Locksley

So, I'm back after a little (as yet unfinished) detour into N gauge, and I've since cleared a few other projects off the bench. Garnswllt and I have been somewhat unexpectedly invited along to the Sheffield Model Railway Enthusiasts annual exhibition (2nd - 3rd April for anyone interested, more info can be found here) which will be my first proper proper outing with the layout, and our first exhibition since 2019. As such I've been doing a few more things that I identified as stuff I wanted to add/change as a result of the club open day back in November. I've added a bit more static grass to most areas of the layout, as well as some Scale Model Scenery bracken and a little more mud to the road. I also replaced the backscene with one with more scenery on - something I was quite apprehensive to do as I wasn't sure how it'd look but I'm REALLY pleased with it, it just helps set the layout in the landscape far better than the plain sky did. The only other significant thing I've added is a Ratio grounded van body which nicely fills the space in the back corner. The one remaining thing I may try to do before the exhibition is to implement @2mmMark's suggestion of a diffuser panel to the lighting.

Got the rest of the buildings printed out over the weekend, the only one left now is the low relief warehouse that will go on the back between the main works and the gatehouse. I also actually got some track laid! All the hardstandings are epoxied in place also, so the next step is to get the rest of the track laid, wired up and tested, then get the points motors in place. Unfortunately the backscene has gone a bit weird, it's a Premium ID one but I attached with with spray glue rather than the adhesive as I've found on Garnswllt it's started to develop bubbles and creases. The rough patches aren't as noticeable to the naked eye so I might leave it, but I'm a tad disappointed.

The baseboards and point motors have come in today, and I've got a majority of the main buildings printed out. I think I'm nearly at a point where I can start to get some of the hardstanding sections glued in place, and possibly even get some track laid. Still no sign of the Hunslet though

So the CAD is done, I'm pretty happy with the general look of it all. The track arrived on Monday (superb service from Derails!), but still no sign of the Hunslet or the baseboards unfortunately. Over the last couple of days I've got the concrete hardstanding sections printed out as these will dictate exactly where the track needs to be laid. These will be glued down prior to being clad in Scalescenes textures as I'll need to ballast up to them and then weather the track work in. To make things easier in the long run, I've used the sections as templates to pre-cut the concrete sheets so I can just glue them straight down when everything else is done. I also treated myself to the container set for a bit more clutter about the place.

I think I've pretty much got the CAD design nailed down, so track, baseboards, electrics etc were ordered on Friday evening. The track is due in today, and I'm hoping the Hunslet will be arriving alongside. I've now started the laborious task of getting everything 3d printed. In the meantime I've added the signage to the Scalescenes texture for the side of the main works building.

Thanks Mark, I'm using a Canon Pixma T3350. I bought some sticky back matt photo paper which seems to print on nicely. The printer has a really annoying 'feature' in that it doesn't allow you to print using Glossy Photo Paper settings, and in turn the highest quality settings, on any paper larger than 10cm x 15cm so I was unable to use those settings with the A4 photo paper. Luckily the standard settings on High quality are still quite nice. In terms of track, I did look at the British Finescale stuff and it looks superb, but I think for my first go in the scale I'm going to stick with Peco Code 55.

Thanks guys A little more done tonight:

