grahame

Some floral wallpaper now on. And a few details added but so much to do and so time consuming. Here's a helicopter view;

That's right. That's why I didn't add the wallpaper to the ceiling line but left a section just plain painted above where the picture rail would be. Having looked a dozens of photos of part demolished houses I was surprised by how little of wall fittings/decoration, like fireplaces, picture rails, skirtings, built-in cupboards, cornices, etc., remained. It's almost like someone had gone in and stripped them out before demolition or they all came down when the ceilings and floors were knocked out.

A little slow progress - some gutters and down pipes added to the warehouse, frontages now on the Bermondsey Street shops, chimney pots on the derelict under demolition houses, wall paper added, fireplace mantle made, etc. They don't make big obvious progress but they take time and gradually improve things . . . .

Just a gentle jog and some climbing exercises for Marley today:

I've now got some rough and ready paint on the inside section to represent old internal decoration. It needs detailing and touching up. And making and adding all the rubble, bricks and timber. As well as adding chimney pots and doors off their hinges and broken window frames and stairways. Such a lot to do.

Today I've added some filler over the card and wooden spatulas to form the undulations and disguise the sharp angles. This will form the basic more gentle landform that will need decorating with old brickwork, building materials and vegetation that has grown through it. I've also given the filler a coat of 'earth' coloured paint that I purchased today. Oddly it looks very similar to the desert yellow that I sprayed the brickwork in (my go to colour for the base of London yellow stocks brickwork). I'm going to need to darken the 'earth' with some browner colour.

I've got a bucket grab excavator, built from a GHQ white metal kit, that I'll probably use when completing the scene:

I've now got the basic gable end wall in place - it will be the only 'complete wall of the row/scene - and given everything a coat of grey primer. Next will be the remnants of the front walls and the front yard walls. The view will be from the rear of the building showing the innards so the inside walls will need to be dressed (plaster, wall paper, etc) rather than just brick, meaning more modelling effort. I'd already included a smooth plaster representation for the inside of the gable end wall except the loft area.

I sketched up a very rough character drawing to give me an idea of how it could look and marked up the terraced properties outlines/boundaries on the sub-board. Then I tentatively started adding in some brick plasticard - doubled up so the embossed bricks were on both sides - in the lowered cellar areas to represent the party walls. The plan is that those on the left end are almost completely demolished while it is only a couple at the other end of the terrace that will have any resemblance of a house - just a few external walls and chimney stacks but no roof.

The next scenic vignette along the baseboard front from the Victorian warehouse will be a bomb damage/slum clearance site. It's a narrow triangular shaped site. There's plenty of photos on the web of such sites and building demolition to provide inspiration and research. I've started by cutting holes in the baseboard to allow a lower level for cellars, etc, to be modelled and provide undulation. Next I've put together a removeable sub-board for the scene to carry out the modelling effort indoors. This includes lowered sections that drop in to the holes. It's only rough as, hopefully, there will be a lot of detail to cover it. This is only a beginning and there is much modelling effort to carry out so it may take some time.

I believe there is a simple and very cheap kit version of a pallet van available from the NGS. The downside is that it probably runs on a one piece Peco chassis.

Here's a few snaps of my trip to Venice by train last week changing at Paris and Milan and with stopovers in Switzerland both ways;

No modelling of recent as I've been away (last week) to Venice by train, stopping over in Switzerland. Some continental train snaps from the trip are posted here: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/185192-train-trip-to-venice/#comment-5466282 Back now, but not in the swing of modelling yet, so yesterday I prepared an article about my gasholder kit bashing, based on one I published in my magazine a while back. I'd adapted the kit from an above ground water tank type to a subterranean type with the kit tank made to represent the bottom holder lift with scratch made and added bottom level bracing. It looks a lot better and more appropriate IMO. And here's a gratuitous snap of it currently in place on the LB layout. However, there's still plenty to do on the gasholder station site:

Marley's training continues:

The block with the warehouse is almost complete. I've added some shops overlooking Bermondsey Street which I'd always planned to do, although their frontages are not yet finished. And, of course, this is N/2mm scale for my under construction layout. I've also finally made and added hopper-heads and down pipes to the warehouse, but as I'm out of half round styrene strip I've not been able to add gutters and downpipes to the overhanging pitched roofs.

Here's how the Bermondsey Street shops look in conjunction with the warehouse (on the same block). No.72, a cafe called Chapter 72, is still to be completed - the ground floor windows, door and anything that can be seen inside. The other property seems a strange secretive affair with frosted windows and blinds. And I've still to make the hopper heads and downpipes for the warehouse, and now for the shops.

Just a little bit more work on the frontages today. I need to consider how I'll make the ground floor windows for both properties and the door for the cafe. Otherwise I'm happy with the progress.

A start has been made on the frontages - fortunately they are mostly quite plain and simple. And the chimney pots are now in place. But that's it for today. I'm going upstairs to have a bath and get ready for an afternoon sesh in the local, then it'll be cooking dinner and relaxing.

And a picture of the block in place (but not fixed) on the layout (out in the shed) with ridge tiles and coping stones added:

A little progress on the Bermondsey Street buildings that are on the warehouse block. As always still plenty to do like the frontages, ridge tiles, coping stones, chimney pots and so on. Also you can see that I've made and added the hoist jib to the warehouse but the rainwater hopper heads and down pipes are still yet to be made and added.

The layout looks great in the magazine, an impressive advert for British N gauge. Well done.

Perhaps he's built a model railway in his roof top shed.

As part of the block with the warehouse, I'd planned to include some buildings facing the road, Bermondsey Street. I've chosen some fairly plain fronted three storey ones, including a café currently called Chapter 72, to base the model on, see here: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.501484,-0.0821143,3a,75y,235.21h,103.23t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s7w8xcfK0ruGuhCPrzhtbyw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D7w8xcfK0ruGuhCPrzhtbyw%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D28.525812%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu I've knocked up a card carcass as pictured below (apologies for quick poor quality snap) to get started :

Next building along is a Victorian style warehouse. It's not quite finished; gutters, downpipes and hopper heads still to be made and added:

This afternoon I was enjoying 'I Am the Moon' by the Tedeschi Trucks Band on vinyl. ;-)