Mick Bonwick

Why do you use the future tense?

I'm sure I've seen this before somewhere . . . . . .

My decision about droppers came from speaking to exhibition layout owners, reading accounts of which continuity problems had been solved by what method, and experiences building layouts large and small, static and mobile, using cheap and expensive track, minimising risk and reducing effort expended in problem resolution. On with the story. Point motors to be used on this scenic section had long ago been chosen to be Cobalts. I had been given 6 that had been discarded as unsuitable by somebody who had been standardising on digital versions, and had then bought another 6 to complete the set. Each of the used ones were stripped down, cleaned up and re-lubricated and thoroughly tested on a home-made wiring loom to minimise the possibility of finding failures after installation. One unforeseen problem was the length of the operating wire - my baseboards were thicker than those of the previous owner, so the wires were too short. A wiring loom was assembled for each motor and all were tested while attached to their respective decoders before diving under the baseboards. Again.

I agree with that. Just last week I asked a question, at 12:30p.m., "What's for breakfast?" An element of mirth ensued.

Correct.

It might well have been. When I started on this current (!) spate of layout building, I thought I'd get some more wire because some colours were almost used up. It appeared that I had a choice - pay extortionate sums of money or wait until August for delivery. I decided to wait.

Hold your breath, we're going under . . . . . Once all the track was in place, the droppers needed to be connected to something. I had planned for two control buses in this area, one for track power and the other for accessory power. The accessory bus is blue and white wire and the track bus for this station area is purple and pink. The track bus for the fiddle yard is red and black. It really is quite colourful down here. The original plan was for everything to be in one power district, but that's only because I didn't fully understand the implications of doing that. I was 3/4 through wiring the fiddle yard before enlightenment and have just continued using black and red for all droppers ever since. It is only once the droppers arre attached to the power bus that the change takes place.

Try using a paper or card mask. Once your gloss layer has dried hard, cut out a shape that approximates to your required gloss area. Doesn't need to be millimetre accurate. For a sharper edge to your matt area, hold the mask close to the model (not touching it), and for a faded edge, move the mask further way. Practise the technique on a plain piece of paper and you'll soon see what effects you can create.

Spreadsheet for me. Password protected so nobody else can inadvertantly see it. Stored on an online cloud service. Accessible from smartphone when in a shop, asking, "Have I already got one of those?" Columns for everything you will ever need to know, except the one that you haven't entered yet.

Looking forward to the day when the locomotive is as workworn as the rest of the scene.

A brief return to the main topic - Easton construction. Just before Christmas (2019) I vowed to restart construction of the railway and set aside all the distractions for a while, not yet knowing what was about to happen to the world. All of the weathering paraphernalia was put into storage so the space that it occupied could be used to lay track. Laying an area of 3mm closed cell foam as a trackbed went well, using Copydex as a glue. I had developed a method of preparing track and pointwork, before gluing it down, with all droppers ready soldered in place. Careful (most of the time) measuring and hole drilling made the sticking down of each section quick and easy. Here you can see the final check being done to ensure that all the holes for wires and point operating pins were in the correct places and all the droppers were soldered in the right places.

A bit late in the day, but good luck.

Indeed it is, Grahame. It can also be used for small shrubs, flowering fruit trees, hedges, scrubby grassland and conifers. All types of growth can be represented by using differing materials and techniques on the basic structure. Nice oak tree.

No, Kevin, I haven't tried that. I favour an airbrush for that sort of painting because I am then in control. Pause for comment. Rattle cans are binary devices, they are either on or off with nothing in between, and you can't (or shouldn't) use them indoors. I have found, so far, that the colour variations in the seamoss stems are sufficient for my purposes. Once I start on trees for Easton (and there won't be many) that may well be something I'll need to look at.

Maybe not where you are, but it's certainly needed where we are!

