Iain C Robinson

Hi Pete, I'm sorry that you are having trouble scribing...in that scale, it is not easy. I generally coat the board with a light wash of dark grey paint...black is useless, but grey helps you see where you are while scribing. It also depends on the stonework. Coursed style is relatively easy, but snecked is a swine and for that I actually draw the stonework on first, leaving a slight indentation, then I rub thinned paint into it so that I can tell when I've scribed it. I use a massive magnifying light, too. For actual scribing I use a small screwdriver that I have ground down with the dremel until it has a fine point, then blunted the point so that it is slighty rounded but still pointy, (technical terms again). Depending on the brand of Foamex that you are using, if the point is too sharp it will pull or drag the scribe mark into a tear...and the foamex is not that easy to sand down. I know Lee Robinson, one of the leading exponents of Foamex, uses a specially ground dart, but anything pointy that fits your hand comfortably will do. I also have a set of dentist's probes which are handy...they were on sale from Boots a while ago although I get mine from my very nice compatriot at my local dental surgery. Putting a texture on the stones, I use a slightly smaller point, from a set of dividers that I have butchered until they are only half the instrument they were. Lee uses the knurled side of the dart in 4mm which is a clever idea...I have not tried that yet. I hope you get on well with the scribing and don't forget to post photos of your model on here, I would be very keen to see how you get on. cheers, Iain

Thanks very much to everyone who took the trouble to answer my little enquiry about scrap sharps. There is a facility at Boston Lodge for metals, but encouraged by you lot, I phoned the council again and got an actually intelligent person instead of the moron I spoke to last- and she said that Harlech "recycling facility" (tip) would take the blades if I spoke to someone rather than just chucking them in the metals skip. So problem solved! Thanks guys. cheers, Iain

I hadn't thought of that...good idea. I shall go along to Boston Lodge this weekend and ask. cheers, Iain

I'm sorry I asked now! There isn't an emoticon for "stamps foot like rumplestiltskin" is there? I just think it's irresponsible to dump the (thousands of) blades...or there again, could be my Scots presbyterian upbringing showing cheers, Iain

I wonder if anyone has any bright ideas about this problem. I have a large plastic box of redundant knife blades and other sharps...I am no good at re-sharpening them, so they are wasted once blunt. I've asked my local council (Gwynedd) but they are not interested in recycling the sharps and suggest I wrap them up and put them in the bin. (what?) So I wonder what other folk on here do with the old knife blades, bearing in mind I am talking about a few thousand here...is there any way to have them recycled rather than dumping them? cheers, Iain

Nurse! !!!!

Thanks, Shaun. I have got a big list of projects to work my way through ...all pretty good fun and I will try and post them on here when they are getting on. First to be completed will be the 2mm scale pub from Tormouth...just cameo cutting the slates now. Then I am also making a goods shed and a distribution depot, plus knocking up those 7mm pubs and selling them to Allan to pass off as his own. cheers, Iain

No, you posted a photo of the real one. Let's see the model then...?? cheers, Iain

Thanks for looking in, Pete and it's really good to have you on the forum. That Downes guy isn't about right now- so just to let you in on one ground rule. Please, don't mention cathedrals while you are on here. Windmills are OK, but...not cathedrals . Unless you happen to have one up your sleeve, in which case, bring it on! cheers, Iain

First the cathedral...now this! It's all too much Iain

Takes notes furiously

Thanks, Allan. I tend to use a pair of screw thread dividers now for measurements as I find that I have an amazing propensity for getting numbers mixed up...always have. At secondary school my Maths mistress found me so infuriatingly dim that she used to use my head as a stress relieving punchbag. She would be prosecuted today, but back in the sixties it was par for the course. Her name was Mrs Schofield and I hope she's spinning somewhere extremely hot now. I was lucky, my next maths teacher was a lovely guy, a railway modeller and steam buff who used to let me look out of the window in class when a train went by....mainly because he was too! I did buy a clear plastic rule recently with lines on it and a steel bead along the edge...I don't measure with it, but the squared lines are very handy for getting cuts straight. I also just mark off measurements on cereal box card and transfer them to the workpiece, that has worked well for the last 35 years :-) I'm having another hack and hope session now on the pub roof. Jeez, I'm supposed to be able to do this... cheers, Iain

