Chandwell

I have added the pavement and some steps into the pub. I’ve also added a telephone exchange cabinet and an A board advertising Pie Nite (complete with apostrophe crimes!). The cellar doors are open and I managed to get a ramp and steps down into the cellar. I think it’s bedding into the town quite well. Just need to finish off the back and it will be done.

It's even more of a death trap at the moment... the cellar doors are open too! :-D Will need to call in the Works to sort that pavement out!

I’ve got the name of the pub in place. These are 4mm laser cut card letters from Scale Model Scenery painted black and then dry brushed with Valjero Old Gold. I’ve added the semi-circular stained glass pub name above the door. A friend suggested I model the drayman’s hatch open. I have the space in the road and underneath the pub to model a cellar. I even have the opening on the front of the pub, but have it bricked up at the moment. I have plenty of space where the footpath will go and I can remodel the bridge parapet wall. I wonder if it’s too close to the old bridge or if it’s trying to do too much. I will ponder it. Back to work tomorrow so progress will slow.

Thank you again. What do you think? I think it is perfect. Represents the 90s brilliantly. Is run down and naff. Just like the rest of Chandwell. Thank you so much! Where was it photographed? Can you remember? I’ll mention it in my next video on YouTube. Please let me know if you’d rather me not mention your name. Cheers!

Wow! Thank you. They are all completely naff - exactly what I wanted. The Yellow Pages one may just be perfect. It's even torn and peeling. Do you have a date when it was taken at all, please? And if you don't mind me using it, I think I will give it a try out on the building. (I'd forgotten all about Cadbury's Strollers!). Cheers Tom. I have the kit but am trying to avoid using them as I want something "a bit different". So far I've tried a few but not found the one that is really perfect. But I do like the Capri one in the Scalescenes kit, so you never know!

I’d forgotten about Tango. Off to do some searching for some billboard-sized ones from the 90s... you know when you’ve been Tangoed!

That would be awesome if you can please! I’m looking for something striking (too much detail will be lost at N scale) but obviously 90s. Something depressing or dull. Beer or cigarettes or chocolate. Or utilities privatisation. That kind of thing. If any of your pictures fit that description, I would love to have a look... thank you.

Thanks Kris. That looks useful. I will have a look.

The Weir pub is coming on. The white rectangle will be a billboard ad. It is surprisingly hard to find billboard ads from the 1990s online. I was thinking of a cigarette ad or one for John Smiths/Boddingtons/Castlemine XXXX /Holstein Pills. But I am struggling to find much. I have a good one for Felix Cat food which does kind of fit the Chandwell naffness quite well. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. I hope Christmas was good for everyone and that 2021 is better for us all.

Thank you so much to everyone who has commented, your comments are really encouraging. That's it for Chandwell this year, but I will be back in January all being well. I am just about to start a scratch-build of a Yorkshire stone and brick pub based on The New Beehive in Bradford to go between the weir and the viaduct. I have some grand ideas on how to make it look great. Let's see how it goes!

Much of the layout has been built based around mistakes!

Thank you!

Ha ha! Thank you so much! I tried to find an N scale trolley, but didn't manage it. I did, however, order bikes, traffic cones, oil drums, and tyres from PD Marsh, but they've not arrived yet. I don't want to overdo it, but there definitely needs to be some rubbish in there!

I have finally finished the river, and I am really very pleased with how it has come out. I made all of this without buying anything which was a bonus! I made the river itself just with 2mm card covered in Scalescenes Coursed Rubble texture. I used a sharp curve in a kind of forced-perspective way which means that the river curves away into the distance rather than hit the backscene with a sudden jolt. The deep riverbed is just a card base painted with a selection of muddy green and brown acrylic paint. Some of these paints had been sitting in my drawer for about 8 years, so it was good to finally put them to use. Because I was not pouring resin, I needed to remember that it was the SURFACE of the river that I was painting, and not the bottom. I made the weir from card triangles and a cereal packet top. I painted this the same dark brown. I made the white water by drawing very fine lines with thick PVA glue from a fine tip applicator. I then sprinkled sand onto the wet glue and let it dry. It was then just a case of dry brushing grey and white paint onto it. I found a twig to represent a fallen tree that has got stuck on the weir. I painted the glue around this and left a bit of the stonework of the weir showing. I hoped this would represent the water flowing around the tip of the trunk lying in the water, and the water bubbling around it. I am pleased that this seems to have worked to a greater or lesser degree. I had a 7mm diameter cardboard cylinder kicking around from a roll of dog poo bags. I thought that this would make a brilliant storm drain, and it has also worked out quite nicely. The effect seems to work. The islands of stones are simply little piles of cat litter which I painted various shades of brown and grey once the glue had set. The surface of the shallow water was simply a sheet of toilet paper brushed with 50/50 PVA/water mix. The brush strokes cause the toilet paper to crinkle into the exact shapes that represent the crests of little waves. I dry brushed some of these with the white paint but left many of them normal brown, and the effect seems to work. The whole thing was varnished with some acrylic Ronseal interior gloss varnish. I found half a tin in the garage. I have no idea how old it was. It took 13 coats to get the upper river as reflective as I wanted. I wanted it to look like a calm, slow-moving, deep river. The reflections are great and will be even better once there are lit-up industrial buildings either side of the water. I used only three coats of varnish on the lower river as I did not want to soften the look of the ripples too much. On the whole, I am really pleased with the outcome of this little project and it really suits the rest of the viaduct. As usual, I made a video of the process, and this is linked below.

