Campaman

The two versions of roller shutter doors are base layers stuck to card that are then stuck behind the door opening, the blue sliding door cover layers need to be stuck over a base layer then stuck to the outside of the building, so the terminology sort of follows other scalescenes kits. I guess the description of the base layer could possibly reflect the fact they are shutter rather than sliding doors.

I have the WWS branded applicator which IIRC the Peco one is just a branded version of, and it works really well, far better than my home made version using a fly swat.

When scaling down, you will need to think about the card thickness used as well.

For this type of marking out I use my cheap Digital Vernier from Lidls, set it to the required dimension and then use the internal measuring tips to mark out. The top tips in the image below.

Personally I would paint all the walls in the mortar collar, then have a palette of 4 or 5 varying tones of the darker grey then paint each stone individually, randomly picking stones all around the building, varying the tone used from the palette it sound a laborious task but you will be surprised at how quick it will go once you start. I would start with the window surrounds as they seem more uniform than the other stone work. Then once all covered maybe a dusting with grey weathering powders to bring it all together.

Marcway also do code 75 bullhead rail http://www.marcway.net/list3.php?col=head&name=RAILS You have to phone to order and get the carriage cost though.

I have been using the wordsworth buildings and covering in other texture sheets or as plans/templates for scribing for a while now.

You could try The Works, also you don't need 2mm, you can just laminate 2 pieces of 1mm together, the scalescenes sheet is then the 3rd lamination which stops it from warping. If you have a local picture framers you may get some off cuts from them or they may sell you a sheet or two as they use 1mm grey/white board.

I have been using soil, dust etc for years from the garden and have never baked it and not had any problems with wild life, I just spread it out on a tray to dry and any wildlife tends to move on.

I use the standard Ratio ones where you can get 3-4 signals from a box, I just replace all the working pivots with wire, for example the signal blade uses a wire pin as its pivot rather than the plastic in the kit.

Some of the smaller shops in our local town centre literally only have a storage cupboard, staff toilet and cloakroom out the back, 99% of the stock is on the shop floor with deliveries being made 2-3 times a week to re-stock.

The Jig is just strips of card glued to a card base, you could easily knock one up for the corrugations required, not sure how robust it would be with aluminium foil compared to paper though. I have one I use for corrugated using aluminium foil made by gluing (epoxy) 50mm lengths of 1mm diameter wire to a piece of 3mm MDF spaced 1mm apart, I press the foil into the jig using another piece of 1mm wire.

Sorry maybe it me, but 5ft 4in = 64 inches @ 4mm to the foot = 16mm ?

The local canal around here is only about 1ft lower than the tow path along a lot of its length, so you don't need to go too deep into your baseboard.

The scraper type blade is OK for plastic, I would imagine it would make a mess of card.

I use the larger snap off blade knife (cheap variety) and it usually takes 4-5 strokes to get through 2mm card to get a nice edge. To much pressure with a thick Stanley blade will give a angled edge.

The link to the picture of the signal box has comments suggesting that the signal box was just supported by the central pillars and would wobble when trains rumbled through, but looking at the picture it looks like the gantry to the left is part of the signal box supporting structure.

We used to have a Quaker but unfortunately he died from liver failure, we currently have 3 alexandrines, 1 Orange Winged Amazon and 6 budgies (all from rescue)

Could you not get your copy photocopied? When one of the first scalescenes models appeared in the magazine (the Pub) I made mine from a colour photocopy as I felt the magazine paper was a bit too glossy.

Similar to the above, but I have used carpet tiles on the floor (seconds from ebay) which make it far more cosy.

I also use Inkscape, but found that LibreOffice Draw has enough features to produce buildings, you can also export into other file formats including svg

You need the dimensions of the building you are creating, then convert into 4mm to the foot, eg 6'6" = 26mm, then you can draw that line in the drawing software to that length, you can right click the line or shape and adjust it through its position and size properties.

The drawing program that comes as part of the open source LibreOffice is pretty good, you can draw to scale with it and it has textured fills for filling areas with bricks, slates etc. And its free and available for Windows, Linux and MacOS. Files probably best as PDF and looking below you can add PDF files here on your post. Quick test I created by the above approach Toilet.pdf

I am a Graphite user, on my old Inglenook layout once I had cleaned the track thoroughly and applied the graphite (6B Artists Graphite stick) I did not have to clean the track again in the 4 years that I ran it, sometimes it went 3-4 months between running sessions with no problem When you first apply it you may have to clean off and redo some sections if the underlying track was not cleaned thoroughly. The only thing I would add is that you need to avoid steep gradients, and maybe long trains with lightweight locos may have wheel slip. Obviously if you then use regular cleaning methods it will remove the graphite.

You can also get plastic handles that are a tight push fit over a standard hexagon head bolt.