Rhysb

Cracking James well done! Love the roof peel! A technique I’m still trying to master! Rhys

Well after what seems an age (more like a year and a half!) I'm calling the train room finished and ready to start having fun! And a view from the other end: Ian (Téméraire) popped in yesterday on his way home and we had a good chat about track plans! Also good news the baseboard plywood arrived today too! Onto the build.... Rhys

I have to say the slaters sheets are excellent and highly recommend them! Quite an old photo as redone the side walls but the roof is the same. Easy to cut, glues well and easily painted. Rhys

All, Apologies for the delay in an update but the big house move is now completed. I have moved a few miles down the road into even more rural Somerset to a 15th century farm. And yes the farm has many outbuildings :-) one of which has been under construction (and battling with planners!) and is almost ready to house the layout and its extensions! Overall the room is about 48' x 15' As I am sure PaulRHB, Temeraire and the others will attest after many many hours, weeks etc of track planning im pretty much 90% there on the new track plan, which I will share with you all soon. The remaining 10% of it will be ad-hoc when building. It will be a double deck round one side (eventually) with a central peninsula. Some areas will be triple deck. I am aiming very much for the american style of layout building but keeping the UK theme of it. Various locations from the Bristol area, Westbury, Salisbury and Somerset, Devon & Dorset. They all have something in common: Wessex! So I think the old Wessex Junction layout name may come back! Thanks Rhys

Good day indeed, just about fixed all my trains that Mike crashed! lol

Moving house at the moment Andy! Updates hopefully in a couple of weeks Rhys

And here is a weathered and rusted view of the girders: Thanks Rhys

So this beast was back on the workbench tonight! Apart from the roofing I used printed sheets to clad the lower part of the building and despite loads of varnish they have over time turned from a grey to a funny pink colour. So time to do it right and clad it with plasticard sheets. Also wanted to add some more details. You can see the difference: Plus wanted to add some structure to the building with some I and H beams which I will weather down. Here is the idea: more to follow! Thanks Rhys.

Looked brilliant the other day Ian! Loving the videos too! rhys

Looks great Kev! Cant wait to see the layout evolve inside! Rhys

Hows this… added the railings too! Thanks Rhys

Nick, Its Vallejo textured paint. Think its called white stone Thanks Rhys

Your missing the words... inspired by/copy/replicate/bodge Its always a compromise as while I want to get as close as possible im still using doors/windows etc from kits or parts. Thanks Rhys

And the final pub... hope you all had a great bank holiday! Thanks Rhys

Next details like roof flashings and final touches:

Test fit of the roof...

Well months later, another lockdown but my word summer has finally arrived! So with summer arriving I decided to head from Somerset down to Cornwall to go to the pub.... well not in reality but in OO world! Plus I needed to build the pub! With Summer here and recent trip to Cornwall for my stag do! My juices were flowing to get Porthleven moving. So onto the pub! As I’m using Porthleven as a inspiration I want to copy/replicate/bodge as many buildings as possible. The first is the iconic Ship Inn at the end of the outer harbour/breakwater.

And finally: I also decided to try some paint pens to see if I could get a bit more detail into the graffiti, I have also created a graffiti artist called WIZ that might be tagging around the layout!: The last couple on the layout (well one more to do but fed up with VGA's now ): And finally as my layout is roughly 1991 to 1993 a very apt bit of graffiti from the socialists: That's all for now. Stay safe Rhys

And a few shots of the rake coming together:

Phase two was more grime and graffiti, I also wanted to model where someone had come along and painted over the graffiti: again more to come!

So with the house move as set in stone as much as it can be at the moment! I am carrying on with stock projects in the workshop. The Leighford Junction yard board (soon to become Leighford Hill ;-) ....a bit of a clue there!) and some tree building. Anyway stock updates: I had been putting off the VGA's for some time. I had a load of Bachmann ones in the draw in either normal or the poorly weathered versions and I decided it was time for these to be weathered and detailed. These will find work on both this layout and the expo layout. So armed with a load of pictures and inspiration from Mr Makin I set to work: First one complete and on the layout: More to come....

All good for that day!

Good news! Better dust off the layout from under the lockdown dust! Thanks Rhys

Trevor, China clay dry envy here! that looks fantastic! Thanks Rhys

Little newcomer to the layout: Need to fix one little thing I missed but getting there! Two big projects coming up. A load more ILRA/Bristol based 47’s coming and another project that will give some direction of where the rest of the layout is going. Stay safe Rhys