I can't really hold a candle to Allan's pubs...but here is a 7mm scale structure I made a while ago...the notes are taken from my blog, so apologies if anyone has read this before! Here's something I made for Tim Hale's 7mm scale "Pottendorf" layout. The prototype, Veilbronn, was in a delightful location but, as a result, photographers were too busy pointing their cameras at the scenery rather than the charming little line that ran through the valley. Tim unearthed a couple of photos which gave vestigial details, but much has had to be guessed at, especially the roof! One of the photos Tim found, featuring the shelter. I'm hazarding a guess that it is post-war from the fashions of the folk waiting for the railcar. I drew a rough couple of elevations and a plan form out onto graph paper and guessed the size, based upon probable door height. It's a simple structure, no more than a box, although with a tricky roof. (I'll come back to that in a minute). As with most very simple structures, any sloppy work stands out like a sore thumb, so I had to take the utmost care to keep the work sharp and clean. The elevations were Pritt-Stikked onto 3mm foamboard and cut out. The graph paper could then be removed easily from the foamboard. I made up windows and doors from laminations of styrene although now I would probably cut them out from card using the handy-dandy Cameo Cutter. These items were painted and set aside. The prototype appeared to have been rendered, rather like a pebbledash finish and I had been wondering how I was going to do this. Well, you know how sometimes, you have an idea and it seems so stupidly obvious? Surely it couldn't be of any use, you think- rather like the letters columns of the 1950's Railway Modeller where folk advocated using combs for signal box levers, or corrugated card for a ploughed field. Only my bright idea was to cover the structure with coarse grade sandpaper. Deeply sceptical, I thought I would try it anyway although it seemed too good, too easy to be true. Here, the double-sided is being applied, I cut it out of the door and window openings before removing the backing. I laid all the sides out and worked out the way I was going to assemble them so I knew which elevation had to have the paper overlapping. I was going for butt-jointing of the sandpaper, not that it was going to work, of course. I'd bought a roll of super-tacky double-sided tape from 4D supplies in London and figured that this was as good a time as any to try it out. The sandpaper stuck brilliantly- I used a wallpaper seam-roller to smooth it on. Oh, well, it wasn't ever going to come off, at any rate- although, was that a good thing? Biting the bullet, I laid the sides up on the base and started fixing them with the aid of a set-square and some of my trademark cursing. This is one of the reasons I can never give demonstrations of my work at shows. The assembly has to be done with care, as the Super Glue doesn't take prisoners and sets instantly you apply any pressure. In a few minutes, the basic shell was complete. I began to allow myself to think that this might work! I painted the structure with a large brush and some Wilco's tester pot emulsion. I've a feeling it was "Mineral Stone", but I see I didn't make a note of it in my day-book. I normally make notes on my work- it helps in case a customer re-orders something similar, or wants repairs done after damage. (you'd be surprised how often that happens...cats are no.1 on the list...) I used the paint sparingly and it went on beautifully. To my surprise, the sandpaper trick had worked! The windows and door were added once the paint had dried and then it was time to make the roof. Up till now, I was remembering how easy it is to build models in 7mm/ft. The size is ideal to work with, unlike the smaller scales where, especially in 2mm/ft, everything is a bit of a challenge. Tim had kindly supplied me with a lovely sheet of embossed plastic to represent the fish scale tiles that the halt was to be roofed with, so I set about sketching out a card sub-roof. Now, maths is not my strong point, and it took me several attempts to get the angles and pitches right. I am told that there is a mathematical way to calculate roofs, but I have always just "felt" the solution. Not this time, I was getting no help from the muse of roofing. Eventually there was a pile of rejected roof pitches like Beau Brummel's cravats, but somehow, in a process rather like a room full of monkeys with typewriters producing "Hamlet", I won. The sub-roof in place, at last! Some of the discarded attempts... Ridge Cappings were fashioned from Daler Murano card, bent round a paintbrush ferrule and stuck to the roof with Evo-Stick. The sharpened stick is just a little implement I use for applying glue. The tiles were painted with Humbrol # 180 acrylic and then washed over with # 113, finally splattering with a weak mix of black, wiping off with a kitchen towel, but leaving a residue in the cracks. A finishing touch was to add the security grilles from a sheet of Scale Link etched brass. Weathering was by restrained use of pastels, ground up on more of the sandpaper and applied with a dry, soft brush. The model above, weathered and with the security grilles fixed on. Guttering was from Evergreen 244 half-round, while down-pipes were made from copper wire.It just goes to show that sometimes, good ideas that form in odd moments of contemplation are sometimes useful. I never did use corrugated card for ploughed fields, although, as regular readers will know, my Dad did tear one of my Mum's green velvet party dresses up to make "grass" for our layout. Even if he was made to pay for that bright idea... Thanks to Tim for the opportunity to build this unusual structure.

