CDGfife

HI Graham, Not long been on here but glad to have found a Southern enclave! I've now started a thread to show some pictures of my Cadhay Sidings layout. It's 4mm to P4, set on the Sidmouth branch around 1930 (with a few liberties taken). The full blow by blow of the build has been documented on a Scalefour forum but the thread here: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/155111-cadhay-sidings/ will show finished pictures and info about how it operates/works. Be grateful if you can add it to the list. I'm also in the throws of building a 2mm Southern Region might have been in Cornwall Devon called Bosaleck, which is being documented on here (and was my reason to finally join) - link is in my signature Many thanks Chris

I agree, and have a heat gun (or hairdryer) handy for removing the odd cockle/stretch and keep the template flat during the process.

Since I've now joined the RMWeb experience and have started documenting the 2mm FS layout build, I thought I'd start a thread for my Cadhay Sidings layout. It's a P4 exhibition layout set on the Sidmouth branch in around 1930 (with a few liberties taken in that respect). Here's a few pics to start with and from time to time I'll add some detail about how it all works. Photo courtesy of David Goodwillie Thanks for looking Cheers Chris

Jim - yes Fergus came clean to us - but only when I told him I was going to do a 2mmFS layout!!! I did consider the rodding stools but decided against them for a couple of reasons: I was in a hurry to get the rodding done so I could get the track down and had rail in stock I fancied having a go at using rail As usual with these things it has not worked out like the plan as once I'd attached the rodding to the stools I decided that I'd use the etch of the cranks so the time constraint became academic! Still the etch of cranks has arrived yesterday so I can move on again in that direction also. I do like the rodding system though so may use that at some point going forward Cheers CDG

Tim mentioned the "silos", which were actually MAP cylinders. Took me a while to find them but here's a few snaps of what they contributed to last summer with Burntisland 1883's new canopy which made it's debut at Scaleforum (not that we were still finishing off the painting or anything!): None of my pics actually show the pile of brazed aluminium beams and structure involved in holding this lot up but you get the idea and Burntisland does not appear that often on RMWeb as we have no "official" presence here, so I thought I'd drop these in here. (spot the 2mm interloper!) Meanwhile back to Bosaleck: Having established with the mock up that a viaduct would work for the rear bridge, I set to producing the real one. Still in need of some paint and weather (and in cruel close up) but that won't happen until it's in situ with the riverbed etc formed. At least it's ready to go in and have track laid over it. Also been working on point rodding which needs to go in before the track can be permanently fixed. Here's 4 single stools made from rail on their base ready to be slotted and then split up ready for the rodding (guitar string) to be attached. Thanks for looking Cheers CDG

Soaking with water has worked with every variant of Pritt Stick type I have ever used. Comes off really easily. CDG

Yes a little out of scale possibly? They are actually MAP cylinders from the brazing up of Burntisland 1883's new canopy from last summer. Having trouble disposing of them so they are on the "pile over there" shelf. I'll need to turn the layout round for the next photos so they are not floating in the 2mm ocean!! CDG

More progress over the last week or so. The Templot plan was attached to the 9mm ply track bed and the track level areas cut out, along with some 4mm ply for the base to the riverbed. The various bits of trackwork had their dropper holes drilled, the platform was fabricated and the whole mocked up to check the look so far. It was suggested earlier in the thread that I could make the two bridges different. I quite liked that idea and have mocked up a card arch viaduct for the running line bridge (with the idea that the siding bridge is a girder construction creating contrast). Placing the mock up in place confirmed it could look ok although I will slightly adjust the river course to better suit the pier positions. The platform was made from 9mm ply with a scalescenes stone paper front wall. Finally I could not resist roughly cutting up some old insulation to mock up the rear buildings with their road gradients! All in all I'm happy with the progress and can get on with the bridge proper. Thanks for looking Cheers Chris

Thanks Gareth, I work on the 10 minutes a day principle, as expounded by the much missed Richard Chown. It almost always ends up being a bit longer than 10 mins, but for me the key is the discipline of always trying to sit down and do at least that every day. It's amazing what can then be achieved and also I find that the progress becomes self-fulfilling. That said everyone has their own pace and it's a hobby for enjoyment after all. Cheers CDG