Well, in a completely unforeseen turn of events I've apparently started an N gauge layout. This will be pretty much my first dabble with the scale, brought about entirely by my utter impulse purchase of one of the stunning new NGS Hunslets. I had no real intention to buy one until I saw the OOB performance of them and it was literally an instant buy. I'm still awaiting its arrival, so in the meantime I thought I better get on with a layout for it... I plumped for the BSC Yellow liveried loco so it had to be a steel oriented layout. The initial plan revolves around the Scale Model Scenery christmas tree box baseboard, and after sketching out a few initial track plans I've come up with one that I'm hoping will allow shunting of a few BBAs around a yard, and a few roads leading into buildings. The buildings themselves are a slightly more refined version of what I tried on my Hoo Ness layout - i.e. 3d printed shells clad in Scalescenes textures. Making it slightly easier on myself this time, I invested in some matt sticky back photo paper which has made the whole process a breeze. This is the very much in-progress 3D model in Tinkercad, the area on the right is where a single track will enter the works site over a road, it'll then split off into various roads, some lead into the works itself, as well as a loop and a couple of sidings. Though not based on any one real location, the gatehouse is a fairly accurate model of one that resides at the Outokumpu ASR Rod Mill off Stevenson Rd in Attercliffe, Sheffield, hence the name I picked for the layout. I've also been using the rest of the buildings there as inspiration. The real site did once have an extensive rail network when under ESC ownership, but this all disappeared by around the 1960s I believe. Though the gates that the track passed through from the goods yard opposite are actually still there. So, I'll leave you with the progress so far The gatehouse still needs a bit more work, tidying up, and a few more bits adding but I'm really pleased so far. I'm still very much thinking in OO terms so I keep being slightly taken aback by how small everything is

Wonderful! Thank you very much indeed

Morning all, Bit of a random question, I'm in the very early stages of designing a new layout using Code 55 Finescale. This is my first proper dive into N gauge so unfortunately I don't actually have any track yet but need to start thinking about some 3D CAD designs for buildings, roads etc. My plan is to have some inset track over a road, so I would be eternally grateful if anyone could provide the following measurements of Peco N Gauge Code 55 Finescale Flexitrack (SL-300F): 1. Overall height of the track from bottom of sleeper to top of rail 2. Height of the sleepers themselves 3. Overall width of the track including sleepers 4. Overall width of the rails measured from the outside (i.e. not the 9mm between the rails) Thanks very much in advance!

New longer fiddle extension complete. Should give me a few more options when operating.

We have point levers!

The lighting has now been overhauled. I used a spare piece of MDF painted black with LED strips on the underside. Gives a much more even, natural light, and has mitigated the shadow issue, though not completely solved it. I suspect completely removing shadows from the backscene would be impossible. Ignore the very red light, it was on full brightness and for some reason the photos ended up picking out the red tones more than anything else lol. On around 20% brightness it looks brilliant.

Thanks Marc! A good idea, though I'm not 100% sure how I'd do it given that the left hand side is completely open. The trees may work though.

Garnswllt had its first public showing last Saturday. Our club, the Sheffield Model Railway Enthusiasts had a fairly low-key open day in the church the clubrooms occupy the upstairs rooms of. It wasn't too widely publicized as we weren't sure how it would go, and indeed whether we would even be able to go ahead with it, but in the end it all went remarkably well. We had a decent trickle of punters over course of the day, thankfully most wearing masks and adhering to the usual guidelines. The open day was mainly in lieu of our usual annual exhibition held in March being obviously cancelled for the last 2 years, but I think it went well enough that it's something we would consider again. I was in two minds about taking Garnswllt, mainly from an operating point of view. I figured having to actually operate a very limited Inglenook layout for 6 or so hours would be rather mind numbing, however on the contrary I found it to be thoroughly enjoyable. The layout and stock performed wonderfully and without a single hiccup. It's actually made me realise a few areas I'd like to improve/add to on the layout. I came away with a few thoughts: 1. The layout needs dummy point levers, they're actually quite conspicuous in their absence. A set of rather nice ones are on order. 2. It needs a larger fiddle extension on the left hand side. The current one was added with serious space constraints but I no longer have those now the layout has been permanently moved to another room. An extension roughly long enough to allow a 'full' train (well, a loco and 3 wagons!) to actually run off-scene would add quite a lot of operational interest. 3. I think I'm a bit bored of the plain sky backscene. I've ordered a winter ID backscene so I can have just a little bit in the way of distant hills poking up behind the embankment that the layout sits on. I'm hoping this will make the layout feel like it's in a real location, rather than sort of floating somewhere. 4. I finally need to get around to improving the lighting. This was discussed earlier in the thread - the strip of LEDs along the front and side of the layout cast unnatural shadows - I'm looking into adding an MDF 'roof' to the layout and moving the LED strips on to there which should solve the issue, and will give me a bit more control over the ambience. 5. More of a general observation - I realised around 10 mins before the show opened that with a little artistic license I actually have just about enough locos, rolling stock, and vehicles to change the era of the layout almost hourly, starting off around the 1930s, progressing through to the 1980s. I found this kept operating interesting, it's something I want to explore a bit more, and flesh out my stock with this in mind.