Beautiful job, Pete. The ivy is wonderful...and all the little details that add believability like the flashing on the bay roofs, all studied and replicated from real life. Excellent work. cheers, Iain

Hi Lee! The stonework is simply scribed foamex, with cameo cutter-cut quoins- try saying that after a couple of pints :-) Glad you like the embryonic distribution depot. cheers, Iain

Petra has a job to finish for tomorrow, so I am providing tea and encouragement...and doing a bit of modelmaking/struggling with bits of card that don't want to do anything :-) cheers, Iain

Allan's workbench? Out of chaos...comes genius. cheers, Iain

Well, I can't compete with all this pop-up pub building! I am but a tortoise compared to Road Runner Downes! Such consistency and excellence...and speed! However, I have three projects on the bench just now, one which I can't show at the moment because the customer hasn't seen it yet. The others..well, one is a row of buildings again...a half timbered mock-tudor roadhouse, a chip shop and hotel all in 2mm scale. They are not finished yet, but here are some in-progress shots and I will be writing the whole slugging match up on my blog soon. The pub has been started again- mk.1 is above in the photo, because I wasn't happy with the bay windows, or the height compared with the buildings it had to sit next to. The next job on the bench, which has now progressed a bit further than this is a 4mm scale distribution depot for the blue era out of foamex and Will's vertical "steel" sheets: The last thing is Kingsbridge Goods Shed which I will show once my customer has OK'd the images and the model! cheers for now, Iain

That woman Amazingly it made me laugh, although I would prefer to see her under the foundations beneath four feet of "C" grade concrete! cheers, Iain

That's first class work there Grahame.Couldn't find anything wrong even if I wanted to. Luckily nobody has asked me to build a thatched structure for about 30 years...heaves sigh of relief! The wall covering and details... and the weathering on your structure are all excellent and finely done. Very believable. cheers, Iain

Super progress, Allan. I wonder what brewery is going to own the pub? Change of wall covering noted around the entrance area...nice...and I like that you've used plywood for the chimneys or is it just fourbeetoobee? (cms of course :-) ) Anyway, great progress. cheers, Iain

Thanks mate. It's good to be back...although I am now going to make a trip to the Fens to get that cottage out of your bin as it was too good to throw away...thinks...(cue voice of Gollum) " I can pass it off as mine very own work..." The workbench is very full at the moment, several jobs on and many more waiting, so I should have one or two things to show soon...although I can't work at the speed of the Master. I did try to flange a deal with Lucifer, but while he was OK about the magnificently upholstered ladies, he wouldn't budge on the 24 hours in a day thing. How did you get round him, Allan? :-) thanks, guys, for having me back and for not giving me a swift boot up the archipelago for having the nerve to return- cheers, Iain

Aw thanks Lee! Just seen your signal box...tasty! very nice indeed. Will go and have a proper look now. cheers, Iain