Marly51

I loved model railways from the minute my cousin set up his immaculate Hornby clockwork trainset on my granny’s kitchen floor, then my dad took my brother and I to our first model railway exhibition in a small hall off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh in the early 1960s, where we were fascinated by a ‘rabbit warren’ continental layout winding and twisting through snow covered mountains. My cousin’s Meccano Magazines had little diorama settings for the latest Dinky Toy vehicles, so when the Triang trainset arrived one Christmas, with the obligatory 6ft x 4ft Sundeala baseboard, we knew we wanted to create a miniature landscape to bring it to life. I appreciate the skills of the miniature engineer, the planning and running of layouts from the simplest ‘inglenook’ to the more ambitious and complex. But for me, I mostly love a layout which tells a story, either accurate historical/contemporary or imaginative representation. Whether the modelmaker is a beginner or an expert the joy is in the making and we, the observers can enjoy the results.

Marlyn

I have an original Anglepoise heavy duty magnifying lamp with the ‘ring’ fluorescent tube and it has a superb glass lens. The stand and mountings for wall or desk are all metal and adjustable. I find it quite frustrating that many modern lamps are not fit for purpose, often made with too thin supports. This magnifying lamp was purchased second hand in the 1980s and proved an essential piece of equipment throughout my graphic design career, so I am used to working with it. I sometimes use my husband’s headband magnifier (a recent purchase), but it does get quite warm and I can only use it for short spells - usually while cleaning up and painting miniature plastic figures.

Marlyn

This collaboration is great! My illustrator daughter may collaborate with me on some small dioramas, but ours will possibly be more rural. Good to see artistic backdrops which can often be more flexible in interpretation.

Marlyn

Well what do you know - join a forum and find out there is a Hobbycraft not too far away. Thanks Liam. We lost our only art supply shop last year, but there’s still a very good model shop in Dingwall.

 

Marlyn

Interesting to read everyone’s take on the challenge. Look forward to seeing your model develop. Inverness Lakeland didn’t have the cake box and we are in the back of beyond, so ordered one online. I know we don’t have to necessarily supply the model in a cake box, but would be good if it needed transporting. Just holding off getting started on the baseboard and scenery until it arrives.

We had our croft house roof re-slated a few years ago and was aware of the diminishishing size of courses in traditional Scottish and Welsh buildings . A friend whose work involves conservation of buildings in the Snowdonia National Park confirmed this and I found this link http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/scottish-slate-roofs/scottish-slate-roofs.htm which mentions that slates of differing size were utilised to maximise efficiency of quarry output.

Hi, Marlyn - welcome to RMweb. I see you are interested in The Far North Line - it's nice to have another showing interest in this backwater, which has a lot of modelling potential both as layouts and dioramas. Ask away if you have questions as there is always someone with the answer you seek here on the forum.

Thank you Ben - I am familiar with your layouts based on Thurso, Helmsdale and The Mound, which are wonderful. I also met Stuart Holt when he brought part of his Culrain model North a couple of years ago. It’s a steep learning curve for me and rtr locomotives plus kit wagons and coaches will have to suffice initially for my current projects. I have always admired the miniature modelling and engineering skills of the complete scratch builder, and been lucky to meet some very helpful experts over the years. There weren’t many female modellers back in the 1960s/1970s when I first caught the ‘bug’ but one lady did inspire me - Vivien Thompson - and I still have a copy of her book ‘Period Railway Modelling Buildings’ somewhere on my bookshelf!

All the best, Marlyn

At the dolls house fair - Miniatura 2015 - modelmaker, David Wright, ran a demonstration workshop for creating stone textures with DAS clay on Petite Properties Kits. I am mainly working on 2mm scale scratchbuilt models just now and finding card models with paper textures are giving a satisfactory result, especially since I am working to a deadline!

Hello Marly51 (AKA the man with no name),

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

Jeff

Thanks for the welcome Jeff - I am ‘she’ known as Marlyn

I came across Alphagraphix when I was checking out model railway paper kit suppliers. In due course I would like to have a go at scratchbuilding locomotives and rolling stock in card. An American company Clever Models produces amazing downloadable kits for buildings, locomotives etc. I would like to have a go at designing my own Scottish kits at some point, but too many other projects demanding my attention just now. Looking forward to seeing how your models progress.

