Iain C Robinson

I've just popped in on this thread to see what the boss was up to - and I see he's not been standing still...bloomin' brilliant stuff, guv. I particularly like the pre-distressed station...I imagine that must have been a commission for a branch of the Beeching family to remind them of their long lost forebear... well, it's really amazing modelling. I actually thought it was real when I first set eyes upon it. I see there's also some young guy in your living room, striking a pose with your strat- the lodger? Good to see the legendary model making skills are still on top form! cheers, Iain

Thanks, Peter- as you probably know, I have a bit of a "thing" for Dorothea and I have often thought it would make a good narrow gauge model railway, the section from Gallt-y-Fedw and Pen-y-Bryn perhaps through past Plas Talysarn to the LNWR/ Nantlle rly sidings. OK if you like little Hunslets Motorising Prince and Corwen might pose difficulties... Your model of the Engine House is fab! cheers, Iain

Hi Andy, I like your Kingsbridge structure, it captures the prototype nicely, and the stonework is excellent. I wish I had known about your project earlier, as I did an etch of Kingsbridge about a year ago and sent it to PPD for etching. I still have the artwork with the canopy valancing but it has a lot of other stuff on it (including 7mm William Clarke ironwork) that you wouldn't want. I can, however, find the artwork for you and you could alter it to just give you the valancing and then send it to PPD perhaps. Unfortunately I have just used the last of the brass etch on the goods shed canopy, or you could have had that...sorry! Cheers, Iain

Hi Peter, I have often wondered about the place as I drive past it often while mooching in the Nantlle Quarries or researching and photographing abandoned houses on the South side of Dyffryn Nantlle. Looks very impressive! cheers, Iain

I was talking earlier about finding suitable items for inside the goods shed- Hornby used to do some great crates and baskets, but for some reason have discontinued these. Mikkel, who has a thread on here and a great blog (http://www.farthinglayouts.org/ ) had a couple of masterclasses on making crates and stuff for Edwardian goods depots...but I wanted something quick and dirty, that wouldn't take me long as I can't charge that stuff to my customer. Mikkel had suggested "RustyStumps" castings, who do a neat set of accessories in resin including all kinds of crates. I sent away six days ago and they came today...I painted them in quiet moments between doing my tax return (!). They are not expensive and the guy's service is amazing...I have no connection obviously, but here are a couple of shots of the one that I bought. It looks fine next to a Knightwing crate, the scratch built ones and a couple of Hornby baskets. Unpainted painted In place! Sorry to bore you with this, like anything to do with railway modelling, once you start studying something it opens up a whole new world of detail cheers, Iain

Lee wrote "so where are your blog updates then eh? Been nothing since a stroll down main street! ;)" I have quite a backlog of stuff to post, and I must get down to doing the updates- the same with "Treasure maps". Thanks for the nudge. That retaining wall looks rather nifty, and I agree that scribing bricks is a sure way to lose your mind- although I have the advantage in that I don't have any sanity to lose. Like you, I tend to use the Foamex for everything, I even packed up a customer's model in it this week and it arrived without a scratch. The foamex is so light and strong, I am very grateful to you for putting me in the right direction with it. Glad to see you are still busy with commercial work as well as the web work. cheers, Iain

Hello old pal, I was just thinking that you were the one to talk about Foamex - as it was you that persuaded me to try it in the first place. Nice to see these models again, lovely stuff. What are you up to now...eh? cheers, Iain edited...for spelling again!

Hi Andy, I like that! Very impressive work. I really like the slates, the detail and the light touch you have with the weathering. It all looks very realistic and will be an impressive feature on the layout. The stonework has come off very well, too...and the build is a nice sharp one with no dodgy angles. The Harbourmaster's looks very promising and I would like to see more of that when it progresses. cheers, Iain edited for spelling...as usual!

