Aces High

Thank you, I forgot to say that I added sand to the mixture as well to add texture. This morning, having dried, it looks like a perfect desert scene so I might have to use that method and model a diaorama from my Iraq or Afghan days as well, any excuse.

My work on Winterfall today. Using a polyfilla mix of water, pva and red, black and brown paint. Spread it all over the countryside end of the layout and leave to dry. Will be painted over and textured but if it chips it'll chip brown. The mixture dilutes well with water and washed off the bottom of the bridge. The road surface will be sanded down and painted accordingly.

Photos of yesterday, it's still drying but once it has I'll be playing the plaster, pva, water, paint mix onto it to add texture. I'm really quite pleased with how it's turned out so far so will be using this method from now on and leaving the plaster bandage by the wayside.

I think I'll just stick a fir tree or something to block the line of sight to that window, or angle the whole building in such a way that it's not too visible. I've had some success today with the land form and I'm a much bigger fan of this new method than the plaster bandage. I've been taking photos as I've gone along, just waiting for the kitchen role to dry before applying a mix of plaster, pva and light brown poster paint tomorrow ish. Will post pictures of the whole lot in one go. As soon as I've finished playing around with the land by the back scene I'm going to paint (I'm not going to do that at all, the better half is) the winter sky scene in, then I'll get the Spit and V1 up for you all to see.

Still in love with this project. I'd be very interested in a step by step how to on the trenches as I'd like to have a small system with a pillbox on Winterfall.

Thank you for the replies and steers. I think we must be one of the few groups that occasionally welcomes a bit of rougher weather. As it's less than ideal outside today I've decided to move indoors and try and get some work done on Winterfall. The Spitfire and V1 are all but finished so my main effort today will be securing track down and building scenery, but not before a quick trip to try and get a new glue gun after my old one perished at the hands of the long haired general last night. I'm also making a start on the job of individually taping each window pain on Winterfall farm house to protect against glass, I did the front ones last night and I now notice a slight differing in scale on the lower right hand front room window, still, that's what garden bushes can be used to hide. As always, if you get time please drop by, like and share my wife and I's craft and hobby pages. https://www.facebook.com/AcesHigh76/ and https://twitter.com/AcesHigh76 Thank you.

Managed to squeeze in an hour or two playing with Winterfall in between working on Aces High (see the links in signature block for more details if interested, although as much support as possible is very welcome). I've abandoned the uncoupling for now and going to concentrate on building the land. As I'm using this to try and perfect skills before building my next layout I'm going to experiment with ways of building land form. As it's hidden behind the occupational bridge I've started on the tack at the back of the layout. In this case I've built the land by gluing strips of cardboard in the general shape I'd like it to form and then put three layers of Terra-Forma plaster of paris bandage over it. To be honest, the jury is out on this product, it was quite expensive and took a very long time to dry, I found I had to leave it to soak for much longer than the few seconds it recommended on the packaging before it became easily manipulative. However, it's done the job and any small errors can be covered with scatter. I think for the next part I'll be trying tin foil and papermache or another type of bandage.

Is it just me or do the Summer months, coupled with day trips, holidays, garden and the occasional burst of Summer sun lead to a decline in available modelling time?

I am so glad to find this on here, I am a massive fan of your videos Richard. I was a teenager growing up in and around Reading in the late 80's early 90's. I used to regularly travel into Reading with friends or to go ice skating in Oxford by rail from Pangbourne, this layout perfectly captures the atmosphere I remember from then for me. Fantastic work mate, Andy

Trying out some automatic uncoupling ideas. Have seen a video on u tube that uses magnets in the track and paper clips glued to the tension coupling but I cannot quite get it to work. Does anyone please have any alternative suggestions that could be done on a budget and that would still look pleasing to the eye?

Well its back to work after a nice period away from it all with the family and building our hobbies pages. Work on the layout will now be mostly done at weekends when we're not out and about visiting places and leaving random clues as to the location on Twitter. I haeny forgotten about the invasion stripes but was in two minds whether to do them or not, until I found an example of a Mk V online with them. Might just have to give them a go. As always please please do visit, like and share our Twitter and Facebook pages, appreciative of all the support we can get.

