Malcolm7mm

thanks for your support just a few clarifications we were only ever 5 members the episode you saw us in was the last to be filmed but the first to be shown we had considerably less time than any other team to do our pre-build and in the final we only had 4 days to work out a theme and get it all together again we were 5 people not 6 i was very proud of our team and wonder what we could have accomplished if we had had the numbers and time the other teams had : Strangers captain from his garden centre

as team leader of strangers we were not told until the end of heat 5 (Saturday) so we had 4 days to find an idea organise all the supplies and get our team into final mode i found the interaction of the judges and presenters a great irritation this time

there was supposed o be a shop but all there was was the shop that is at Fawley for tourists in the final there was a box of leftovers that could be used but in the main if you didnt bring it with you then it wasnt there

if he had been sensible he could have made all the huts stuck them together sprayed it ib one go and fixed on the flags this could have been one of his 6 items

this was always in oo permission for n gauge if required

guagemaster i think does not count as a prebuild nor do figures fyi

the mat was laid over a foundation of lattice card board and then i moulded it into the down land effect you get if you look at it from a distance the edges were blended into the chalk face using a plaster/paint mixture to take the sharp white colour away i then added tufts of grass on a random basis also rubberised horse hair was used to make hedges at the end we sprayed shadows with an air brush to give a light/dark effect

as you are no doubt aware i was team leader of strangers so first a bit of info:- the spitfire was built from an airfix kit and sprayed to the period then 2 tubes were fixed on the underside of the wings nylon fishing line was secured to each end of the layout and the plane suspended horizontally between the two wires by threading through the tubes .A loop of line was then fixed to the propeller longer than the baseboard this was threaded through the bracket at the left hand side and secured to a windlass run by an electric drill this pulled the plane from one end to the other .in order to steady the plane another length of line was secured to the tail and passed through a hole om the right hand side this was used to draw the plane back for a rerun .in order to keep tension on the line two steel nuts were attached to the end of the line and dragged across the floor when the plane was flown. now as to the final ,the episode screened first was actually the last which finished on the Saturday we did not know we were in the final until Saturday evening nor did we know the final theme .this meant that we would be back at Fawley filming the next Wednesday.In the final we had 4 days to build a layout .this time all we had were bare baseboards no pre built items .i had to meet with the team on Sunday conceive a layout get some sort of plan together order supplies and get ourselves together for the start basically this meant we had been working on these two layouts for about 6 weeks .which is why i i was concerned about my garden centre Other teams had up to 5 weeks to work on the final layout alone i hope this clarifies some points Why do people assume they know stuff when patiently they do not

as one of the participants in the first program i would like to give you all some insight as to what went on during the filming of the episode first some background our team consisted of 5 members only not 6 as the other teams were we were put in contact with each other by the production company and left to get on with it to create a team to fill a gap that had arisen by another team having dropped out we had never met before,hence the name Strangers. we were given a baseboard made up of 1/2 mdf in 3 parts totalling 10 x 5,we were allowed to work on two parts of the base board but one section need to be left blank. Ballasting and static grass had to be done during filming . we were given budgets from Hornby Backman Pico Metcalf Guagemaster and Delux materials glue plus we could spend £200 petty cash we could only buy certain things such as track from Pico oxford vehicles from Guagemaster this applied to all the participants . we differed in that we had a lot less time than the other teams to conceive order materials and start work on the baseboards,we were not a club so had no club facilities and or participation by other club members ( not allowed by rules but how to stop it? ) all of our team are good modellers and the layout which was meant to be in the base of a chalk quarry certainly looked as good as it could given the conditions we worked under .The meadow blanket looked a lot more like down land i real life than it did on tv Some of the critics on this forum have remarked on the standard of modelling .Our team followed the rules and did a good a job as possible under the conditions of filming and i am very proud of our efforts ,To those who disparage our efforts post a picture of your models that you created on baseboards in a garage transported to Fawley finished them in 2.5 working days and film the action all the time and see if they are finescale quality i will post more after the final