brylonscamel

Wooden planking and framing gives another layer of texture to the platform shelter. The joinery on the Great North of Scotland was really lovely!

They look great and realised that some of my old photos featured your posts and beams in all their glory. Note the heavy bias towards booze in the station advertising boards!

Cheers Dave, Thrift and ingenuity - two staples for a Scottish stonemason! I heard the technique was especially common in Aberdeenshire to help with block spacing and a preference for broad, flush mortar joints where the pins gave extra stability to the mortar. I remain amazed at the things you end up finding out whilst model-making.

Cheers Andy - was that the terminus for the bus service - I'm sure the bus from Ballater to Braemar was operated by the Great North of Scotland Railway? The windows are a dead giveaway!

One thing you learn when reproducing these things - how much work went into the design, making and fitting of the originals!

Cheers David - I was going through my box of spares for the station canopy columns and came across some others , destined for use on the 'Wadlaw chapel'. Well at least I was planning ahead!

If in doubt, go freelance! Not a comment on my work status, more on the tricky subject of the far platform building at Aboyne. I've seen archive photos and know it was a wooden structure, with windows similar to those on the main building but it was in pretty dilapated condition and I'm not being slavish with it - Aboyne is mostly inspiration for our station. That's my excuse and nothing to do with a ticking clock! Anyway, I'm freelancing it using my spares! From what I can tell, it was an attractive building with that GNoSR 'look' with panelled woodwork and fancy frames, so I'm sure it will look 'bonny' when finished.

The racehorse and a mule A reminder of what the final objective is - somewhere to play trains with my father. Here's our 'Caledonian' engine shed with locomotives at each end of the scale, waiting for an opportunity to stretch their legs ..

I found some - very fragile - 3D printed ridge tiles online and fashioned some finials from styrene to complete the roof, prior to painting. Little flourishes like these should bring the elegance of the original back to life.

I may have something in hand ..

Lovely addition David - surely there's space on there for a nice terrace .. what do you think?

Testing some ideas .. Helping me refine the masters for future resin-cast buildings are these small domestic buildings. I'm trying to 'kill two birds', using buildings for Dad as test-pieces for my resin casting venture. The first of these is a common domestic style, with dormers set into the stonework of the wall and the other is a single-storey cottage with a broad roof. This has been scribed with 'Aberdeen bond' on the façade to add some local vernacular glamour!

Nudging towards the finish line Still 'in the raw' but next in the paint queue is my rendition of the rather fine station at Aboyne. Our version is pretty faithful to the original, with beautiful window glazing, dressed granite and baronial turrets. The original is no longer served by the railway so it is time to put that right and reinstate the service at Braeside!

Nor me! I got a C in O level Geology but apart from the odd phrase like 'subduction zone' and 'sedimentary deposits' nothing useful survives. My memories of field trips are reserved for primitive Gloucestershire youth hostels and an unreliable school mini-bus that we had to bump start in the mornings.

However it gets made, it's a striking building and something to get your teeth into. Look at those heavy eaves, deeply recessed sashes and patterns in the stonework. PS Is it granite construction? With the pinnings and large block sizes it has the look of it.

If nothing else you now have a very unusual place setting for a dinner party!

That's very kind of you David. People keep giving me these iconic originals, which helps!

I have the small matter of a side doorway to truly finish David's 'North British Hotel'. Fortunately it's a piece that can be retro-fitted to an aperture in the west wall. I say fortunately as the model has been with David for a couple of months and he is a few hundred miles away! Here's one of the photos I took before delivery, to give a nice sense of how big the model is and yet the south facade is less than half the length of the original!

Taste of Fife Behind the scenes, I am making buildings that will add a bit of flavour to Dad's 'Braeside' layout and help me develop new ideas for the resin-cast side of things. I want to establish Dad's layout firmly on the north-east coast but have thrown the net a wee bit further to include some buildings typical of the Fife coast. Because our harbour is small, the type of buildings that crowd the waterfront at places like Anstruther and Cellardyke seem ideal candidates. Here is where I am at with our assortment of Fife properties .. Materials: Foamex | Artboard | Modelling Clay | Embossed Styrene | Styrene

My attempt at 'Pink Granite' sits on the harbourside diorama that I keep for such purposes ...

You are right Michael, they are all recent images of much older buildings.

PS I hope this is useful! Cheers, Brian

.. also note the large block sizes combined with small infill stones and 'pinnings' from this classic vintage photo of Banff. The use of a broad spread of mortar, flush with the surface also seems typical of the area ..

You may remember a chat we had about the cottages on the approach to Banff station a while ago. Aberdeenshire granite remains one of my preoccupations! I have stared at a fair bit of it in recent years and travelled by bike on the 'Buchan & Formartine Way' trackbed, adding a trip out to Portsoy, Banff etc. The soot and dirt that accumulates on porous or textured stone seems less inclined to stain or adhere to granite. Also, coastal areas weren't troubled by the heavy chimney smoke that polluted city air. I also noted that 'rural' granite masonry has all sorts of variations in colour and tone, less consistent than the dressed grey granite you see in much civic architecture. I suspect the huge quarries like Rubislaw offered a greater consistency of shiny grey stone and why it was prized as a building material. On my travels I noticed that buildings further north had a lot of red amongst the greys and know that quarries existed at Peterhead, known for this colour in the material. A recent trawl of Google drew these examples ...

The truth may be that despite all my best efforts to be accurate, exact and consistent, I ended up with a wonky, uneven collection of setts! More evidence is on the harbourside ..