Peterkern23

Cheers Allan, hope you’re okay? His work is lovely isn’t it? A bit bigger than I’m used to, he’s rightly chosen the right scales to work with I think, much like yourself.

Thanks again Grahame, Lead is reasonably easy to reproduce. I personally use “green stuff” but it’s tricky to work with. There’s no reason why you couldn’t use stick labels carefully cut to shape. Then you would paint it Matt black and using a very sharp and soft pencil, colour it in with it.

Thanks bgman. I’m calling the top of my box finished and weathered.

Going that extra mile when scratch building can really set your work apart from others. I make all my own brickwork from scratch, using giftware plaster. I used to scribe every model, which would take hours but I now have a negative mould of a sheet of my scribed bricks which I use to cast my walls. In the pictures you can see the clear liquid sitting in the mould. This is a “wet water”, which sound ridiculous but it’s true. Using mixed in soap, the water glides into the silicone and removes all bubbles prior to pouring in the plaster. The plaster is then mixed and the wet water is poured out just before casting. This reduces bubbles by nearly 100%. There nothing worse than a few tiny holes in the middle of a brick wall. Especially at 00 scale. After an hour I pull the cast out and voila! A lovely sharp sheet of bricks at the thickness of 5mm that is a true-to-life thickness of house and building walls. This plaster is amazing to work with and paints to a true Matt finish if using the right paints. I will be using these sheets for my signal box. I also wanted to see what my signal box would look like with some bricks so I balanced one of my finished models upside down and rested the box top on it. Looks okay!

Thanks Luke, here are some more:

Top half of the signal box nears completion

For the brickwork I’m going to turn to my plaster mold method. I have made a mold of my own bricks, scribed by hand. This can create a wall that equates to a scale of around a foot thick, which makes for more realistic window apertures and doorways. I was disappointed by the brick sheets on the market, I always thought the bricks were too big or not the right shape. A long and arduous process to create this but now I have a mold I can cast walls quickly to my own spec. The signal box brickwork will need some modification as there are features on the front facade. This mold is cast in two-part silicone that should last for 50+ pulls. Cost about £15. The plaster is giftware grade hydrocal R - a very nice product to shape and paint. It tends to allow for a Matt finish which is perfect. For those of you who haven’t seen my finished brickwork before, the finish is like this:

Not yet. I wish for the box to be the focal point but other than that I’m open to ideas.

No way will I accept your disparity. What about the human resolve? Get your glue and knife and practice!

The cement comes in a little glass bottle with a small brush. It’s so thin it works into the cracks and seals the joins. Finished building the windows for the front facade and couldn’t resist a little mock-up of the top.

With tamiya water based paints and weathering powder mate.

Some work on the front face tonight. Damn, this is fiddly work. Thanks for all the positive comments! All done in tiny strips of plasticard and glued with Tamiya thin cement.

Thanks rob. It’s a disused signal box which i think is poignant and reflects not only the loss of some lovely buildings but also the fact that deriliction is rarely used in model railways.

Some more work on my box. Told you it was a slow burner.

Really slow burner! Been working some more on my signal box today, seeing as the weather is so dreadful. All made scratchbuilt from platicard and balsa, hand painted and weathered.

Superglue does the job with plaster very well. its what i use for my plaster buildings on the corners and when broken the plaster breaks and not the join.

Hey all, I hope this sort of post is okay but I wanted to see what sort of response I get. One of these, Measuring about 300mm x 125mm (12" x 4") Would you buy one if they were for sale? How much would you fork out for one? They are very high quality and are perfect for lineside verges and grass banks. Just curious. Sorry admin if I'm breaking any rules by asking here.

Main porch finished. Working on the staircase in plasticard strips.

Thanks envelope! Some more to follow.

The stairs are very tricky to get right. I tried all sorts to get them even and true. Not so easy when there are 3 axis to get straight across as a diagonal slope! How does anyone else do stairs on a scratchbuilt box? Allan - you're the signal box legend, yours always look awesome, how is it done so neatly? I had to resort to building a rig from styrene strips that had to be cut away afterwards. Not bad results but took a whole evening to get right.

Ahh you got me. I'm a cheater.

Cheers allan! Here y'go! The door painted and the porch nears completion. Pretty happy, couple of grumbles but me just being picky I think.

Building a disused signal box as the focal point of my layout. Using Carr signal box as a guide.

Some more gratuitous shots of my evenings work:

Thanks for that. I have been working on it and I have improved it and now I'm happy. Plasticard and balsa to start, with some scribing to make the plasticard look like weathered timber with nail holes. I'm using the drawing as a template.