Physicsman

Update..... Some tidbits to keep the thread ticking over. I'm working on the signal box kit I bought from York Modelmaking a few weeks back: https://yorkmodelrail.com/shop/00-scale-ho-scale/building-kits-00-scale-ho-scale/00-mrbox-20-foot-midland-railway-signal-box/ Fits together beautifully and all the body section has been painted up. I'm customising the roof with my own tiles, guttering and finials. Further details and pics when I'm done, probably early next week. And I've planned out my "shunting" plank to give the 00 models some exercise. It won't be a shunting plank at all, but a representation of Ais Gill summit. 4 boards, 2 feet wide, probable total length of 13 feet. Will be stored in pieces under Gill Head and assembled for a bit of 9F etc running. I will build this in the spring - it will be given a scenic treatment of walls, ballast, culvert and overbridge, so should be fun. Most importantly, it means some of the "old" steam locos will have somewhere to run. Anyway, just something I've been thinking about. Good job I haven't got any wood and ply in stock or I'd probably have started! Jeff

Hi Al. I very rarely look at layout threads on here, but wanted to say "keep up the very good work". Jeff

Haha - Very good! Given the number of times you've visited, or been past the Kirkby Stephen site, if my shed and pipes pass your muster then it must be (mostly) ok. It just occurred to me that, with the lockdown and now living in Barrow (so not having to cross the Pennines), I haven't been past the station since January 2020. I might get lost next time I head towards the wilds of Tebay and Orton!! Good to hear from you. Jeff

Ok, I dug out some old shed photos from the S&C, though no guttering close-ups of KS appear to exist. John's comment set me thinking, so I've made a few modifications. The downspouts are now offset by a scale 6 inches-ish from the building and, with the protruding bottom stone course this allowed another "anchor point" to attach the pipes to. The existing pipes were removed and the top 5mm of each was chopped off. With the pipes re-fixed closer to the walls I cut some (very small and very fiddly - especially with superglue around) rodding, angled each end and joined the small bit to the gutter at top and the pipe, below. One existing downspout had to be "sacrificed" as a rodding source - I'll replace it when my new stock arrives. I've also added a few shutter blades into one of the extraction ducts, just below the V of the main roof. Still things to do, but that's it for the moment. Jeff

Cheers, Paul. There was a Paul that posted in the KL and KL2 threads that worked on the S&C - hence my confusion. Best of luck with the Hawes branch! And, as you'll see from the post (below), I've modified my gutter pipes to be a little more in keeping with the "real thing". Jeff

I use Wizard for my point rodding gear, so I'll have a look. If you hadn't pointed this out I'd probably not have noticed the lack of finials. Strange omission as - checking on some photos - they appear to be a universal part of the Midland boxes make-up. J.

Thanks for the pic, Paul. Nearly all the S&C sheds had the narrower, lozenge-shaped windows - which are commercially available (I've got some lovely brass etches, just like the ones in your photo). Kirkby Stephen's wider windows appealed to me, but bespoke laser-cut jobs were the only way to get them (my own efforts were ok, but not what I wanted). Looking at some old, non KS, sheds last night shows that the gutters were like the ones in your pic. If I get some more 2mm rodding I'll modify one and see how it looks. Paul, memory might have played tricks on me, but (if it was you) do you still work the box at KS? Thanks for the pic. Jeff

Not sure where the idea of "weathering" was discussed.... The original sheets and roof have had several layers of acrylics dumped onto them, and I doubt I'll add any more - except for the gutters and downspouts. The shed will appear on the layout very nearly as it does now. I'm not averse to adding paint, but there's always a danger at this stage of "crossing the line" and I'm not going to do that.

Simple practical reason for the situation as it stands. The shed is still a work in progress and I didn't want the pipes catching on the baseboard as the shed was rotated. The largest gap between the bottom of a downspout and the board is actually around 1mm, so I can live with that. Edit: Sorry John, mis-read what you wrote. I was thinking about the length, not the position. I've used artistic licence with the pipes as I didn't want to put any bends in the rodding. Consequently, the downspouts descend directly under the guttering and I can make do with that. Especially as there are no non-modern images of the guttering available. Maybe a bit lazy, but I'm not trying to make precise copies of things.