So, in between working on our hobbies page (see signature blocks), day trips to the Isle of Wight, Chessington, bowling, other small things to keep the children busy and a turn at the Watercress Line, I have decided on the final track plan, it is kind of plagiarised from a layout I saw on here a while back but appears to work in the small space that I have and the cork bed is now cut to size and point motors fixed in place. The most important thing for this novice is the electrics work and I am now playing around with uncoupling ideas. A bit more of the story I have invented around this, it's set in the late period of world war 2, post D-Day but before Christmas 1944 on the Southern Region. There is room for a LARGE amount of modelers licence (hence the mark V spitfire) as I am using this as a test bed for learning skills before building my planned N gauge, blitz themed layout. Cameos that I have so far planned are, evacuee children at the halt, home guard on the march, an ARP warden giving the occupants of a farm cottage a telling off, a Spitfire chasing a V1 along the back of the back scene and a possible sighting of Detective Chief Superintendent Foyle at a crime scene. My main problem is, I have no idea how a railway would operate or what sort of buildings I would expect to see where, so, over to you. If after having a look at the basic layout as it is below you have any suggestions as to what could go where (there is scope for me to continue the line at the back in either direction at a later date, I will just place a mirror on the intended side for now if required), cattle docks, low relief goods sheds, anything, please do feel free to comment. For now I'm finishing of the spitfire and working on the farm cottage, with the enjoyable task of after applying a primer coat in my improvised shoe box spray booth, applying strapping to all the windows. Please also, if you feel so inclined, visit, like and share our hobbies page on Twitter and Facebook, the links are in my signature, it's still very early days with these and we could do with all the support we can get. Thank you all.

The atmosphere on this is just brilliant, while reading through it I could just imagine the opening scenes of The Bridge at Remain.

Now I understand the interest in my V1. This is a fantastic project.

Thank you for the welcome Terry, I also share my work space with my oldest son, or should I say, he borrows my things and then tells me about it later on. Yes Al, just a bit too early and probably a bit too slow to chase down a V1, but she's just so pleasing to the eye, anyway, to keep things on track, here's a few pictures of my attempt at a removable control panel / fascia board. It's using the dreaded Hornby controller but I'm starting out with billy basics whilst I learn the ropes for now.

Aah, that'll be the back scene cameo that sets the date, although there will be a bit of modelers licence by pushing it a bit later into the autumn of 1944 and the type of aircraft chasing it.

And a couple more.

Hello to all, long time lurker and fan of the site having now decided to grab the bull by the horns and give the practical side of the hobby a whirl. I'm afraid I'm at the "don't know my flange from my bogie" stage however I'm sure that will all change very quickly as I now volunteer as a Porter on the Watercress Line. Had a rough trot of things recently, mostly due to the experiences I've had over the past ten years of my soon to be over 22 year career. Instead of moping about feeling sorry for myself I've tried to fill my life with as much stuff that I enjoy doing as possible, all of it I'm very new to but we all start somewhere. I've started a mini project "Aces High" (hence the user name) to try and share all of this with the outside world but I won't shamelessly advertise all that as this isn't the forum for it. My wife and I are massive Game of Thrones fans and our favorite time of year is late Summer early Autumn, combine the two and we came up with the name Winterfall. Winterfall is an entirely fictional 4ft x 1ft Inglenook style DC shunting layout. The aim of it is to be used as somewhere to learn all about the hobby and trough trial and error come up with a layout that is fun to use but also pleasing to the eye. We have based it in the Southern Region within a 1940's time period, although one of the cameo scenes will fix it very firmly in time as those eagle eyed among you will at some point notice. As mentioned, it is still very early days, we/I know next to nothing about the hobby, hopefully through building up a small following here we'll learn from your collective experience, be gentle please. Anyway, just wanted to say hello and as we know how fond you are of photos here are a few of the stage we are currently at, the track plan you see here is not the final one.