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Well, progress on the granary is moving along at a pace now (a very slow one). My intention is to model 3 of the sides and all of the internals. If a job's worth doing it worth doing right... In other news there has been a very long new arrival in the yard: The Heljan Cargowagon was bought with the intention of decorating it with some local graffiti. Have to say that the model is pretty disappointing for something that's so expensive new.

That's the one I'm going to order, along with a Mashima motor and Alan Gibson wheels etc. Presumably you get good slow speed movement with such a low gear. Mike

I've got a Judith Edge Yorkshite DE2 sitting in it's box. I really should try to motivate myself and get it started. Might be easier with the wheels, gearbox and motor though, so I should really get those ordered this week. Mike

That's nice.

A good variety of visitors on show but for me that 06 looks the part sat in the siding. Mike

Yes, that's taken a few hours to get that far and that's only about 1/4 of the front elevation. Worth it though and who cares how long it takes - it's modelling and I enjoy doing it. Mike

After a bit of a break, mainly spent waiting for the large slab of DAS to dry, I've finally managed to get on and start scribing the front of the granary. I'm pretty pleased with the way it's looking so I think I'll ditch the card version and plough on with this one. Mike

Before embarking on the mission that's going to be building the granary from slabs of DAS, I thought it prudent to try it out on something smaller... I've ended up liking this wall so much that I'm going to make it a feature on the 'headshunt'.

Good to hear from you Jock, and always nice to know that there are folk out there who have been to Duns! Jim Clarke is a hero to the town and the surrounding area. By all accounts a great man as well as a great driver. The levers I'm using are very nice etched brass ones from the Shire Scenes range, available from Dart Castings. £3 for four levers. http://www.dartcastings.co.uk/shire/S50.php Mike

Just noticed that the address on the bottle of static grass that's propping up the granary in the last photo is ...Duns... Must have bought that stuff from The Model Tree Shop who are just up the road from the real Thorburn's.

Thanks guys. In an attempt to not waste the work I'd already done on the granary I decided to re-scribe a section and then smear DAS into the gaps. It looks much better than it did. Still going to try the DAS scribing though, so I've made a nice block of it to try out some techniques on. I've also spent a small fortune on brass sections today so I may have a go at re-doing the steel rack. Mike

Thanks Neil, On reflection I'm pretty happy with the way the sheds are looking but not that happy with the weight of the steel rack. I think I'll have another shot at that. Maybe building it from brass would be a better option so that I can get better fine detail. The Granary looks quite nice and I'm happy with the way that it takes up space but I'm disappointed with the finish I'm getting after painting the card. Some of the definition has gone and one part in particular has gone fuzzy. Hmmm, that'll be too much water. The best option might be to either have another shot on the half that I didn't paint last night and see if I can sort it out, or roll out a slab of DAS and try working with that. Mike

Not sure what I'm going to do with the 56. It'll need a respray once I've done the detailing and what have you. I quite like the Railfreight grey so I'll probably go with that. I've got a 26 but it's a Dutch one. A Railfreight one is on my list... Maid a fair bit of progress tonight. The old granary is starting to take shape. The steel rack is coming along.

Managed to find a couple of hours today to have a shot a making and fitting some AJs. I had built the jigs quite a while ago but had never been too inclined to build the couplings. I've not added the magnetic dropper yet so I can only couple up but they do appear to be working quite well. Here's a wee video of them in action. http://vimeo.com/110471341 Mike

I had noticed that. There is even a set of Lima wheels that might have been useful if there had been 6 axles rather than 4.

Thorburn's got a visitor yesterday. A mainline Class 56 picked up in Harburn Hobbies for £30. A surprisingly nice model although I'm not sure about the conversion to P4 - Ultrascale might be the only real option. If nothing else it'll be a good detailing project and it can always end up on mum and dad's garden railway.

Tonight I managed to extend the shed out to the back of the layout, creating an apex in the roof. I was a little disappointed with the way the sheets butted together, leaving a pretty obvious joint. The door got some warning stripes, mainly because I love they way they look, and the whole thing got another coat of paint and some weathering. All it needs now is a roof... My next focus is going to be on creating a steel rack. I'll be using the Wills transparent corrugated roof light material for a bit of variety. It's also thin, unlike the normal stuff.

I'll post some pictures of the girder when I get a bit more time. In the meantime here's a wee bit of shed progress.

Cheers Neil, The building in the corner will joined by another few as time goes on. I've never been that confident with buildings so I'm going to take my time to create something I'm happy with. Lots of other mini projects to be getting on with too. I built up a Will's Vari Girder the other night. A totally disappointing representation of a riveted girder in my opinion (I'm a bridge engineer mind). I won't go into the deficiencies right now, but lets just say I'll be ordering the one by Masokits. Mike

What I've noticed, whilst scouring the verges of all the footpaths in Edinburgh, is that there are quite a number of plants that become quite two-dimensional once they get to a size that could be useful for modelling in 4mm. My next experiment is going to be with heather.

Building work has started but not on the granary. Here's a general shot of the layout And an arty shot of the foreground! The static grass machine made an outing tonight for blocking in more of the front portion of the layout. Thinks are coming together quite nicely.

Cheers Alan, Yes, that's the secret. Not every bit of twig of the same size, even from the same plant looks right. I've even been back to check if there any other suitable bits. Interesting info about the dried yarrow. I guess the equivalent these days would be the sea foam which I used on Tarbhit. I thought it was passable in N gauge with lots of flock but I knew it wasn't going to be up to the job in 4mm when I'm trying to model bare trees. I've used is in a couple of places so far to represent small bushes but I'm not sure about them. I think I'll use more of the random plants I found along the canal. Mike

I've always believed that you should try to avoid using natural materials in models because they don't scale well. That was until the last couple of days when I started collecting bits of plant to 'plant' on the layout. On the way from the bike shed this morning my eye was attracted to a particularly nice bit of twig and into my bag it went. Some of the bits I pulled off the tree stump were scattered about on the grass. A new puddle has filled up overnight too. Must have been all of that rain at the weekend. Good excuse for a gratuitous reflection shot...

The show was good. A nice local atmosphere. Thanks to Davy for signing me up to MERG... I think it was all this flashing LEDs and the prospect of knowing what on earth to do with a servo! Anyway, it looks as though the pressure's on to get this model at least mostly complete by next year.