brylonscamel

Oh and some more cobble scribing ..

Last night I made a little card mock-up of a canal lock keepers hut for the lock-side at Caledonian Basin. The inspiration for this building is on the Forth and Clyde Canal. It should be rather cute when it's made ... The card mockup ... It's likely location in the canal scene .. The inspiration ...

The chimneys & pots and the ballustrade (is that the right word - maybe just 'roof fence'?) on the footbridge are a delight.

Having made a miscalculation on the brick railway arches, I had to reduce the height by sawing the bottom off and re-jigging the pillars on the bridge abutment. Nerve-wracking / anxiety-inducing!

That's extraordinary model-making! Is it a side-project or something that will find a home on a railway layout?

Cheers Martyn - your canal / lock / bridge modelling is first rate so I'm very happy to get a thumbs up. I had to shave a bit from the right-hand lock wall for similar reasons - I hadn't allowed for the recess in the lock chamber and the thickness of the modelling clay that I intend to use!

A small project weekend. Some gates for the canal lock on Caledonian Basin. Placement of a figure on the lock to make sure the size looks reasonable! The gates being made in styrene - the view from the back (concealed from view) The initial styrene gates placed in-situ to test fit A figure placed to test the position of the gates - I had discovered they were sitting too high on the hinges to be accurate so I dropped them down to the right height for operation. I'm pretty happy with this final position ..

Not in the same league as most of the photography here, but this does attempt to capture a low-light scene on our shed at Braeside. One of our 4mm / OO Hornby A4 'racehorses' receives a bit of 'grooming' from the shed staff before another outing on the 3 hour Expresses from Aberdeen to Glasgow, The shed is an approximation of the one at Ferryhill.

Canal lock in greyboard Some small progress on the old canal basin - with the lock entrance getting a greyboard mock-up. Should look good when it's been covered in DAS modelling clay, shaped and scored. There is a fair bit of that still to do in cobbling the canal paths and hard standing outside the buildings. Here's the card mockup Here's the canal entrance in-situ underneath the rail bridge Ooh look - a train!

I suppose it's too much to hope you add a small round-faced man in some leather hot-pants and a PVC t-shirt ...

Hi Steve - one of the things I find appealing about this hobby is creating a version of the railways, its buildings and the surrounding environment that I find beautiful. You won't find me reproducing ugly afterthought doorways in vile colours, prosaic architecture, scruffy graffiti, fly-tipped rubbish or burnt-out cars!

Cheers Rob - it should look a cracker once painted (assuming I don't make a mess of it)

Blimey - every time I come back to this thread I'm thrilled to see another set of convincing, atmospheric photos. It's certainly a period out of Edinburgh for which I have enormous affection and its lovingly reproduced in your models.

For those who might be curious - here are some photos I found of a factory at Dalmarnock that took my fancy. Its been an 'inspiration' for my own structure - certainly not a slavish, accurate reproduction! This continues to be my approach as it gets me off the hook and means I can pick the buildings I like and make them fit the space I have available.

As it is, I persisted with my brick industrial building (based on a Glasgow example that sadly doesn't occupy a canalside location. Because I was aware it wasn't obscuring the point at which the railway exits the diorama box I decided to make a ground level structure to raise the height. Its been a bit of a major gamble - here are the results ...

Well spotted! - that's the structure I originally had in mind but I struggled a bit as the windows looked all out of proportion when I mocked it up. I think it just has large industrial windows - but they look like giant domestic sash windows when you place it on the model. I've attached a photo to show the card mockup that I made ...

A Caledonian 0-6-0 - as mentioned previously, its the perfect loco to cross the bridge .. PS you can have this model when I'm finished with it. But the cost might be prohibitive - it's taken so many hours to get to this stage already! ;-)

You're welcome to this party any time Clive - I'm afraid all I can offer is a mug of tea, some crinkle-cut crisps and a half-built model railway ...

Hi Grahame - thanks for showing interest in this model - its great to get positive feedback as I'm still learning-as-I-go with this hobby! The curved mouldings use plastic rod rather than half round and were an experiment! I first tried it when recreating the railway arches (which were a larger, gentler radius). I thought I would need to heat the plastic but found the rod was malleable without splitting. I simply glued one end firmly with Plastic Weld and then eased the rod around the curve using the usual capillary action of the glue to complete the bond. I guess Plastic Weld does soften the styrene a little when applied. I was then emboldened to try it on smaller radius curves with success.

Cheers for the comments Will and Colin - if there is some interest in this 'wee project' then I'll aim to keep it up-to-date. I have had some thoughts on the factory as I now realise it is capable of acting as a screen to hide the inevitable access-hole into the fiddle yard. The original building that I have loosely based my building is much taller, with a ground floor colonnade of arches and a doorway. As it will raise the height of the building - I think that's the next plan. I'm learning a lot about how you plan these small spaces to get the best visual effect. Some of it has involved some painful lessons but this one seems reasonable and may give a bit more drama to the canal-side building.

Embarassingly slow progress on my scratchbuilt buildings for "Caledonian Basin" but as summer slips away I'm finding the lure of the cutting mat is stronger. Here's the bit of Glaswegian red brick industrial I'm working on as it gets a hipped roof and a decorative top to the tower. I'm sharing these little updates to show my method. There are no rash claims to be the best or the most efficient but it works for me! I was originally intending to have a straight gable roof but the building narrows along it's length and this gave me some visual problems! It just looked wrong so I literally ripped the card shell off and started again.

.. thanks for chipping in with a response to my question - what a funny anecdote. I sense those that knew him 'in the flesh' got to enjoy some rather amusing company!

Gosh that's such sad news - I only came to know about Allan through this very thread and quickly discovered what a prodigiously talented, funny and supportive man he was. And what a great contributor he was. Even the tone of this thread was mischievous and it was a great idea to throw down the gauntlet to fellow modelers and see what rolled in. Considering he could have sat back and poured scorn on our efforts he did nothing but give praise and encouragement. To think that he was so ill and yet took time to respond to our posts with enthusiasm and humour, right up to the end. Extraordinary.

Great atmosphere on all your shots, really lovely model making. It's a shame the Bachmann Class 40 windows suffer a bit from 'chunky window frames' syndrome and are always a bit of a giveaway (although nothing like as hideous as the old Lima/Hornby moulding). Those Shawplan etched window surrounds still provide a neat solution if you ever wanted to hack them about.

Hi Jamie - now that's a question! The sign is a survivor from a model railway that my father and I built in the late 1970s - early 1980s. I assume it was a moulding from that era but might have been made from Slaters plastic letters which are still available: https://slatersplastikard.com/plastikard/alphabets.php