Marly51

Still working on this model! The taxis are getting their final gloss paint coat at the same time as some old tinplate sleepers for my third CakeBox. I am painting the figures in batches, but getting there. Trying to source more old 1950s newspaper front pages and billboards for the newsstand.

The contents of my larder are now in danger of disappearing into the workshop! It’s like discovering an old household almanac!

This is the treacle tin I remember! Now it comes in a plastic bottle!

Thanks Nearholmer! Will try that with the other track pieces which are pretty intact, plus there is a ‘point’ where the connecting rod has snapped. I quite enjoy the challenge of these tinkering jobs!

From a very cheap job lot of rusty Hornby 0 gauge track, I decided to use a particularly twisted small curve to create the track for the model. I came across a a suggestion online to use white vinegar to clean the track, so gave it a go. After soaking for 24 hours, rinsing and drying, the rails appear to be a matt grey colour and the black paint on the sleepers just fell away! I managed to prise off the sleepers, and straighten the track enough for my purpose, with the aid of my husband’s bench vice and some wrestling with pliers. The sleepers have a camber, so I will have to compensate for this, raising the base either side of the track and a couple of shallow wedges under each sleeper. I will prime the sleepers and spray with black gloss so they look like they might have just come ‘out of the box’.

Thanks for the videos, Gary Lovely seeing the model and your progress! Marlyn

Lovely diorama, beautifully observed and modelled, Mike. I, too, am a fan of the 1950s era! Marlyn

Now that’s ‘graffiti’!

A handmade cobbled surface is really worth the effort, Luke, but unfortunately there are no short cuts. I listen to audiobooks or the radio when I am doing monotonous jobs like that!

Some nice scenic detailing OOman - your miniature figures will bring it to life!

Nearing the end now - a couple of shots of the model with LED lights in three buildings. I used a cheap kit which came with a switched battery pack and LEDs in a strip. It was a bit of a fiddle fitting the lights in such tiny spaces. I put two LEDs in the station building which is why it is shining more brightly, one is really enough! Colour filters on the inside of the windows were made from tissue paper coloured with ordinary felt pens. Models are never really finished, but the last images and description will be posted once the backscene is in place. A twilight shot by moonlight with lamps being lit indoors! This LED kit was fine for my first attempt at lighting a model, but think I will be using individual LEDs in future.

Good to see you back GeoffinOz! Another fascinating CakeBox!

Here is my card mock-up - once more at an angle, as this is the only way I can fit in the buffer stop and the small coal wagon. I am restoring a short piece of Hornby two-rail track at present, so will see how that goes! The section of goods shed and platform, with a triangle of embankment at the back will be fixed. All the other pieces in the diorama, Dinky Toy lorry, coal wagon, buffer stop, coal staithe and various figures will be placed, as in a Toy layout. Another ‘busy’ scene! Now I have to go and experiment with creating Hornby 0 Gauge style textures, for the backscene, goods shed and platform in Adobe ‘Illustrator’!

I have some grass mat to cover the main part of the base. Think I’ll try and keep the model toy-like, with figures on bases, coal staithe as a drop-in feature. May model part of a building in the style of Hornby Tin-Plate, with a platform at the back, so that the coal lorry is above track level in the background area.

I have this Hornby ‘M Series’ Station dating to 1930/31 as my reference for creating the Hornby graphic style in the CakeBox model. The grey open wagon (‘M Series’ scale) is much smaller than the standard 0 Gauge brown tinplate open wagon with automatic couplings. Unfortunately there is not enough room for the brown wagon, plus the buffer stop, which I would have preferred.

One thing I am enjoying about these mini CakeBox projects is the opportunity to explore different scales, railway histories, model manufacturing histories, real and fictitious scenarios, etc I have a tinplate wagon, but it is a clip-on version with no buffers and ‘plastic’ wheels? Still reading background history of Hornby 0 Gauge tinplate and assuming this would have been part of a cheaper toy train collection? Because I am using the buffer stop, I have purchased another wagon which has buffers and the automatic ‘hook and loop’ couplers.

Sadly, here in my remoter part of the Far North, our broadband isn’t good enough for live YouTube streaming!

Great to see a steam locomotive again, here at Lairg Station! Some shots of the ‘Steam Dreams’ tour passing through today. Steam engine, ‘Mayflower’ No. 61306, one of only two surviving Thompson 'B1' 4-6-0s.

Wow that looks great! Is it CakeBox size? If so, you should enter it in the challenge?

Could do OOman, but not sure I should just leave it? The rubber tyres are still intact, but one is a bit mis-shapen. I have seen some good videos about refurbishing die-cast models.

I was looking for a date for the Dinky Toy Fordson and found this detail on a website called Die Cast Gems. Earliest models were produced in 1951. http://www.diecastgems.com/422-dinky-fordson/4581074845

The coal lorry has arrived! A well used Dinky Toy - Fordson Flat Bed Lorry. Now to model some coal sacks...

All the best with the new job, OOman! Look forward to seeing more of your modelmaking Marlyn

Just found your topic, Justin. Thank you for sharing your research - my family have Strathspey distillery connections and in fact my great grandfather was registered as staying with his grandmother at the Dailuaine Distillery cottages in an early census. I shall be meeting family, who have worked for the distilleries, in June. Will see if I can find out any more sources of information. All the best with with this project. Marlyn

I shall scan some photographs and paintings from my book collection on old cottages and farmhouses, Job. Will send them by message attachment so you can use them for reference. Some of Stanley Spencer’s paintings have farmhouses similar to your model. Although these paintings date to the late 1930s, country buildings and roads would not have changed a lot over the next 20 years, as the boom in car ownership didn’t really take off until the 1960s. https://paintdropskeepfalling.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/stanley-spencer-exhibition-at-compton-verney/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/gardening/2016/04/15/cottages-edit_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpg?imwidth=450 As Dave (Wenlock) has described, roads to farms can be narrow, with grass verges, lined with thick hedges - some farm roads could be rutted, with potholes and grass sprouting in the middle. The top surface of the road would be chippings from local stone quarries. Here in the Highlands the roads in the 1950s were often a pinky red colour. Maybe someone who grew up in the area you are modelling could advise on local stone. An old farmhouse path could have paths made from large slabs of slate, or simply gravel. Good luck with the model! Marlyn