ianLMS

Cheers George. I've been busy working on the Scalescenes railway workers terraced cottages opposite the station and creating the front and rear gardens/yards. Starting to add more detail as I go which can be fun, but also time consuming/costly. I should finish them by the end of the weekend and will put up more pictures. I still have lots of detailing to do across the layout and finish the wagon sidings/builders yard and the whole front of the layout. I've also got some electrical work to complete, then paint/add figures and animals to the layout. Easily another 12-18 months work!!!

Wonderful examples and great attention to detail. The atmosphere created is superb. Hopefully one day I will get closer to the standard you put in front of us!

Cheers for the painting advice. I sat up last night and watched a few videos on You-Tube to help me understand the importance of prepping the figures, the 3 colour system and highlighting. Looking forward to seeing what I can achieve. I guess if I make a mess up, a soak in some thinners and I can start again! Question is now - Enamel or Acrylic or a mixture? I have enamel flesh colour, but most of my other paints are acrylics.

Just purchased the Mr Staddens exquisite Edwardian Workmen set for £10! 10 figures @ £1 each is great value. Now I need tips on painting pewter figures to do them justice. Usually used pre-painted plastic figures so this will be a first.

Cheers for that. I just looked at the Stadden website and I am sure I can adapt some of them to fit the part. I have looked at Dart / Monty's as well so when the time is right, I am sure I can put together a suitable population. The 3mm (1:100) figures I used at the back of my layout came from Preiser and easily fitted in. BTW - I found 18 Preiser sheep so now I can truly reflect the Pennine's! Just need to put a few on the road blocking traffic to make it more convincing!

Those figures are wonderful! Are they available in late 1930's style? Figures for that period are hard to come by as most readily available figures are set in the 50's/60's.

Shop in a mid size deep Norfolk village would push me towards a butcher, hardware or general store.

Ah the delightful Castle Acre, just up the road from me. I cant wait to see the layout unfold, especially to the standard that the buildings are being built to! Good luck!!

wonderful little model. Is it 4mm or 7mm? Is the texture Slaters Plasticard? If so, how on earth did you do the corner joins with quoins and around the windows with not one joining line visible? Thanks. Ian

Damn those Peco Designers! - Now I need to rip up all of my Code 75 toy track and start again with the far superior, much better looking track Peco are promising us!! Can't Wait!!!! I'll have several boxes please but will hold off until we get the pointwork to match!

and some more

As promised, after obtaining a kitchen pass, I am able to post a few "action" shots. Rolling stock is R-T-R straight from the box, or Ebay seller! Not in any set formation, or accurate in any way, just nice to see a train run by the layout to get perspective and see how it sits in the scenery etc.

I have just checked out Ben Alders thread. Utterly stunning and superb layout. The wagons are extremely good. I have a long way to go to achieve that standard!

Cheers Andy - I am a ways off from tackling my loco's and rolling stock to get more realism/prototypical types but I will definitely look out for some of those kits in the future. I have a Parkside LMS brake van to build (1st wagon building venture) so will see how I get on with that before investing lots of time/money.

I haven't tried scaling them up, but like you say, practicing on the 4mm kits probably pays dividends in the end.

I have not found any pics of pre-gouping sheep unfortunately, but one has to assume they look similar to the sheep of the 1930's! As sheep are herding animals, I would say grouping is within their nature, especially when the Border Collie in on their case so pics might be hard to come by! I will look again for pre-grouping wagons just in case you were pulling the "wool" over my eyes!!!!! Ian

You are too kind Sir. I have to say your adaptions, modifications and use of the Scalescenes kits and papers as a basis for your models are extremely good. Pats on the back all round!!! The 3mm downscaling was simple enough by reducing the print to 75%. However, as I have mentioned before in other threads, card thickness did create an issue. In the 4mm kit, use of 2mm and 1mm card was ok. When I reduced it to 3mm, the thickness of the card caused problems when the pieces were joined together. I soon got over it by trimming the floors, roof etc at the installation phase.

Cheers for that Andy. I have a few old Airfix Cattle Wagon kits that I intend to make (one day), and a few grey Bachmann R-T-R LMS ones which should be ok. I will do some more research to see what I can dig up. I spent last night cleaning all the tools etc off the layout so tonight I might just be able to run a train or two if I can clean the track good enough- ideal photo opportunity me thinks!! I just need to get a kitchen pass from my lovely wife to go and play trains for an hour or two! I have one of those Woodland Scenics track cleaning tools. Makes it an easy job, but still use the old track rubber block for hard to remove stuff.

Thank you all for your very kind comments. It appears I now need to find suitable sheep, not cows! May I ask probably a silly question, but did sheep used to travel in cattle wagons, or did they have a specially designed wagon instead? I only ask as I have a rather large cattle dock on the layout and a selection of cattle wagons/kits!

I really appreciate the comment. If it even remotely resembles that area, I will be very happy with the end result. As for buildings, I only have a small engine shed to go bottom left and maybe a timber yard/builders merchant office to go where the additional sidings are and that's it. Lots of detailing to do though, but the main part is almost complete. Where the road meets the field in the last picture I need to add a flexible strip to join it up. The hillside lifts up for access to the fiddle yard underneath so it needs to be flexible. The gap behind the wall along the top of the field will be filled with spongy lichen covered in scatter as well so its wont restrict the lifting top. I don't intend to place too many people on the layout so hopefully I wont over do it. A few cows might be ok though. Ian

Here are the completed models set into the landscape. Still some detailing to do, but I am getting there. Apologies for the terrible photography - not my strong point! Ian

Good afternoon all, After a very busy few weeks, a major re-organization (and clean) of the layout room and workbench, I have finally completed the model of the farmhouse and church, and set them into the scenery. Still a few bits of detailing to do, but I am making good progress. Please accept my sincere apologies for the poor photography - not my strong point:

Here is the completed church set in the scenery ready for details to be added such as headstones, static grass etc. The walling is 2mm card laminated between styrene embossed plastic sheet, topped with 3.2mm half round styrene sheets for the coping stones. I will post more pics as I add the detail. I have also completed the farmhouse and barn.

Here are a couple of pictures from different perspectives from the layout. No action shots as yet as the layout is covered in tools etc while I finish the back corner where the church is.

Good morning and Merry Christmas to all, Slow progress has been made on the church and farm buildings for Jencaster, but here is the latest. Both structures are from Scalescenes, scaled down to 3mm/ft for the back of the layout to give a little forced perspective. I have formed the ground surface from polystyrene sheets covered in polyfila and the road using a piece of 3mm hard board. I painted the area "Cley" and then added weathering pigments to give the dark brown colours. For the church, I scratchbuilt the Lychgate from balsa wood and styrene strips and the walls from 2mm card laminated between Plasticard textured styrene sheets. I weathered the roof tiles on the structures with Moss Green pigment and stuck the structures down with "No more nails" blending the base into the surface. I have lots left to do such as plant the headstones, add static grass, weather the walls, road and farmyard, add detail and finish with trees and shrubs etc.