 

Marlyn

Games Workshop paints & maybe a few of the figures could work well for Steampunk?

Dava

Thank you - already on it Dava!

My daughter had all the gear during her ‘Goth’ phase! She is now a professional illustrator and has also offered to assist with layout backscenes, etc so might be taking her up on that.

Another returning oldie who has childhood memories of travelling by steam train. My particular interest is creating scenery and constructing buildings from mainly paper and card, although I have used Plasticard a lot in the past. I plan to focus on small dioramas and micromodel layouts. Hoping to learn more about the history of steam and Scottish railway companies, locomotives, rolling stock, etc along the way.

Just recently returned to constructing buildings out of paper and card. I downloaded Kingsway’s free kit of ‘Rover’s Return’ as a dry run. I use card made by laminating cereal packet card and construct the sides as low relief ‘flats’ before assembly. I changed the rear of the building to a traditional back yard.

I bought John Ahern’s books from Pendon some years ago. The drawings in these older handbooks are beautiful and a lot of information is still relevant for scratch modelling today although we have much improved adhesives. I still find it amazing what it is possible to create using card made from laminating cereal boxes.

John H. AhernJohn Henry Ahern, known as ‘Jack’, was a London insurance broker who in early 1939 began a regular series of articles published in the Model Railway News centred broadly around the construction of two successive small 4mm layouts each called the ‘Madder Valley Railway’ and the means of scratch-building small light railway locomotive models.With the advent of the Second World War in September of that year, severe restrictions on the manufacture of ‘toys’ meant that virtually everything had to be home-built from household materials or hoarded material. Contemporary modelling trends were to model mainline locomotives on large double-tracked layouts. These layouts were largely the preserve of the wealthy, the emphasis being firmly on the locomotives and rolling stock, with scenic modelling playing second fiddle.The Madder Valley railways were unusual for that period in that they were from the start ‘scenic’ railways, running through whimsical landscapes containing cardboard and wooden buildings built to a most exacting standard. Quite simply, no one had taken so much care or paid so much attention to structure modelling. His methods and drawings, brought together in ‘Miniature Building Construction: an Architectural Guide for Modellers’ ISBN-13: 978-0852421925 enabled many to follow his lead and encouraged what we think of today as ‘Railway Modelling’.Taking early retirement in 1944, he moved with his wife Gladys to a house in St John’s Wood situated behind Lord’s Cricket Ground and there set to work building the final Madder Valley Railway.An intellectual, a member of the Fabian Society and friend of H.G Wells he would probably be amused to think that his most lasting memorial is a 1930s themed model railway, now preserved at Pendon Museum.Doug DicksonAlso By John H. AhernMiniature Landscape Modelling ISBN-13: 978-0852426845 Miniature Locomotive Construction ISBN-13: 978-0853440758[First published in Railway Modeller Magazine, 2010]

These will be a great addition. I’m really enjoying experimenting with some of the downloadable paper kits as well as scratchbuilding my own.

Oops sorry I thought it had uploaded OK! I now see the image on my first post - think I experienced a glitch on the website?

I first saw the Cake Box Challenge on Laurie Calvert’s YouTube video and was inspired to have a go. Like Laurie, I have chosen a slightly fantastical theme and, after borrowing my daughter’s ‘Steampunk Bible’, have drawn up my first idea using the Dapol kit of Stephenson’s Rocket for the railway line section which is on the upper level. I have noticed a few members have the canal theme, but thought this was also an interesting feature for me to model on the lower level with a cobbled wynd leading up to the wooden board crossing over the track. The diorama will evolve as I am always over optimistic about the amount of structures and detail I can squeeze in. However the building features will be in scale vertically, but the footprint will not - a la Rowland Emmet. I have already kitbashed some of the free online Wordsworth kits for a children’s diorama and am using this as a guide for my cake box. Scalescenes excellent canal kit will also be converted. Extra thick corrugated cardboard forms the base for my ‘cake box’ with expanded polystyrene for the landscape and upper trackbed. I am a returning modelmaker but still a railway ‘newbie’ so here goes...