Final assembly of the Station building . The sarking boards with slates trimmed were added to the roof sections and some initial weathering using brown and green acrylics dry brushed on. Then a bit more laser cutting, this time in 0.5mm greyboard gave me gutters, sills and chimney cope plates, again with dims taken from the CAD plan. Here's the guttering - the tangs fit in between the rafter ends that stick out from the wall plate and glue to the bottom edge of the sarking board. The green part is to indicate the guttering. Once painted and separated from the "fret" of card I ran a black line using an ink pen along the top surface to simulate the trough These were then added to the building along with the sills and chimney copes. Down pipes were fabricated from 0.4mm nickel silver with the header tanks just a blob of solder filed to shape. Here's the front elevation: Right hand end showing down pipes and guttering plus a bit of weathering water marks on the single pitch roof where the downpipe from the main roof empties: Rear elevation with downpipe right in the corner. Still a bit more weathering of the roofs to do and also some on the walls (around the sills for instance). Here's how it will sit in the layout. Chimney pots have also been added and are just visible here in front of the workshop clutter! So that's it for the station (apart from the weathering and some detailing benches/fences bedding in etc). Next up the platform and some other bits and bobs before we hopefully get some track down soon!! Thanks for looking Cheers CDG

Don - thanks for the comments - I agree entirely. In my view the detail (particularly relief) should get less the further back as we're trying to deceive the brain into thinking in metres rather than millimetres. That said as always there's a balance to be struck! dseagull - thanks for your comment. I'm looking forward to other buildings and varying the patterns/sizes so it does not look all the same through the town. The olive (and a bit of brown) will come with the weathering, which will not happen until the roofs are in place so position of things like drains and sills can be assessed and incorporated. You are right though it does add to the overall when it's done. Cheers CDG

Quick instalment this morning whilst I have some coffee! Once the slating was completed for each sarking board the slate strips (which had been left over long) were cut to size and then a couple of coats of acrylic paint were added. A mix of Ultramarine and Burnt Umber plus a bit of White and some thinner gives a good coverage down into the cracks and nooks. It's darker than the eventual colour I want. Here's one coat: And here is the whole lot of roof after two coats: An extremely dry brushing of white then brings out the texture of the brown paper and to my eye brings it to life: I suspect this is all very over-scale (if you take the actual slate sizes and scale, there would be no visible gaps/steps at all) but the eventual effect is to me quite suitable as the viewing eye seems to adjust for what it is seeing. Either way I'm pretty pleased with the finished effect I've been getting once it's been weathered. Next the roofs are added and guttering, sills etc. Thanks for looking Cheers Chris

The porch was made up in the same way as described above Next it was time to fit this carcass to the rest of the main building It's almost a shame to cover up the truss-rafters!! Still I know they are there. Time for some slating. The sarking boards had been drawn up in CAD with the rest of the building and also cut out on the laser cutter with parallel guide line for the slates "etched" on. Here's the front elevation placed to test the fit. For the slates I'm using 80GSM Kraft adhesive label paper in an A4 sheet. I've found the brown coloured stuff has a pleasing texture to the surface when painted. A bit of experimentation with the laser cutter found the settings cut just the label and leave the backing as one piece. I drew the sheet of slates up and included some random corner knocks and uneven spaces just to break up the monotonous patterns. The slates come off the backing in strips: These were then stuck onto the sarking boards. I've found that if gently offered to the sarking card they stick enough to assess but are easily adjusted to get them straight and then a firm press bonds the adhesive. I've been pleased to work out how to cut the slates as it opens the possibility for sheets of lots of different sizes/shapes of tile/slate with just a one-off drawing effort for each. The only draw back is each A4 sheet takes around an hour to cut!!! Next it was time for paint and that will follow next time. Thanks for looking Cheers CDG