Quick update. I am almost finished working on Chandwell river. I’ll post more pictures once it’s all finished, but I am really pleased with how well it turned out. This is just card, toilet paper, sand, glue, paint, and varnish. Thank you for all of your positive comments and suggestions on my works building... I think it has bedded into the landscape quite nicely!

I've heard this a few times, Ben, but always shied away because... well, no reason. So this time, based on what you said, I took the plunge and wow - much better! No waiting for the glue to dry before starting cutting. However, I didn't choose wisely and the print quality on the ones I got was not good enough - very blurry ink bleed. But perfect for structural elements. I've now ordered a pack of photographic A4 labels, which I hope will be better! Thank you for opening my eyes at last to this!

There are a few textures on the Scalescenes website which may work... https://scalescenes.com/scratchbuilders-yard/ They have Red Ashlar, Red Coursed Rubble, and Red Squared Rubble. If you're up for making your own, give textures.com a try - I use that site for some of my builds.

It's been a long while since my last update, but I have finally finished this works/factory building for Chandwell. This is a complete scratch-build, and it is the first time I have built a building completely from scratch. It's made from card and uses a technique similar to that of Scalescenes buildings. I lit it with warm-white LEDs. They look a lot more yellow than they are in reality because the lighting in my room is very blue. I think they are still a bit bright though and need toning down a little bit. I used the free software Inkscape to design the building. The bricks and stone elements use textures I downloaded from Textures Dot Com. The yard and the roof tiles are from Scalesenes, as are the windows, which are Scaleglaze from Scalescenes. I really enjoyed making this building. As ever, I made a video of the process, and that's linked below. I am not sure yet what I am going to work on next. I think I may do the river.

I finished the bridge. The starlings (cutwaters) were a real pain to do and I am not too happy with them. From a normal viewing angle they look ok though, and on the whole, I am happy with how the bridge has turned out. It suits the character of the layout.

That's right, I guess. There was never any waterside industry up in Wharfedale so there was no navigation. I found an exellent document about the bridge including its history. I never realised that it is one of the oldest bridges in England - built in 1228 and then widened in 1776. If you look underneath it, you can clearly make out the two halves. The 18th century half has a ribbed underside. The walkway was added in the 1950s, cantilevered into the main structure. Fascinating stuff - I've driven over it so many times and never given it a thought.

Hahah! It does flood a lot! It’s a really low bridge. It made modelling it a real challenge as it looks waaaaay too small. But I’ve double checked the measurements and it’s right. Maybe I should model the water up to the parapets!

I have finished the road and I think it has worked really well... I am pleasantly surprised because I just made it up as I went along. The overall effect looks great to the naked eye. It even works from different angles, albeit to a lesser extent... You can see the technique when looked at from above: As part of this build, I also made a start on the backscene itself, which I made from layers of buildings: I made a video of the build as usual, and it is here.

I hope I am not jumping the gun, but I think this just might work... ”Real” building on the left (Scalescenes) followed by a 50mm deep montage of three pieces of folded card with photos wrapped around them. Road is just a straight piece which curves round to a point and goes up hill by 2cm to give the impression of distance.

This week I had intended to carry on building the road bridge, but it dawned on me that before I can add the road surface to the bridge, I would need to know how I would get the road off scene into the backscene. And to work that out, I would need to know what I was doing with the backscene! I did a lot of reading around here, and watched a few YouTube videos, and eventually settled on something that I think may work. A draft mock up certainly looks the business through the arch: Moving through the arch and from side to side, a true 3D effect can be seen. It’s not perfect but it looks as though it will work... On the other side of the tracks, the street maintains a feel of 3D when the camera is placed into it: So how I have decided to do it is to have 5cm of baseboard dedicated to the transition to backscene. I am using a kind of forced perspective to ease the transition. The road is curved to a point and will curve upwards too by a centimetre. The backscene will comprise 3 layers of 2D prints, each one progressively desaturated towards the rear to give the impression of distance. The street will comprise photos of receding buildings, but arranged at an angle to the road so that the road goes into the street and maintains a kind of 3D visual. All of the angles are “wrong”, but the effect works when seen in the flesh. The effect breaks down when seen from above, but in time, there will be other buildings and roofs in place to lessen the weird impact. Hopefully next week will show the end result.

Just had a read through of this - the layout looks wonderful - a perfect capture of the part of the world in which it is set. Can we have a closer look at the river, and how you did it, please?