Tricky

Here are some better shots taken outside of the dioram. I have made the baseboard from MDF with a solid hardwood edging, hand polished. Overall it measures 1040mm x 360mm x 360mm high. The scenic elements were skilfully taken care of by Neil Podbery and the beautiful sky-line backscene by Paul Bambrick. It features a ground frame, bracket signal and the begininnings of the turnout that it protects. It would be ideal to display rolling stock and locomotives to best advantage. It really is a first-class diorama - the photos don’t really do it justice and I am very pleased how the collaboration between Neil, Paul and me has worked out. It will be the first of many…! It is for sale for £1550. Please contact me if you are interested.

Not yet…! Actually I’m dithering a bit over selling it. It may be quite nice to keep hold of something I’ve made!

Here’s a few snaps of a diorama/photo display I’ve just finished. I made the ‘hardware’ and Neil Podbery took care of the vegetation, with Paul Bambrick painting a backscene. I’ll take some overall shots of it when I can get it outside. And it will shortly be up for sale.

Wildlife.

Wildlife spotting earlier in ‘summer’.

See you there Dave - I have a trade stand. Which is a glorified description of a 6x3 table with some stuff on it!!

It is still there, just. No corrugated exists any more but the concrete I think is fairly bomb proof!

Been working on an interesting prototype - a concrete silo which was used in a stone crushing plant attached to a Great Western branch near Exeter. The original was built around the turn of the last century and is in quite a brutalist functional style! It makes extensive use of shuttered concrete and is just about still standing, although fast succumbing to the ravages of time. Construction is mostly 3mm mdf laser cut and covered in paper strips. I may well do a write up with a more in-depth description of the methods used.

Here’s the water tank finished, with my best guess on the hut on top.

Evening shadows…

Well, I can in fact answer this question very accurately - mine is by way of a charitable donation!

Indeed. I think Network Rail have been slow in deciding what they are doing with a handful of suitable candidates for the VoBR to purchase.

Fortunately, the original one recently came up at auction and I was able to obtain a hi-res image of the whole board, which I used to scale off letter spacing and fixing. Additionally, Dave Harris has been very helpful in supplying photos of some of the study centre collection.

Thanks Martin, as I said, I was ‘told’ by my customer that he had tried Templot and couldn’t get it to do what he wanted. I’ve got no real experience with it so just went down my usual Autocad route - especially as drawing for the laser is a doddle. Nothing derogatory intended about Templot, no offence meant, I hope none taken.

Correct. It’s a full-size signal box name board, and will read SHARPNESS SOUTH. As I say the photo renders the ultramarine blue as a little brighter than in reality - it’s not far off the swatch in Midland Style but it’s still fairly bright! I have laser cut the letters out and I’m just in the process of machining up the bevelled surround trim. At just over 10’ long, it’s a beast!

Any guesses as to what this is going to be? I will say the photo makes the blue a tad brighter than it is in real life!

Autocad is very familiar to me, yes. It’s what I grew up with - old dogs and all that…! And yes again, it’s ideally suited to making drawings (dxf) for the laser. Here’s some crossings I made the other day using the same method. These wyes are so tight (it’s a dockyard setting) and unprototypical that I am told Templot would throw it’s hands up in horror!

Been working today on a collection of O Gauge crossings. These are for a commission where the whole layout is on a curve so nothing is straight! Here I’ve drawn the whole layout in Autocad and then used those drawings to cut templates on the laser. The templates are oriented upside down so the vee can be soldered from below along with scrap brass ties which fixes the vee and wing rails together. I’ve got a couple more plain crossings to do before moving on to the last one which is the most complicated one where I’ve combined crossings and a diamond in close proximity. Using these templates means that the rails can be formed to the required curves very accurately and held firmly and accurately while being soldered up. All of the wing rails are drawn over-length as these are trimmed to length and flares added later once the crossing is removed from the template. The only slight niggle to this technique of making crossings is the templates aren’t reusable as they get damaged during the build process.

My ideal of doing a bit on Tewks most days has long since evaporated, however, I have been dabbling on and off with the rear wall and engine shed. I’ve added a bit of grubby colour around the brickwork generally and gone over again with the off-white mortar mix to bring some hi-lights. The rear wall gives a reasonable representation of an older wall showing signs of spalling and in need of repointing. The shed looks ok in natural light but under artificial looks flat. I shall experiment further…

I love the effect of the pastel chalk. Is it fixed in some way or just dusted on? Does handling remove it again? For general weathering try a diluted wash of grubby Humbrol colours, wiping off with a scrap of cloth.

672….I do believe you’re serious…!

This is a close-up of the said photo just in case it jogs someone’s memory…

Back to the subject of water tanks, I’m building another one, based on the one I believe at Sheffield. This one is unusual as it straddles a platform. I have only been shown one photo where it’s in the background and has some sort of hut on top. I wonder if anyone has any more info on it?