Yes, Jonathan - no finials. I think this is likely an oversight. I'll email Julie at YM on Monday and point this out to her.

Guttering and 6 downspouts have now been fitted, pics attached. The guttering and spouts have had a first coat of a rusty brown acrylic, though it may not be apparent here. Work around the chimney and the air vents tomorrow, then it's time to have a break. Besides, you're probably sick of the sight of the shed! Jeff

I'm working on the guttering at this moment. I've come up with my own, "in house" solution - may not be as pretty as a kit but I think it works....a couple of pics attached. The gutter is 3.2mm semi-circular rod, the downspout is 2mm circular, glued in place using "brackets" of 20thou and 40thou plasticard slivers, respectively. The grey is simply the colour of the plastic primer. Jeff

Thanks for the comments..... Jay, I think you are correct - it's just one of those aspects of behaviour that happen on social media - and isn't going to change. Doesn't mean I have to like the system (pun intended), so I'll remain as King Canute! David, nice bit of work there. I've had to improvise with my guttering. I actually have an old Wills building pack with gutters, but it's not relevant to the scale of the shed. John, DAS is a great material but it's so much quicker with the sheets - IF you can get them to join properly. Seems to be a common factor with all their stuff, given its size. I guess things will never change as Peco won't be investing in new moulding machinery just to suit a few modellers. Steve, yes, it's going to be interesting building that kit. It's all laser cut and looks as if it will go together very nicely. It's a long, long time since I've built any kind of kit - mineral wagons in 2015, I think - so it should be fun. Once the main layout areas are "completed" I can see me spending a lot of time with Parkway kits! There....4 posts in one. Going out to the Bunker shortly. Jeff

Which brings me on to another update. The images speak for themselves, but some differences to yesterday's state-of-affairs: I re-marked, then re-painted the roof - both sides. The tiles are now clearly visible on both sides. Lintels and sills have been accentuated. Chimney attached. The first section of guttering has been fixed in place. I wasn't sure how to do this, but I've used 3.2mm Plastruct semi-circular rod for the gutter and the downspouts - tomorrow's job, hopefully - will be full circular rodding. 20thou brackets under the rod are superglued to the end of the roof. I only stuck this bit on, as a trial, about 40 minutes ago - it's visible painted brown on the 5th image. Still more to do, though I may have a short break from this to build the signal box kit I got from York Modelmaking a couple of weeks ago. Jeff

Thanks to all of you who posted "likes" for the images I put up last night. Many of you will be well aware that I'm really not keen on the whole "likes" system as there are some little discussion "clubs" on layout and other threads where a lot of likes are doled out for nothing other than a trivial comment, "That's nice", "Ooh, I love your newly unboxed loco" etc...... Then someone (I am NOT referring to myself - but look at some of the SUPERB layouts like Little Muddle, Skarloey Railway (just to pick 2 examples)) produces quite scintillating buildings, trees, weathering etc and virtually get ignored. Yes, I have an axe to grind on this and I'm not going to shut up about it. So I REALLY appreciate the "likes" awarded on this page for the scratchbuilding efforts on the shed. Thank you very much. Jeff

Ok, it's always a good idea to "come clean" when something doesn't quite work out, as it helps someone who may be following the same procedure. A few posts back, Graeme asked if the tiles were still distinguishable after the paper on the roof was painted. To which I answered "yes", which was my experience with the DAS shed that's frequently seen in the background on here. However, after 4 grey washes of dilute acrylic, one side of the present shed roof still has tiles clearly visible, the other doesn't. You can easily see the rows of tiles, but the pencil lines on this side, for some reason, have been partially covered. I've had the ruler and pencil out and re-marked about 80% of the tiles on that side. There'll be a couple more washes tomorrow and, hopefully, the pencil lines will remain visible! You can see this on the pics in my earlier post, tonight. The 2nd pic - the one on the loading side - clearly shows tiling. The "7 windows" side still has clear rows, but the individual tiles aren't very obvious (4th/5th pics). Jeff

Thanks Chris, I appreciate your positivity! Hi Steve. I presume the "dark" comment refers to the interior? It is pretty dark in there, so when it's finally been positioned I'll probably run a small LED into the shed to brighten things up a bit. I've plenty of crates - somewhere in storage - that can be stacked in there. If I can find them! Jeff Edit: If you were referring to the exterior "darkness", the shed appears like the first pic when viewed with the eye. A grey colour with some of the yellow of the Wills sheet still showing through.