Hi Andy, thanks! I generally use 3mm Foamex...I also use 5mm, but for general purpose work the 3mm is very useful. I use "Palight", but there are all sorts of different types out there and you can buy it from a couple of good suppliers on Ebay. I find the thinner Foamex is fine so long as you don't scribe it, because it will warp quite badly at that thickness. The shed is built mostly with 3mm Foamex, laminated with another sheet for the inside walls- it also gives the illusion of depth and is easier to cut than one big sheet of 5mm! I use Super Glue to stick it to itself and to Styrene, card, etc...some people use Evo-Stik impact but I have found joints to fail very badly with that glue. With Superglue it is permanent and you can use the slightly less instantaneous type so that you can position the components, rather than ruining something you've spent a day scribing! Yes, you are right, normal solvents like Mek don't touch it. Do have a go, it is very nice and clean to work with and scribes beautifully. I might suggest a tutorial by Master Modelmaker David Neat, who is a great exponent of Foamboard. https://davidneat.wordpress.com/materials/constructing/palight-foamed-pvc/ Hope this helps, cheers, Iain

For me, the Cameo is a no-brainer, because I use it in some way for almost every job I do. But the software is awful, deeply unintuitive and downright impossible to accomplish anything more than a straightforward set of squares. I use Illustrator and port it to the Cameo with an add-on bit of software, but it doesn't get it right every time...better than the "Studio" software though. You can use Inkscape with it too, although I find that a bitch to use as well. The cameo does have it's limitations and sometimes mysterious things happen that have to be sorted within the machine's settings, but I still love it to bits. All the windows were done with it on the goods shed, from Canford card, spray mounted onto the glazing substrate. I tend to use a 65 degree blade for it's accuracy and buy them from Ebay at a fraction of the cameo ratchet blades which are very variable in quality as well as being much more expensive than the Chinese ones. If you are methodical and can learn empirically, then the Cameo will be a very rewarding tool. I am neither but I still wouldn't be without it. Hope that gives you some food for thought! cheers, Iain

Whatever floats your boat, I say ... Anyway, here are some pics of something I have been working on in order to quell the proliferation of oil men on this thread...There is still a lot to do on it before it will be finished, so this is "in progress" The goods shed is based on Kingsbridge, but actually with every day that goes by, it becomes less "based on Kingsbridge". I somehow put the office chimney on the wrong side, not sure how I did that, but my long-suffering customer just wanted it left, he preferred it like that...phew! I have had fun with the interior, the customary joists etc from Evergreen section 252 square tube, built on a jig. The walls are scribed foamex, inside and out. Crane is a bit freelance but hopefully catches the spirit of a typical one. Packing cases are cut out on the Cameo cutter and then assembled. I have sent for some accessories from the US, recommended by the excellent Mikkel, made by www.rustystumps.com...they do some amazing castings and as well as cases I have ordered some workshop clutter for my loco works...will show on here when they arrive. Tomorrow I will be packing up a different model to send to a customer, it's a big one and will take all day to build the packing case for it. I sometimes use a dedicated company from Aberdeen who do nothing but move models and film sets but wow are they pricey...OK for oil jobs when cost is no object, but tomorrow it will be a local carrier, based on the fact that I know where he lives and will go round there if anything goes wrong Anyway, some pics! above: the interior with joists and crane. above: just a shot to show the effectiveness of the scribed stonework. Das? No thanks... More pics when it is finished! cheers, Iain

OK, that's proper modelmaking. Lovely to see this...very fine work indeed! cheers, Iain

Oh, Blimey! Respect is due then, I thought it was a kit bash! Very, very fine work indeed. Yes, you should start a blog for the layout, I am sure I'm not the only one to be intrigued. cheers, Iain

The boat/ship is like one of those Lake Lucerne paddle steamers...very nice indeed. cheers, Iain

Very atmospheric, I can almost smell the coal smoke lingering after the last train. cheers, Iain

Border Control has been notified. Have a great week Allan! cheers, Iain OK guys, now for that P4 windmill project...who's got the Colron...

