brylonscamel

I hope to avoid any warping! It affected some of my earlier models, especially open structures like goods or engine sheds. Foamex is my current material-of-choice for carcasses and it seems to hold it's shape well without relying on bracing, even at 2 or 3mm thickness. I found Cyano/Superglue and 'UHO POR' are good adhesives when using high-density polystyrene. Cyano for structural joints and POR for layering materials onto the structure, including porous materials (card etc.) and non-porous (sheet styrene etc.). With these adhesives you don't get differential drying issues which can bedevil laminate construction.

These things seem to raise all sorts of questions, even when they belong to a standard design pattern and you have reference photos! I can't see evidence of the brickwork in photos but we may be missing the angle that reveals the rail-side constrution.

Yes, the batten construction was something I was aware of and I did fudge, partly due to our budget. Nigel's version of Thurso coincides with the last days of the shed and I struggled with a test piece to get the combination of repaired and original battens, which remained a feature of the shed. The layout is quite big and has broad sweeps of landscape so the overall proportions, colour and weathering of the shed should be enough to capture the spirit of the building. I have some thoughts on adding battens to any future timber structures. The joinery style is used widely in Scotland, so I need a good method. Using the cutter, I can get a sheet of styrene with equally-spaced strips to represent battens. It needs refining to get the right spacing and material thickness but it shows promise ...

Thurso Goods With help from an RMWeb contributor, I was able to reproduce a model of the goods shed that used to sit at Thurso, alongside the station terminus. It's a type of wooden structure that was once common across the Highland Railway.

Always happy to add to your workload David! Cheers, Brian

Yikes! That's a big toy to play with!

What a lovely reaction - it was a distinctive set of buildings but still great to be recognised from a small section of wall ..

Early spring sunshine has turned to some more *ahem* changeable ..

Another attempt at a 'no locomotive' scene. This one is my attempt at the old 'Allan & Black' station garage that used to sit at the back of Aboyne station. Now transported to Dad's 'Braeside' layout, cut down to fit our space and renamed, the aim was to at least capture the spirit of this classic garage in 1:76.

It's nae always bad!

DAS modelling clay, a sharp scribing tool and a few mugs of tea!

Depth of Field the Aberdeenshire way If you are struggling to get to grips with photo-stacking, aperture-priority F-stop settings and general depth-of-field shenanigans, I can recommend picking a location that is notorious for heavy coastal fog! A white mist will happily disguise your grainy, blurred or out-of-focus areas, just blame it on the North Sea.

Thanks Chris! .. as it happens, I had to go down the DIY masonry route as 'Aberdeen bond' stone didn't feature on anyone's list of embossed materials!

I heard this from an exhibitor at a Farnham Model Railway Club exhibition, just as I was starting to strive for more realism in my models. As a rule-of-thumb, it really stuck with me. In the fulness of time, I found myself at an exhibition with a model based on a real place. You can imagine my joy when someone strode up confidently to the model and said "I already knew from a distance that was Inverurie Works" .."

Rodent Inspectors ..

The sun is out on the Fife coast Eastfield's class 29 6107 finds itself sitting on the quayside with fish traffic from the North Sea. The scene is inspired by towns on the Fife coast such as Anstruther, Crail and Cellardyke. Buildings in the background are straight copies of a terrace at Cellardyke, with local stone, painted render and pantiles contributing to the 'East Neuk of Fife' setting.

Walk the Talk I've been invited - I suspect out of desperation - to give a short talk at the Abingdon Exhibition on Saturday afternoon. My aim is to encourage modellers to have a go at scratch-building and add life to their buildings. I'll bring the little east coast harbourside diorama as a talking piece. If anyone is thinking of making a day of it, your company would be very welcome.

BR Blue Weekend Occasionally I get to dig out a small stash of early 80s BR Blue to recreate scenes from my 'youth' ..

.. although mine bucks the trend and can often be found sneaking away to have a bit of a snooze.

Some Scots enjoy doing the same about all things English.

I couldn't resist a scattering of border collies - my own dog insisted on it!

The 'Fife coast' buildings have returned home. I'm really happy with the look of them but they didn't fit with the Aberdeenshire theme on Dad's harbourside. With everything else being granite and slate, these interlopers with sandstone walls and pantile roofs looked out-of-place. They always fitted nicely behind my harbourside diorama so this is likely to be their permanent home. With commission work turning 'nautical' for a while, this will be a useful diorama.