MikeOxon

At first glance, your first pic looked like a cake, just out of the oven Your short legs for table-top use seem an excellent idea - could be all you need, if a show has a table you could use. I look forward to watching the scenery being developed. Mike

You are correct to point out that additive manufacture does not necessarily mean 3D printing. The 3D printer is simply a method for building up a series of very thin layers automatically, but we can do similar things ourselves, although, for practical reasons, the individual layers have to be thicker. I think some modellers forget that there is usually the option to fabricate a part oneself. As a scratch-builder myself, I enjoy thinking out ways to solve construction problems, without buying ready-made parts.

I know that I'm over a year late in this thread - only just been reading it. Personally, I edit photos to remove extraneous stuff, such as a fascia, so I wouldn't bother what it is. My own layout runs close to the front edge of the baseboard and, if I'm photographing locos or stock, I paste in a plain colour foreground to suit the photo. There's an example in my blog at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1405/entry-12835-trial-of-the-reds/ It depends on the scene but, visually, I think the fascia should tone in with the layout. If it's a rural layout then green cloth seems to work, while grey may be more appropriate for an industrial scene. Mike

aaaaarrgh! I'm with mikeandnel and aim to keep anything that might be remotely useful! I've resorted to carving some small bits out of brass bar, using a wheel cutter and sanding drums on my mini-drill (safety glasses essential). Mike

As Etched Pixels wrote, there are 'work-arounds' for many of the perceived difficulties of scratch building. In addition, pre-grouping prototypes tend to be relatively simple, as I mentioned in post #23 in this thread. Modern glues are very effective, though you do have to remember that surface preparation is just as important as when using solder. There is a problem, however, when it comes to adding all those important details! Unless you have workshop skills and facilities,you are going to have to find suppliers of suitable chimneys, domes, etc.... In my experience, there are several good suppliers out there but they tend to be rather elusive - difficult to contact by either phone or e-mail and, in many cases, computer-averse, so no up-to-date websites to help you see what you are buying! These suppliers provide an invaluable service but I wish they would catch up with the 21st century Mike

Thanks, Mickey. I agree that it does look like hay. Mike

Great stuff. You now need to do some serious partying in celebration When I see it at an exhibition, I shall have to ask "Who does the kit for that?" [run] Mike

What a splendid BANG! I hope the kids enjoyed it. Someone at an exhibition is sure to comment "Oh dear, did it get damaged bringing it here" Mike

Thanks again, Buffalo. I'm still not sure about the number on the end. Compared with other wagons shown in the same (complete) photo, it doesn't look like them and there seem to be spaces in the writing, which looked to me more like a tare listing. Having read the Stanier article, it seems that provender was mixed (hay, oats, beans, etc.) and then bagged for distribution to the various depots so, presumably, these wagons are carrying raw materials for delivery to the stores. Or it might be bedding straw? The way the load is heaped high above the wagon sides is what I wanted to know about when I first posted. Mike

As a result of Buffalo's information, I have now been able to examine a photograph of two provender wagons outside the Didcot stores. This photo appears to be associated with an article from the Great Western Magazine, October 1906, by W.H.Stanier. i agree that the left-hand wagon is probably the diagram Q1 as the DC1 type brake is visible. The other wagon may well be from the earlier 1884 batch. I have enhanced a small section of the photograph for research purposes and it would appear that the lettering does not conform to the usually accepted layout of the time. Nothing is very clear, so my thoughts are speculative. It looks to me that the letters G.W.R are on the bottom plank at the R.H.end The lettering on the visible end of the wagon is almost certainly not the number but looks to me as though it may well be the Tare weight. At the bottom left of the side, there is probably the number but above that, it seems to me that it may state "To Carry", with the weight at the opposite (R.H.) end, so avoiding the diagonal bracing. in addition, there is writing higher on the side, each side of the doors, which I think may be "Return to" on the left and "Didcot GWR" on the right (both in two lines). I am well aware that's all very speculative, though the details are just a little clearer on the original. 'd welcome any further thoughts or comments. Mike

"Charming country cottage. Would benefit from some renovation" I notice from the post time that you have been burning the midnight oil, KH1, but it's looking good. Pity you will be blowing it up next!

Thank you for the very helpful response, Buffalo. Your description of the photo in Vaughan jogged my memory and I realised that what is probably the same photo appears in Janet Russell's book on GW Horse Power - Fig.267. There's even a chapter about the Provender Stores that I had completely forgotten! That's always my problem with books - having them on the shelf does not mean that I know everything that's in them Mike

I have a Coopercraft provender wagon and am unsure about how to model its load. My Atkins 'History of GWR Wagons' states that there seem to be no photos, so my question is - does anyone know how hay was 'packaged' at the turn of the19th/20th century? I'm guessing that they were not the neat rectangular bales we now see on farm lorries or, perhaps, they were? Any thoughts will be welcome. Mike

I'd been looking forward to a new post from Farthing and it's been worth the wait - a really imaginative and creative post! Apart from the sheer ingenuity of it all, your 3-planker looks so much better than mine! I must learn how to do weathering, and the grey underframe looks convincing too Mike

