brylonscamel

Watching this with interest - I alsostruggled to find something!

That's marvellous and sounds like a common layout for shop signs of the time.

Mark - you're right - I've already been told to scram! They were especially unhappy when told that I was 'taking selfies and updating my socials ' PS you may recognise the miniature figure ...

I misjudged the the sign over the fire-station engine bay, so our resident signwriter was called in to make good the lettering ..

Pugh, Pugh, Barney, Mcgrew .. Finally, the tiny residents of the Isle of Sheppey get their local fire station. Scratch-built in my favourite sheet materials: Foamex Embossed styrene Oil-board. Custom components laser-cut or by hand - the old-fashioned way!

I'll leave that to my client David!

Thanks for the lovely feedback - you say the photo is not Scotland but I am intrigued to where it is as the double-lapped and purple-tinged slate look very Scottish.

After the usual 24 hours of mild anxiety, Royal Mail delivered it to the far north. David set about placing the tenements on a prepared set of pavement and sent this photo. David is clearly still inside the bar and the taxi is waiting for him to emerge!

The full building was moelled, including the tenement backs, in blonde sandstone ..

David's commission of a some Glasgow Tenements trundled along rather slowly over recent months. But my I made good on my promise, delivering a set of bespoke tenements to him this week. Here is the finished article, as it left the studio yesterday ..

There's abeen a bit of a rethink on the quayside at Braeside harbour. The newly built hotel - based on the Huntly Arms - has always been dragged from it's inland setting to provide some architectural interest on the harbourside. This meant some head-scratching and re-plonking of buidings. The fish dock has moved to allow the goods shed and the hotel to take up residence amongst the harbour tramway. Thre's a risk that I am keen to avoid - a congested scene amongst some fairly open scenic areas - but it does appeal to me and has a bustle that you can find on a small working harbour.

You could also incorporate: The elegant footbridge The cut-off cottage - a ferry inn that famously lost it's corner when the railway cut its route through the valley The local sawmill, tucked away in the woodland

Oh that's a very romantic spot for a model railway. It also caught my eye as it has a lovely sweeping curve alongside the river Dee

There is quite a lot of 'Aboyne' included in the station and harbourside scenes. Not least, the station building itself! I have just resurrected the harbour branch, the access to which, passes in front of the main building. The ballasting, retaining wall and groundwork should conceal the clunky Peco Code 100 trackwork - another legacy from Dad's original layout

a challenge I'm currently wrestling with! I've basically scattered Dad's layout with bits of GNoSR and Caledonian railway architecture, plus some Aberdeenshire vernacular. I held to a promise that my revamp kept the baseboards and roundy-roundy trackwork that Dad had established. Each scene on the layout has some pretty accurate reproductions of buildings but tied together in the manner of a TV drama. I live in a city which hosted all the locations for 'Casualty'. A fun part of watching any episode was to work out where you were as they jumped from scene to scene on roads that had no connection in reality!

That's a good point, they even manage consistency despite a changing gallery of model-makers!

Fantastic - from the outset, the plan was to remove us from Metcalfeshire and put us in Aberdeenshire. Admittedly a hotch-potch of locations were used for inspiration but it seems to knit together well. It was all to be done through buildings, fixtures and scenery, as there was no scope for ripping up trackwork or changing baseboards.

Thanks - I fiddled about with it before I got the balance right. I've made a few buildings in Aberdeenshire granite, with varying success. The distillery office worked out nicely but my method is changing / improving over time, which doesn't help consistency ..

Looks lovely and clearly needs a suitable backdrop .. on which note, check your latest messages.

The paintwork has hopefully conjured up the flavour of the stone and the appearance of the buildings that were inspiration for the model. I love the pinkish colour of some Aberdeenshire granite. This is typical of the area (Aboyne) and may have been sourced from quarries at Kemnay. The Glantanar name is true to the area, if not the actual hotel. The Glentanar estate is a huge chunk of land at Abyne. For us, it has a personal connection as Dad worked at the Glentanar Bar in Aberdeen as a youth. It proved quite an experience for a man educated privately at Robert Gordon's School. His education behind the bar introduced a few choice phrases to his vocabulary! The side door to the bar fixes the connection nicely. The 'wee shopy' at the end was my idea and Dad asked that we name the shop after a relative who ran a small store in Aberdeen. Dad was always amused at the original sign, which was laid out oddly and read "General H. McIntyre Merchant". We suspect that locals would have called him "General McIntryre" as a joke!

During the process of miniaturisation, the 'Huntly Arms" has become the "Glentanar Hotel".

Fantastic colour scheme and you're king of the rattle-can finish!

The pace at which I've been working recently is slow, despite the hours worked! I'm also pernickety and know that mistakes creep in if I rush. With five projects running in tandem, progress can feel glacial (despite the heat!) However, I love the moment that character starts emerging from the scatter of components and materials. This freelance version of an Aberdeenshire hotel, bar and shops has reached that point. It will form a backdrop to a scene on Dad's layouts and is based on the Huntly Arms Hotel in Aboyne. With a linear plot available, I hacked the buildings around to fit, retaining as many original features as possible. These photos show what roofs, chimneys and architectural details contribute to a model. With paint and details, this should be a super bit of Aberdeenshire vernacular!

David's Glasgow tenement has gained a bar on the ground floor .. I'm hoping that David's landlord can be persuaded to stock the brand of whisky (Rob Roy) that we produce at the Coire Beag distillery in Braeside...

The buildings that create the miniature version of Sheppey fire station are inching towards a conclusion, with most of the roof details added. I'm leaving things like finials, chimney pots and downpipes until last as they are fragile things, easily knocked off with my occasional fat-fingered handling. Paintwork should really bring this to life.