Picked up a fancy camera yesterday as an early birthday pressie. A Nikon D7000, albeit a heavily used but still fully functional one, along with a Nikkor 60mm Macro lens. Couldn't resist giving it a go on the layout. I still need to fiddle with some settings but the results are pretty damn good so far.

The thought had crossed my mind to add some fish and/or weed but I feel like that's the kind of thing that could look great but I have a very high chance of messing up lol. Second resin pour done, definitely level this time! It was about 10mm or so down on the left hand side so no wonder it was shallower over on the right

A few gratuitous close ups of the now nearly fully cured resin. There is something so incredibly satisfying about things in clear resin Still needs a second pour, but I'm very happy with the results so far. Those odd bubbles on the surface are entirely my doing, I went over the resin with a blow torch immediately after pouring which worked really well to get rid of any initial bubbles, however I then had the idea to go over it again about an hour later which brought more bubbles to the surface and popped them, but the resin had had just enough time to be come viscous enough that it didn't self level again Shouldn't be a problem, the next pour will hopefully just cover them over.

Had a bit of a break due to various other projects, work, commissions, decorating spare rooms etc, but I've finally managed to get some resin poured today. Channelling my inner Luke Towan (of Boulder Creek Railroad, check his channel on YouTube if you haven't already!) I used an entire 500ml set off amazon, a quick test piece seemed to give good results mixed with Vallejo Burnt Umber for a nice muddy look. The resin seems to need at least 24h to cure, plus a bit more until it's properly solid. It also has absolutely no smell which was a surprise to me, my only other experience with casting resin I remember it stinking to high heaven. I placed an acrylic dam around the perimeter, sealed with hot glue. Amazingly I can't see any leaks (or indeed leeks), fingers crossed it will stay that way overnight. I could have done with about 100ml more, the front section is just a tad shallower than I really wanted so I have ordered a second 250ml set which I'll add once this has fully cured, along with the rowing boat. I'm anticipating some serious sanding work around the edge once the acrylic is removed, but once that's all smoothed off I can get some black paint around the edge, and finally put a layer of gloss Mod Podge over the water to give a rippled effect.

Thanks guys

Modelu figs are painted up, they look quite at home Also got the Hibberd painted and weathered.

Thanks Tony! So far I have 5 Dundas GVT open wagons and a Roco tippler that stilll need painting up & weight/load adding. I'll certainly be grabbing a couple of Hudson tipplers too at some point.

Getting quite close to calling this one done. I weathered up the Oxford 109 and tractor, along with a pair of rowing boats I found on Thingiverse and 3d printed. One of these will be dumped on land, the other will be in the water. Talking of which, I've ordered some strips of acrylic to dam the areas that will be filled with resin, which I'm very excited about lol. I still need to finish painting up some Modelu workmen, and add the rest of the PE weeds.

Eventually got around to painting up the rusty pipes. These were given a quick basecoat of RLM75 grey through the airbrush, followed by Wilder Aqualine rust colours. Starting with an overall coat of the lightest, then stippling the darker 2 tones over the top and wet blending them together. Finally, I splattered all 3 colours over the top from a large brush to get some random variation. Next job will be to get the photo etch weeds down, a few Modelu figures, and then I need to think about getting some resin in to pour the Medway.

Cheers! The Ruddy Ducks are maybe slightly out of place, however the layout is very loosely set so it could probably be anywhere from the 50s to the 80s.