If that is the sole criterion, then IKB should be excluded too! He might have been a very great engineer but his 'engines' were disasters until he found Gooch to sort things out

For me, I think the fascination is for a time before the dominance of motor (road) transport, when railways represented the 'cutting edge' of transport technology. I remember vividly the first time I saw a photo of one of the Gooch broad-gauge singles and marvelled that such things could ever have existed! For modellers (at least in 4mm and larger) there is the advantage, which others have mentioned, that locomotives and trains were smaller than now, so that less space is needed for a credible representation. I agree that scratch-building is quite a hurdle for many people but, if you are going to take the plunge, modelling a 2-2-2 locomotive need be no more difficult than modelling a wagon, if you are prepared to accept tender drive. I have used old Mainline Dean Goods tenders to power my own scratch-build attempts. For lettering and lining, it is now possible to print your own transfers using an ink-jet printer. I have shown some examples in my pre-grouping Blog at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1405/entry-12657-cheats-lining-lettering/ All in all, then, this era provides an opportunity to re-create a world where railways really were the centre of attention and not struggling to be noticed amongst all those motor vehicles Mike

Perhaps you need to explode a large firework inside it! I've always hated seeing bomb-damaged buildings, since knowing Liverpool docks in childhood, so this is not a type of modelling that appeals to me. You do seem to be capturing the scenes of destruction very well, however. Mike.

That's super! It was your earlier use of a GIF animation that led me to try the same technique for some short movies in my own blog. For example: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1405/entry-12582-on-the-narrow-gauge/ I found a free program called Ulead GifAnimator2 on the web, though there are more sophisticated paid-for versions, too. i wondered what you use? Mike

Hi webbcompound. According to the manufacturer's data sheet, F&B modern emulsion is based on a 100% acrylic resin. I used a primer first on the white metal wagons and I suspect this paint behaves similarly to any other acrylic paints. I was more interested in the colour (hue) than the specific make of paint. This paint is apparently based on research into traditional paint formulations - in this case a vermilion (China red) - Lead Oxide mix. Since both these pigments were in the GW inventory, I felt that this could represent a plausible formulation. Of course, the same colour could be achieved by mixing modelling paints, as shown in Mikkel's blog. Since I am aiming to model the early days of railways, my stock will be relatively 'new' but a degree of weathering is certainly necessary to create a realistic look. These old paints were notorious for blackening with age. Thank you for commenting.

You are right to have parallel electrical paths, as it minimises the chance of sudden failure, though you should check, from time to time, that both parts are working, so that you don't lose the redundancy. I love that word "fettling" I believe that it originally referred to cleaning up castings after they came out of the mould but is now used generally for 'cleaning things up'

I think my brain was a bit dozy when I wrote about the colour compositions before. It is much more obvious to say that the right hand wagon has more yellow (the complement of blue)

Mikkel wrote:"From Buckjumper's post some time ago, I gathered that it was not only air, but also Sulphur from coal smoke etc which might darken red oxide?" Yes, I read that correspondence quite a while ago - I'd forgotten. In England, we are so used to burning coal that sulphur is seen as a 'normal' component of the air! It is quite true that it is the sulphides that tend to be black. It makes polishing all the silver (!!!) a real chore. I have written various technical notes on colour spaces and on how Photoshop works with colour on my website at http://home.btconnect.com/mike.flemming/technical/brightness/bright1.htm if you are interested. Mike

Thank you Mikkel. I have always been interested in the human perception of colour but am often taken by surprise when analysing the constituents of a particular colour. When I looked at the two wagons above with the colour picker in Photoshop it surprised me that the main difference between them is that there is more blue in the left-hand one! - I've added another image to the blog post above to illustrate this. To my eyes,the right hand one is quite like BR bauxite, whereas the other is a much more vibrant shade that I feel would appeal to Victorian tastes. It's all speculation, of course! I've also been reading a bit more about pigments. Apparently, although red lead darkens very rapidly in air, it is stabilised when mixed with oil. Also, red lead stands up better than white lead with vermilion, according to http://www.jcsparks.com/painted/pigment-chem.html#Vermilion Mike

In a previous post: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/1405/entry-12531-milk-churns-and-siphons/ I mentioned that I had tried painting a GWR wagon with Farrow & Ball 'Rectory Red' paint. To re-cap, this colour is described by the manufacturer as Vermilion mixed with Lead Oxide, to make it cheaper. It seems to me that could be a plausible formula for the red used during the 19th century on GWR wagons. Because it is difficult to compare colours accurately between different photographs, I have taken a shot of two wagons together. .The one on the left is painted in 'Rectory Red' and the other is sprayed with red car primer. comparison of wagon reds I think that the brighter red, on the left, matches the 'light red' description, which some writers used to describe GWR wagons, rather well. Because of the red lead content, this paint would darken with age, which was, allegedly, the fate of early GWR wagons Edit: I analysed the wagon colours in Photoshop, which shows that the oxide primer is more yellow (i.e.less blue content) than Rectory Red. Mike

I couldn't decide if this was 'clever' or just a fluke