'll have to keep them now, they won't come off again! I mustn't make them too big, the ducks won't like it................... Peter

No ducks, but I have added some waves to the water. I was in two minds about this because of course they won't move but I think it looked too flat without them. The paste dries clear, they won't look white then. The 'Making Waves' paste was just stippled on with a stiff paintbrush. The bollards are from Skytrex, and didn't even need painting. The offices of the 'Langstone Pier, Harbour & Steamship Company Limited' now cover the electrics on top of the stone wall. The next job is to build the second half of the station buildings. The ballast in the foreground still isn't dry, it takes forever at this time of year. Peter

Patience may be a virtue, but it's not one that I posess! My varnish water was dry to the touch, so earlier on this morning I added some whitemetal ducks. They looked great. An hour later they had sunk into the varnish until only their heads were showing....they looked more like U Boats than ducks! I've had to pull them out and now the water has dimples where the ducks were. The ducks are covered in gooey varnish and so were my fingers. Sorry - I didn't take a photograph, you'll have to imagine it and also what I said when I saw them. I will take a nice picture when finally the varnish is properly dry. Peter

Nailsworth station didn't sell at Bristol so I'll have it on the stand at Kettering in March. Peter

I use printed papers for the stone and the slates; I used a photo of a real stone wall, resized it on the computer to 7mm scale and then cut and pasted it until it filled an A4 sheet. I use Serif Pageplus software. This was printed off onto gloss photo paper, and then put on a colour photocopier at my local print shop so enough sheets could be run off. Fortunately Cotswold stone has a smooth surface, so it's ideal. I also ought to say that the pictures look so realistic because they were taken outside in daylight...in fact I drive a mile out of town into open countryside, park on a wide verge, put a sheet of ply on the car roof with the model on top and then take the pictures. The cows in the field looked a bit taken aback but it works a treat.....the pictures are then cropped on Pageplus to remove bits that aren't wanted, like the car aerial! I'd been waiting for days for a bit of dry sunny weather, it's been very frustrating. You can see what I mean in the bottom picture which hasn't been cropped. Peter

I've cut a few corners, which is why I always say 'based on Nailsworth' - one of the chimney stacks was really ornate, for instance, but I've modelled it like the others. I had to get the model finished in time to take to Bristol 0 gauge show on Sunday. Peter

I've finished the model based on Nailsworth station building to put on the stand at Bristol on Sunday. It's a local station and hopefully people will recognise it....for my money it's one of the prettiest stations on the Midland. Finally the sun has come out so I've been able to take some pictures! Peter

This model based on Nailsworth station building in in 7mm scale.....I've always loved it and have finally had the chance to model it. Peter

I've made more progress, so here are some new pictures; The pier joins the shore and the platform has been completed. The electronics will all be hidden in a building, probably the harbour office. From left to right there is a servo motor driving the point, the Megapoints unit which controls twelve servos, the Megapoionts DCC unit which enables me to control the points from my Lenz 100 handheld, another servo and finally a Duo Frogjuicer. Putting all this on top had been much, much easier. Where the station building will stand are two more servos, another Frogjuicer and a small DCC busbar; putting all this on top means just two wires need feeding through to under the board. The tubes to the tie bars are fairly obvious, but as the LBSCR fed signal wires through tubes when they passed under the track I'm not going to worry too much. Peter

No pain no gain, John! Peter

Yes Eric, in one case at least - the two points are on different baseboards! I'll live with changing each point separately, it's not ideal but it's worth it for the advantages elsewhere.. Peter

While I've been working on these two boards I've been thinking about how to control the layout. We use a Lenz 100 DCC system in an aluminium camera box that is just plugged into whichever layout we are exhibiting, and that isn't going to change. However, I can't do things as I've done in the past because of the pier....up to now I've used Hoffmann point motors but I can't use them under the pier because they'd show and would be inaccessible if something goes wrong. I'm going to use servo's to operate the points on the pier, surface mounted in the buildings and powered using Megapoints circuit boards but still operated from the DCC handheld controller. Well, if I'm operating the points on the pier like that it seems logical to do the others the same way, as well as the two signals. That means using a lot of the buildings to hide the servos inside, which means making the roof removable. That's not a problem, though, because the low backscene means that many of the buildings will have to have a removable upper portion anyway which will be taken off when the layout is transported. The 'light came on' moment was when I realised that there was no need to put anything under the baseboards at all other than the busbar and wires connecting the baseboards. The Megapoints units are small enough to go in a building as well, as are the frog juicers I'm using to change the point polarity. That would mean no more lying on my back at an exhibition trying to put a wire I can't see back into a tiny hole that I also can't see! After all, the only moving parts are the servos, the rest of it is just electronics which should be fit and forget. I'll need a 12V DC power supply which will probably be best fitted under the board with the main control units on, but that's it. It will be much easier installing everything with the baseboards the right way up, and I can also do it without having to wait for the varnish water to dry! There is one downside of using servos for the points, I can't wire the crossover points to change together on the same number as the servos have to be set up individually. I can live with that. Unless I've missed something really obvious this seems to much more user friendly way of installing the control system; there's one way to find out, of course, and that is to do it. Peter