LBSC123

Well, I would deem ‘Project tone done the fencing wire’ as a success...

Good question @NHY 581. I've made things a little harder for myself on account of designing it so that two sides of the the layout are the viewing area and the other two have backscenes, this means I in effect have a free standing corner without support at the front of the layout. The current plan (about version 13?) is to use some appropriate aluminium L-angle for the lighting. At the right hand end of the layout this will be L shaped, one leg attaching down the back of the layout, held by bolts tightened into captive nuts in the soft wood at the back of the layout, the other leg will extend out to above the front right hand corner. I'll then run a piece of Aluminium L angle from the front left corner along the front to connect to this. Hopefully this will be light and strong enough to prevent it sagging. These will be bolted together and have two strips of LED strip on them. This was used to great effect on my first lockdown project as seen below.

Definitely keen for a Stroudley brake or any other LBSC stuff, it looks great. Keep up the good work!

Thanks both for the kind words! The glue finally dried, allowing me to take some photographs of the woodland at the far end of the layout. I think I need to find something to take the shine off the fence wire, I’ll try some acrylic paint and if that fails use the airbrush. Otherwise it’s shaping up nicely. (One of) the next jobs is to sort out the lighting, I promise.... I need to do the other bit of fencing at the rear of the layout too, alongside fitting some ladders and seaweed to the quay and shoreline to get this ready for the resin pour....

Spent a few hours over the weekend pushing the quay on. I wired up the Scale Model Scenery fence posts with 0.2mm wire which then cleared the way for fitting the trees. These are a mixture of Woodland Scenics armatures with seafoam attached to the branches and seafoam trees, all covered with various Woodland Scenics coarse and fine turf and Noch leaves. Please excuse the paint bottles, which are supporting the trees whilst the PVA gluing them down dries. I couldn't resist taking photos before this had dried.

I quite agree Ray. My Fishbourne also seems OK but is in need of a full running in which I hope to do over the coming weeks.

Looking good as always. I didn’t realise the Ex IWC midland Brake Van was painted in SR livery before being rebuilt, do you know when it was rebuilt?

The wagons look really good @woko! Keep up the good work.

Looks like a good project with lots of potential, I shall watch with interest. Foamboard is an interesting material to work with, you definitely need to clad it in some sort of Ply if you're planning on moving the layout through around, as it's not very knock resistant. Make sure you use PVA and a hot glue gun for the joints, I've gone back in a few places where I just used hot glue during construction to add a bit more strength to the joints. Also be mindful of if you're going to have an integral backscene or not, on Shalfleet Quay I've only got a backscene on two sides, which means they layout doesn't really act like a 'box' when lifting or moving it, so I had to go back and put a few more supports in some areas underneath to reduce deflection. The stuff is very easy to work with, so there's no need to scrimp on under-baseboard supports and bracing. I'd probably use 10mm stuff if I was to do it again, purely because it's so light, and you might as well use a material that's thicker and stronger to start with, but 5mm was totally fine for Shalfleet Quay. I would also consider putting down some sort of base for the track bed, possibly ply or something that wouldn't warp as this would add more strength and give something less shock absorbing for SEEP point motors to mount to, if you're using them. This would also mean that it would be easier to take up and put down track should your plans change halfway through. Having said this, I don't think it's essential to do this at all. Chris Nevard's photos on constructing Catcott Burtle are also very useful for baseboard construction.

This was news I didn't need to see, having seen on of the Yugoslavian derivatives working in the Zenica coal mine back in 2014 these have always been a favourite class of mine....

Thanks Colin!

Finally received my replacement Rail's Terrier. It looks rather splendid.

As promised, here are some photos of the O2 and the newly arrived replacement Rails Terrier. Both are looking good, I think.