Onwards with the station build. Assembly of the building could now begin. I picked up these little magnetic right angle clamps from Smart Models at Glasgow this year. Although the tabs mean that once you have two sides fitted onto the floor they do tend to sit correctly, it still helps to be able to leave things to set whilst the right angles are assured. Here's all the sides (except the recessed back wall) now fitted Next the recess back wall and the roof support panels were fitted. The roof supports stop the (0.3mm) roof sarking from sagging. They have tangs 0.7mm wide (that's the laser cutter target cut - which comes out at just about 0.65mm once the cut thickness has been taken into account) which represent the rafters that poke out through similar (0.6mm cut target) slots in the top of the walls. The recessed area would probably have had a ceiling, but I wanted to try modelling some truss-rafters. The lavatory would need them at the other end of the station anyway so I thought I'd learn here, where mistakes could be covered by a ceiling. The (half) rafters were cut from the 0.3mm brown card and once painted could be fitted into the slots in the wall plate of the front wall beam and at the top of the recess back wall. Here's the first one fixed: And here's the rest now fitted. I was not unhappy with the look so I decided to leave them on show (albeit only to a 2mm scale person!!) rather than cover them with a ceiling. You see - you deviate from prototype by painting a door panel the wrong colour and look where it leads!!! So that's this wing pretty much ready for attaching to the main building and also the rear porch, so that's what will follow. Thanks for looking Cheers Chris

Another vote here for Vallejo Model Air. Their Bronze Green is a good match I find for Maunsell loco Green and it sprays really well. I'm also using Com Art opaque colours from Iwata for general colours (Ultramarine, umber, white etc.) - same deal with eye dropper bottle, airbrush ready, no thinning and easy clean up. I did actually manage to leave some acrylic paint in the airbrush for a few days a few years ago!! Fortunately I was able to get the airbrush apart with a good soak overnight in airbrush reamer and the rest was cleared up with foaming airbrush spray. Still using that needle etc! I was quite relieved and surprised at not ruining the airbrush, but I no longer fret about paint getting stuck unless I'm using enamels, which to be honest these days is quite rarely. Chris

So tomorrow rolled into Sunday, but at least there has been progress. The timber arrived back on Friday from my friendly Laser cutter and here's the pile of parts for Bosaleck's 1200x750 baseboard: In 10 minutes I had it dry assembled And after a further 35 minutes it was all glued up (ends excepted): The following morning (having glued on the ends) the (now redundant) cork with track plot on it was used to mock up where it will go. I think it's going to be ok..... More on the station build to come next time. Thanks for looking Cheers Chris

First job of assembly is to build up the laminated layers of the walls. Here's the rear long elevation of the single story building in it's three layers ready for assembly. The acrylic clear glazing has been added and also the door panels have been glued on the back of the door. Here's the rear 2 layers assembled, showing door with frame and window gone together Finally the front layer (1mm greyboard plus matte printed paper and render finish as discussed last time) is added to the rear two. This elevation is now ready for the building Here's a shot of the gable end pre-assembly showing the way the door panels are done. From the left: Front wall finish & reveal, door frame, door leaf framing, inlay panel. Finally with all the elevations assembled, here's all the bits ready for the building to be built! In other Bosaleck news the baseboard timber arrived back from the grown up laser cutter this morning and the board is gluing up as we speak, so Bosaleck could, well start coming to life shortly. I did take some pics and will share them tomorrow. Thanks for looking Cheers Chris

Don - it's not the most powerful laser you'll ever see - I can just about cut through 5mm ply with it but it takes several passes, but for card it's really accurate and having the z axis control allows a very precise focus to get the cut as thin as possible using Lightburn's nifty focus check. Instead of focusing the laser every time I change material thickness, I now have a table of heights for each material so I just have to remember to adjust the z height in Lightburn when I switch materials. I don't know if most of the cheap Co2 lasers have this facility. I've only used the cnc motor a couple of times as I now have the laser finely tuned so I don't want to mess with that but it worked fine also. HTH CDG

Thanks Don, Laser cutter/mini CNC was from Amazon here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07ZS9KYG1/ref=pe_3187911_185740111_TE_item Took around 3 hours total to assemble and I downloaded Lightburn rather than use the supplied GRBL software. The bed will take an A4 sheet but the realistic cutting area given the bearings on the screw shafts is actually around 175mm deep by 250mm wide. I've also installed an extractor fan and eventually built a mountboard enclosure, but I use it in my office not outside so if you're going to use it in the garage say you may not need to factor that in. Cheers Chris