Here's an update on the shed work. There are still a number of small things to do: air vent area, some fascias, step area etc. I've just fitted some stones around the entrance area to the main shed, adjacent to the office. All the rest of this was done in 2017-18, so I'm not sure why I left that bit. More washes need to go onto the roof and I'll think of putting another coat on the main exterior. Then there's the chimney. So, a few little bits, nothing major. Here are some pics, taken 30 minutes ago, posted in no particular order. Jeff

Hi Iain. Good to hear from you - we used to exchange quite a few posts back in the mists of time that was Kirkby Luneside (2013ish!!) Thanks for taking an interest in what's going on here! Jeff

Good question. I don't score the paper, but the acrylics washes - onto the paper tiles - are sufficiently thin so the pattern isn't obscured. Here's a couple of pics from page 178 of the KL2 thread showing how it looks. I DO try to make the pencil lines clear and dark before painting, though.

Here's a set of pics which I hope will show the general method. A grid is drawn to represent the tiles - in this case my tiles are 6mm x 6mm (18" in real size). I've done this example fairly quickly for illustrative purposes, so some of my lines and alignments may not be as careful as usual! The grid is cut into sections.... The first section is glued to the roof. I use neat PVA, but have used Pritt stick in the past. A second section is glued on top of the first with the desired tile overlap. In this case, the top tile overlaps the one below by about 1mm (3"). The top strip is shifted relative to the first to give a nice tiling pattern. A third strip then goes on, same tile overlap and with the strip aligned horizontally with the first to ensure a nice vertical appearance. And so on.....

If I've read this correctly, the "gap" is an optical illusion created by the pencil lines - I assume you are referring to gaps in the horizontal direction? Vertically, the strips of paper (I cut them 2 layers deep) are offset by eye. If the method is of interest to anyone, and it needs further explanation, please let me know and I'll take some pics as a step-by-step.

That last post took me over 20 minutes to sort out. The picture-handling on this site is cr@p - unless it's just me being ridiculously thick!! (Probably true)

Evening all. For those who prefer some detail of what's been built, rather than a batch of "pretty pictures", I've given some specifics below, along with some more pics. Roof "slating": I don't know where the slating technique originates from. I've used the method described since about 2012 - thanks to Jason Thomas on his magnificent Bacup layout (if you haven't seen it, do a search in the Layouts section - I'm assuming it's still there). My roof tiles were set at 1'6" x 1'6", hence 6mm x 6mm at 4mm scale. Heavy duty paper (150gsm) was ruled into a grid and sections sliced off using a scalpel, glued onto the roof structure - with overlap - using PVA glue. The roof base is 2mm ply. Once both sections of roof were tiled, they were fixed to the shed skeleton using evostik instant adhesive. The gap along the top was then covered in "ridge tiles". I made these from 20thou plastikard - I think each tile is 14mm long, scored with a steel ruler and sat across the roof join, fixed in place with superglue. I deliberately went out of my way to keep the ridge neat, but not precisely aligned as the real thing is never perfect. Loading dock: The internal loading dock has been fixed in place. As shown in an earlier post, there are 3 doors to fit into the gaps. The left and right doors aren't full length, the base of them sits on the "stools" shown in the photo, below. These are made from 4mm plastruct rodding, cut to 7mm length. They will need rubbing down and painting. End of roof details: The photo shows a view of the goods shed at Kirkby Stephen, now used by a haulage company. Various roof struts and an office chimney need adding in. The roof struts were added using 2mm plastruct rod. The basis of the chimney has been built, from a core of 4mm wide plastikard to which some Wills stone is being added.

Details of the slating given in the post, below. Rich, the shed is fairly light - comfortable to hold at arms length for an extended period. No balance in the bunker, but I'd say it'd be 300-400 grams maximum.