That latest bridge from the Downes magic bench is amazing...lovely stonework and treatment thereof. One of the things that stands out about all this work with the bridges, (apart from the sheer class and talent) is consistency, the hallmark of a master. Now, on to slightly less Olympian works. I have finally got round to photo-ing the 4mm scale 90's distribution depot- the brief was for a very sorry looking structure that hadn't had much care taken over it. It's fully detailed internally and lit by 8 LED's. It's made in foamboard (Palight 3mm) with laminates of Wills profiled steel cladding. here's the pics: I felt it was important to depict the wire and pipe runs in these buildings along with motors for the doors. The fire extinguishers are scratch built from Evergreen section. The LEDs run on bus wires, painted to look like more pipe runs. The other end of the building has a covered truck loading bay, which seems to have come in for a lot of damage by trucks and rail traffic. I made the logo up from something found on the internet, and the name Northwood is a nod to one of my railway modelling inspirations of old, Ken Northwood. cheers, Iain

White Rabbit: that looks mighty fine, I love the weathering and the plant details...also the goats and the sense of impending trouble! The plants are amazing, I even recognise some of them and I have an aversion to flowers (I'm serious, I really do, not just trying to get out of gardening :-) ) I have taken note of the Noch products, thanks for the tip. Allan- looking forward to the pics before you've had any whisky tomorrow...it is looking amazing so far! I always like the hints of the Olympian temple of creation in the background of your shots...in my case, from chaos comes...er...more chaos- while you have the whole genius thing going. Top work, old pal! cheers, Iain

Thank you Bill, you're a gentleman. I guess it is obvious, but I should have said, it's in 4mm of course. More photos of other things to come later! cheers, Iain

Believe it or not, we are supposed to be getting a wind farm on the top of one of our local mines, Llechwedd, the one that does all the Zip Wires, "Bounce Below" (sounds like a belly dancing convention) and the downhill Bike runs. It's likely to spoil a fair bit of archaeology with the access roads but I guess it's all in a good cause. Not that Lechwedd have ever bothered about a bit of archaeology... Just hope Allan hasn't had anything to do with the plans ! cheers, Iain

Allan, those examples of Downes bravura girderage make me want to give up- so good, so accurate and square...and so fast! I have been snowed under with work but right now I am doing a little fun project for a friend, building some garden sheds for his layout (Llangunllo)...I'm thoroughly enjoying pottering about with them and it strikes me as the sort of project that a beginner could do and get results very quickly. It seems absurd posting these pics after the magnificence that has gone before, but I hope it might encourage some folk on here who are daunted by what seems God-like work from the boss. First pic- the walls made from card Painted up and with choice bits added from Scalelink castings. I painted the walls with washes of acrylic, with reference to my own garden shed which is lost in a grassy wilderness with a rusted up lawn mower inside :-) More detail in the interior with guess what, plastruct pea sticks! Finally roofed up (that means something rather different in slate mining circles...) using Daler Murano charcoal paper and a Springside cat (who needs a bit more flash filing off) The gutter and downspouts are too coarse, and I will replace tonight with slimmer ones...you really notice it in the photo, although in real life it looks OK. This was a lot of fun, and I have two more to build in my spare time. If you want to see Geoff's layout, it's at http://radnorailways.blogspot.co.uk/ and is a delight, although all that will change with the addition of the huts, it will all be downhill from then on... I will post the other stuff I have been building very soon, not that it can hold a candle to Speedy Downes, the fastest scalpel in the west! cheers, Iain (edited for spelling) (edited AGAIN for a dodgy link)

Hi Peter, these bridges are superb and I will have to buy that Hornby mag now to savour the layout. I know the Connel ferry bridge very well, used to cycle over it in my teens- you have caught the atmosphere well and as for the construction it is pretty damned impressive. Where would we be without Plastruct and Evergreen sections- well, your model is a very good advert for the advanced use of the stuff. Superb. cheers, Iain

That is so funny. One of the apprentices at an agency that I worked for in Glasgow was a wonderful Goth girl with a serious attitude...she was angry with the boss one day and went over to his desk, sprayed it with "Kleen Art" and set fire to it! Amazingly, the boss saw the funny side and she wasn't sacked! All the more amazing considering that one of the staff made a complete flustercuck of a job and after sacking the guy, my boss kicked the door and put his foot right through it. We were all trying not to laugh... cheers, Iain

Here's the LSD special... cheers, Iain

I couldn't afford Mek Pak at £8 a page...I think it was polycell brush cleaner...quite good as a solvent for styrene, the only trouble is that it doesn't know when to stop. Came back from lunch to find a contemporary art sculpture where my model had been ...