As promised, back to the building build! All my buildings start with TurboCAD drawing of the plan and elevations. Each building face is made up of several layers starting from the outside: Matte paper (often with the building exterior printed on it) 1mm greyboard making up the structural wall 0.3mm brown card layer 1 for windows and doors Clear acrylic where the glazing panes are (actually from Farish stock packaging) 0.3mm brown card layer 2 for windows and doors Clear acrylic where the glazing panes are (actually from Farish stock packaging) An occasional third layer of 0.3mm brown card for door inlay panels The Cad drawing has all these layers on it and all wall layers are usually the same shape and laminate together (more on this later). The Cad for each layer (except the Matte Paper) is exported from TurboCad via dxf file to Lightburn which controls my mini lasercutter. This has been a great investment at around £300 as it cuts way more accurately than I ever could with my scalpel and rule! Here's a snap of both 0.3mm brown card layers for the single story part of the station just off the cutter: You can see from this shot why there are two layers of windows - it allows modelling of the two sashes one behind the other and that in turn allows some to be modelled open. Also on here are the roof sarking boards, which have been lightly marked with parallel lines (the lasercutter equivalent of half etch!) to aid the addition of tiles/slates. The Matte Paper layer is printed out on a conventional inkjet and then a coat of matt varnish is added to protect the print. Once dry and the outline shapes and window/door slits have been cut out, the next stage is to take the 1mm greyboard and glue on the matte paper. The lower portion of brickwork is painted black so this was airbrushed with an ultramarine and Burnt Umber mix. I rarely use black as I find it just sucks out the light! For this building I needed a roughcast look so next I gave the light grey areas a coat of white acrylic and sprinkled in, whilst wet, some Attwood Aggregates Scenic Dust (no connection etc.). The excess was blown off and left to dry. Here's the kit of parts for the first two layers at that stage: Once the scenic dust had dried, I went over it with some white acrylic with a dash of Burnt Umber. I keep a piece of 10thou plasticard and a clothes peg to use as a mask for this kind of spraying as it's much quicker (and less damaging to the faces) than masking up with tape: Following this the windows and doors were painted up on the brown card layers using white acrylic and some Precision SR green and cream. So here's the full kit of parts ready for assembly: It can be seen from this photo that I've designed in various slots and tabs to help with alignment during assembly. Most of the buildings can stay together without any glue as a result, and I think it gives a nice strong result when glued. Adhesive I am using throughout is glue n glaze (again no connection etc.), mainly as it is quite forgiving if it gets onto the window acrylic! Thanks for looking Cheers Chris

Thanks folks for the info/comments/suggestions. I like the idea of different bridges - will need to put my thinking cap on. One of them will definitely be similar to the Barnstaple bridge, but I'm even wondering whether a stone/brick arch might do for the other one. Some great photos on the NYMR thread. My baseboard timber is due back tomorrow so I still have time to ditch the cork as per Nigel's comments . I'm leaning towards doing so as it will only mean another print out of the Templot template, but before I bin the cork has anyone got any further thoughts on this? Cheers Chris

Andy, Thanks for this, very interesting. Both these bridges are on curves, although the rear one on the passenger line is a tighter curve. The watercourse is not navigable but is tidal. I'd envisaged something akin to a very short version of the old Barnstaple bridge, with a 4' (or so) deep I beam either side of a cross-span deck (at the bottom of the I beam) with the bridge spans being 3 x 20' with 2 piers (so 60' overall bridge length). Must admit I've not even checked the span/depth ratio for these numbers they're just complete finger in the air jobs! Cheers CDG

Martin, Thanks for the pic and info. Lichfield is not that far from my home town. My plan was a simple girder span with centre pier, similar to that you have pictured, so would that automatically mean baulk timbers? I'm quite happy to do that by the way, just interested in where it would and would not have been used. What type of bridge structure would not require it or would require standard sleepering? Cheers CDG

Thanks Nigel, so what is the concern with Cork track bed? Have to say every layout I've built with the exception of Cadhay has used the 1.5mm stuff and provided it's stuck down properly (& flat) and stuff is stuck to it properly it seems to be pretty durable. Cadhay used the closed cell foam and has been a disaster in that when the rails have expanded and contracted the foam has moved, sheared and stretched at the board edges and never gone back to it's original shape, hence a lot of it has been replaced at the board edges with ply just to keep the rails level!! Personally I would never use it again, although I do know folks that say it's been great! CDG

Here's a quick question: Those two little bridges on the plan - would they have been baulk timbered in 1954? Cheers CDG