For a scenic area to look realistic, some effort needs to be expended to differentiate between tree and shrub appearances. Nothing makes a model look like a model more than every single tree being the same. Personal opinion, you understand. I am fortunate in having ready access to the countryside and spent a lot of time walking around it when 'owning' a dog. Inverted commas? I think it was actually the other way round - dog 'owners' will know what I mean. One relatively easy way of achieving this differentiation is to use a different colour and/or texture on each tree in a group. If you take a look at any area of trees or shrubs there are many shades of green present. A relatively quick way of making a tree that looks realistic is to base it on seafoam or seamoss, a plant native to Scandinavia and marketed as "Forest in a Box" by Green Scene (available from other sources, too). https://www.green-scenes.co.uk/store/product/gs-341 As an example of the sort of thing I mean, here is a photograph of a portion of a hedgerow that can be found in many countryside areas. This type of hegderow is not as carefully managed now as it would have been 50 or more years ago, but that's another story. This (hopefully) illustrates the type of tree, in this case a field maple, that can be depicted fairly easily using seafoam. Multiple trunks all growing at different angles to find the light. I started by selecting several stems of seamoss, that were similar in length, from the box contents. This is an example of what you can expect from a box: Working on one stem at a time, blobs of PVA were applied in a random fashion and deliberately leaving it off of some twigs. Ground foam scatter material was sprinkled onto the glue, working on a small area at a time. Once all the glue blobs were covered, the stem was set aside to dry. This process leaves (!) a relatively open structure. The routine is repeated for as many stems as are deemed necessary, and I used a slightly different tone and texture for several examples to create the group.

Brave man, Grahame (is that right?) The key seems to be to only use small quantities. I'm confident that you'll be happy with what they will allow you to produce, though.

Using the same technique for the construction of the plant, but varying the texture and colour of the leaves and scatter material, several different types of plant were created. The result of rolling up of the strip of PVA can be seen in these examples. Different bright colours were used as well, to see if flowering shrubs could be represented, but I wasn't quite as pleased with these. They would look acceptable at a distance, but you'd need to wear sunglasses! A lighter sprinkling of the coloured material would have been better, with a more muted tone. There are several to choose from.

White spirit on a cotton bud. After 4 days you may find you have to work for quite a while, but it will come off.

I found that it was possible to sort the paper leaves into two sizes by using a sieve with a large mesh. It took rather a long time, though. If I was to do it now it wouldn't be quite such a problem - I seem to have time on my hands. There were two ways of getting the leaves and flowers to stick to the stems. The first that I tried was by using hairspray, but this proved to be rather messy, although quick. The second was by applying neat PVA using a cocktail stick, and I found this to be the better way. I could be quite precise about where the adhesive went and there was plenty of time to adjust the position of components before the adhesive set. After my time-consuming sieve work I had two piles of leaves of different sizes, some brightly coloured ground foam and a variety of plant stems to decorate. Scale is illustrated here by the appearance of my life's savings. . . . The process involved (starting from the base of the stem) applying glue using a cocktail stick and positioning a group of larger leaves upon the blob. Working up the stem, smaller leaves were used and, finally, the coloured foam. A pair of tweezers was a handy aid! The photograph is a bit misleading because you could mistakenly think that those heaps of material are actually stuck to the stems. The only sticking that has been done is on the central group of stems. Once all was dry, the strip of dried PVA was cut into sections and set aside ror later use. I 'planted' this group of flowers into some polystyrene to check that the idea was sound. You can just see the top edge of the dried PVArunning below the bottom line of leaves.

Thanks, Steve. I'm enjoying doing it, too. So far!

The PVA is dry now, so we can continue. The strip of PVA was peeled away from the polythene once it was completely dry. If the bead of PVA was wide enough (hint) it can be cut down the centre to form two strips of plant stems. Each strip was stuck, using masking tape, to a piece of wood with the top of the PVA just above the edge of the wood. The stems were trimmed to varying heights and the length written on the masking tape. This ensured that I was aware of the relative scale size once I got carried away with foliage application.

Ooh err, Missus.

Your finger trouble is getting really bad. The A is nowhere near the O on my keyboard, is yours different?

Well done, Norman. Keep going, sunshine.