I didn't know about the air pump being a different size. I think there are a few other differences such as the Cab roof vent too but I can't remember off the top of my head what the others our. Still its should look mostly right. Thanks @Graham_Muz for this. I was thinking about LED strip too, although I'm not yet settled on a way of mounting them above the board. Some more thinking is required in this area, I think. I can't remember which was the last loco to get a name but think it was around 1930 ish? I can't find the appropriate book to hand at present. I was mainly thinking of avoiding names because I thought it was more likely for a model to be made with name plates, but I haven't made a firm decision on this either way. Should EFE do another batch I am sure I'll end up with quite a few, finances permitting... I'll watch with interested to see how you get on with the conversion @TeakDB

Crikey that's a fine piece of kit! I was thinking of something slightly simpler, this being a wooden frame which would attach to the top of the layout and allow me to glue some LED strip to it. Something like that could still be very useful for the workbench/photography though...

Thanks @Graham_Muz, it’s certainly an ‘interesting’ model to take apart and put back together, but a good learning experience all the same. I do have half an idea to remove one of the air tanks and move the other, and then re-number it as a pre-1928ish O2 before they received names. Whether I manage, or whether it’s wise do this before a possible EFE announcement on another batch (should there be one) remains to be seen.

Plucked up the courage to pull the non motorised O2 apart and fit the replacement chassis, it was a very involved process see the pictures below. Thankfully got it all back together and it's still working. When testing this, I got another DC loco out for running and couldn't resist taking this photo. I really must sort a proper lighting rig out rather than relying on an LED spotlight...

Looking good! What weathering powders did you use to create such an effect?

Great work as always, I’m particularly enjoying watching you adapt standard wagon kits into good representations of IoW wagons. Keep up the good work!

A lovely layout. The quayside area looks really good, I will enjoy reading updates with interest.

Thanks both for the kind words of encouragement!

Thanks @Graham_Muz!

Does anyone have any advice on how to get the body off one of these? Looking at the instructions which come with these it's not entirely clear how you can get the body off the running plate. It looks to be held at the rear by two screws and the front by some clips?

I haven't got the rails DCC sound terrier, as it unfortunately sold out before I got round to making a purchase, so can't make a comparison to that one myself. However a friend of mine kindly fitted a Locoman Sounds Terrier chip alongside a Sugar Cube speaker in the cab of a Hornby Terrier, which sounds rather good (video from the supplier, not my loco below). I'm also planning to fit this to my Rails one when I get round to it. Note: no connection other than being a happy customer.

Spent a few hours this morning on the static grass. This is a mix of WWS summer and autumn 2mm, summer, patchy and muddy 4mm, and 6mm dead and burnt grass. As inspiration I followed the techniques of Luke Towan, and the video from Luke's APS below. Generally speaking, the look I was trying to capture is similar to this photo I posted a few pages ago: I first went over with a pass of 2mm grass, then roughed this up as shown in the video above and used some WWS 'static grass layering spray' to make further more selective passes with 4mm and 6mm grass. I've also put a few grass tufts around, which were made from 4mm/6mm grass applied into a blob of PVA. I'll let the results speak for them selves, but I'm pretty happy with how this has come out. I then pressed on with the trees. I used the same WWS layering spray to the branches and then covered them with Woodland Scenics medium green coarse turf. I've put a few Noch leaves on these, but will also be adding some fine turf (when this arrives) but think they're coming together rather nicely anyway. I offered them up into position, they're not glued down which is why they aren't straight, I think I'll add a few smaller sea foam trees between them to represent Birch trees but I'll wait until I've fitted the wire fence and these trees to see how the scene looks. Finally, using a Dremel, I ground out the base of the hand crane so that I could glue a 4BA bolt to the bottom. A suitable hole was drilled through the baseboard and this was fitted. The bolt will allow for semi-permanent attachment of this, whilst still enabling it to be removed for track cleaning, or to be adjusted for photographs. (I've just spotted for a few lose bits of scatter and the fact the roof isn't on properly at the building at the rear!) Anyway, I think that will do for now. More soon.