aardvark

(blush) It's Scalescenes paper.

After nearly a year, the station building for my beginner's OO layout of 1950's Banff Scotland is (mostly) finished. Construction is detailed in my layout thread, starting here.

Well, that's that then. There are plenty of errors, some corrected, but after nearly a year, and with so many other things that are needed on this layout for it to be viewworthy, I think that it's high time to move on. At some stage, the station building might get downpipes and vent pipes, and a few chimney pots are waiting in the wings for me to find an appropriate dirty terracotta colour.

I wanted to join the circus, but there were too many hoops to jump through.

... like being spoken to by Aunt Edna.

A couple of weeks later, and I've finished pasting paper slates. I have to admit that this has gone faster than I thought. With the tedious part over, I've started the tedious part of cutting between the tiles with a scalpel. This provides a subtle texture to the otherwise flat surface, and helps to disguise the joins. One of these has had this treatment. Can you tell which?

I got an ‘A’ for my origami assignment, after I turned my paper into my teacher.

For someone who has lost his mojo, that is exceedingly good.

My first home had 1 metre high ceilings. I couldn’t stand living there.

I threw a ball for my dog on the weekend. Well, it was his birthday, and he looks good in a tuxedo.

No, at Encombe Town. Do try to keep up,

Yes, but ... Window frames are cut from 10-thou plasticard using a Silhouette cutter, but the finer glazing bars are scribed into the glazing (clear plastic), which is then filled with paint. Scribing is also done with the cutter, but doesn't absolutely have to be. I'm also aware of etches for signal box windows (Scale Link?), and Freestone do a range of paint-on-clear-plastic glazing bars. I bought the Freestone product but couldn't make the sizes work for me.

The spray booth got another outing today to make more skylights. The previous mentioned skylights are up near the ridge of the roof and are a scale 342x25mm each. Today's go down near the edge of the northern roof, and are a scale 6x4mm. You can see them on the drawing below. I made 6 so I can pick the best ... ... and I sincerely hope I don't have to make any more. I am reminded why I didn't choose N-scale.

I bet he has hopping mad.

Research has shown up Balmoral Road by resident @brossard. This is a 7mm exhibition layout, and his backscene is boards (mdf?) which sit on top of the baseboards, held in place with magnetic kitchen door catches against 2x1 uprights screwed to the rear of the baseboards. Miracle of miracles, the crucial post actually has photos ... I will continue the research, as there's undoubted other options out there.

Noice. Being a country resident, we can go from my hometown to Gloucester, a distance of more than 500km, for $2.50. But no further. It also takes forever (>9 hours), and requires a stupid-o'clock departure or an even-more-stupid-o'clock arrival.

Yesterday's photo has me thinking that I should be thinking about backscenes. The idea is to write something here, hopefully get some ideas and suggestions, with a view to doing something in a couple of months. I've already bought ID Backscenes premium Overcast Sky P503A and B, so have 4 sections of 1.5m each in self-adhesive polypropylene, but the question is how to mount them to the layout. The layout is 4 baseboards of 1.2m. These spend most of their lives on shelves in the garage, so the backscene needs to be portable, disassemble-able and store-able. One option is to mount the prints on ply, card or mount board. This would stiffen the prints up dramatically, and might mean that'd have to be done in 1.2m sections to match the baseboards, or 1.5m sections to match the prints themselves. The other option would be to not mount the prints, and to have some sort of frame to hold them to the back of the baseboards. I suspect getting unobtrusive joints between the prints might be difficult.

The baseboards came out this morning - first time this year - so I could trace the outline of the outside platform using the conventional pencil-on-the-side-of-a-carriage method. It was good to see the station building in situ.

That was an exceptional reply. All becomes clear!

Nope, Python all the way. https://youtu.be/7qNj-QFZbew

Success! In fact, so there was so little cussing today that I'll make another one. Five shorter sections (66-79mm) were cut and painted. The David Neat blocks again came into use: the acetate was pushed back against the larger block, while the small one was put on top to stop the acetate skittering off. Each frame section was lightly sprayed on the back in turn, then placed down onto the acetate using the Neat block and the previously laid section as guides. Here is a close-up of the worst of the four joins. I think that the bottom leg might have been missed by the spray adhesive altogether - I'll try nudging it into position with a Neat block tomorrow, then a touch of regular adhesive, or perhaps just a spot of paint would be enough? But you'd be hard pressed to spot this join in the overall photo, and from Normal Viewing Distance ... I'd give myself 9.3/10. Here's a photo of my spray booth. A little bit exposed, but well ventilated! If anyone's interested in some 5.25x23.5mm bits of 10-thou plasticard, do let me know. Ready cut, easy to handle, Aardvark's Individual Emperor Plasticardettes*! A million household uses! As used in hospitals! * with apologies to Monty Python.

Very impressive work! A little more detail concerning the forming of the roof would be appreciated, as my own scratch-build of a grounded wagon has - umm - ground to a halt exactly there. Was it tight rolled around the shaft of the screwdriver while cold?

Thanks for your kind words, @David Bell. Regretfully, the word Beginners will remain firmly attached for quite some time yet. Yes, the station building is looking good, but it's slow progress, having started in November. I suspect I'll be pushing 12 months before the slates are in place, something that will undoubtedly cause the old hands to shake their heads in dismay. But that's ok to me, as my "goal" when I (semi-) retired was to do things to an acceptable degree of goodness rather than good enough to satisfy the time constraints, as was always the case during my working life. Although I've possible got a few years in me yet, I've long since given up the concept of getting this layout "finished". As for Beginners, there are lots of things to do yet that I have no experience with. We'll all see how I go with acceptable degree of goodness when it comes to scenic-ing and other artistic endeavours.

Sign on a maternity room door, "Push, Push, Push."

When I scrolled past that last photo, my immediate thought was that there was a cricket match in progress.