Pete Goss

Guten tag Torsten. Hope you are well. I will be contacting Herr Ebe again very soon once the brewery and maltings boards are completed. Auf Wiedersehn.

Mike We are due to bring the layout to Portsmouth next year coincidentally as a 'work in progress'.

Paul I am assuming the staircase is at the back of the box (parallel to the track). That is what I am modelling. The signal box appears to only control the crossing gates and local signal. The brewery points in my case will be operated by 2 ground frames mounted on small timber decks. Photo's soon. This may be over the top as most contemporary pictures I have show points mostly hand lever operated at ground level next to the point, but as horses and foot traffic were at ground level as much as at platform level, I have (conveniently) covered all the point rodding in timbers.

AY mod. many thanks for the 'our picks' slot that I have only just spotted! I am hopeless at seeing the obvious quite often. PG

Chaps, Many thanks for all your very kind comments. It is great that people are prepared to follow these old ramblings and discuss some of the topics and elements. I have certainly learnt a lot from peoples comments, both what to do and what not to do of course. I don't believe you can completely create these things without such interaction. Cheers Pete

Martyn Funnily enough, they are still about. 'Rowlands Castle' can be seen at Stanstead House in Rowlands Castle, Hampshire during summer months I believe, and is going to the Netherlands next year as part of a Dutch celebration of the Allied help given to them during the war. 'The Worlds End' is out next January in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire as part of a charity weekend. And Copper Wort is going to Pickering, Portsmouth and Spalding next year, but the High Street scene probably won't be complete but I am hoping the brewery will be complete. Cheers Pete

Captain K. Your setts have come out great. They look really good. After some consternation I decided to use BnQ household filler with a tad of pva. Scribing is done with a small engineers screwdriver, head maginifier's and reading glasses. Previous comments on this thread have suggested other materials including tile filler as you have done and DAS. I agree that enamels would be best for painting. As the water based filler absorbs quickly I am looking to paint the setts before carefully washing in the gaps, and this week I am experimenting with the order of things at the moment. I have made up a few sample squares to practice techniques before committing fully. 3 options are being considered. 1. airbrush thinly with light stone colour, then wash the joints, 2. dry brush over the top of the setts leaving joints bare, then wash the joints, or 3 paint the surface before scribing (this method would be to maintain clarity of joint). Just washing bare filler and wiping results can result in a bit if a mush particularly using water based paints on filler. The clarity is lost. I will post the results soon. Maybe the tile filler would have been better as it is water proof and would have taken paints better. Pete

Here are some pictures of the setts being scribed into the dried and sanded filler. The painted section is an Humbrol matt enamels mix of 67 tank grey and 29 earth brown heavily thinned and simply washed on. The filler absorbs paint very quickly so earlier attempts at painting and wiping off as you would for embossed plasticard doesn't work. The thinner the paint the better. I also found that acrylic paint turns the surface into a blurred mush and stone definition is lost. This scribing process does take a long time to create but you can't have it all ways. The setts are roughly 4mm long and 2mm wide. Slightly larger than life but any smaller is nigh on impossible to control when scribing.

The 'check rails' are actually 1.5mm square plastic strip notched to represent a row of edge setts following a couple of contemporary photos I am using. No rails. The set area between is then to be masked off before filling with fine filler then scored with a ruler before scoring again by hand.

I have now started the ground work, setting the buildings out on 4 boards before returning to complete the remaining brewery buildings. These are the maltings and brew house boards with sett work preparation and the start of the ale banks. The High Street board will probably be left until the other 4 boards are further on, as it is a separate entity altogether and needs focussing on separately.

We took the layout to the East Anglian Model Railway show at Kettering last month. Jackie had insisted I took it in 'whatever state it was as people like to see how things are put together; and it also shows it doesn't just all come out of a box!'. So here we were all set up ready. It was a really good weekend. Once back home I carried out the planned major change of moving the High Street board from its current location at one end of the brewery to between the malting's and brewery boards. This now reflects more accurately the image of Burton town centre with brewery buildings all round and level crossings on every street. (Board 3 on the diagram.) Plan Gg June 2019.pdf

Truly awful news. My sympathy to all those affected. Terrible! I was in the middle of some writing when Julie shouted through the news, and the wind has gone out of my sails. Speechless. I believe the news is now in the top 10 most read BBC items. Pete

The Worlds End was designed on purpose to be scenic with trains running straight through, with the odd 158 unit turnback over the viaduct crossing for variety. This one is obviously more intimate and even though it will involve shunting of course I was hoping to promise the very short trains a trip around the layout once on their way to the next siding to be shunted. That way I don't have to concentrate as much and won't rush through the running order too fast and can hopefully still keep things moving whilst chatting. Time wise I guess I do spend a lot of time modelling. Try not to watch telly you see! I keep lists of things to do and things to get so I'm not waiting too long to get the next bit done. cheers, Pete

Actually could do with a whistle..... a small steam loco whistle sound operated by a push button 12v DC?? Any ideas?

I couldn't get the gas to stay in the plastic tube long enough to connect it all up - so decided to use electric instead!

Interior lighting is next on the list for a couple of buildings along with working gas light construction. Interior rooms are constructed first for only the illuminated areas obviously. After a lot of experimentation with grain of wheat bulbs and LED's and resisters, I am using 3 volt 3mm LED clear, amber light LED's. 1000 ohm resisters for the gas lights and 39 ohm resisters for the interior lights. A blob of black acrylic paint on the end of the bulb takes away the point of light. Gas lights are constructed form clear plastic using template to score out the pieces from a sheet of clear plastic. The one in the picture is a mock up only as the actual ones will have ornate bracketry and finials. The power is taken from a 12 volt to 3 volt step down DC transformer [ attachment=1104550:DSCN3737a.jpg] .

I have always followed the procedures outlined in Martyn Welch's book The Art of Weathering as a start point. Washes and dry brush techniques over the embossed plasticard before picking individual bricks out. This does require practice and a will to do it in the first place I guess. PG

Thank you for your comments. Very kind. I am enjoying working my way through it all. I believe it is important to get the colouring right on large buildings as everything else then reads off it. I re-painted one or two items that weren't going right - trying to put too much into it I think. The boards are currently in Judge Dreads workshop so I can't show anything in context at the moment. After the windows are done, there comes 70 plus working scratch built gas lamps, mostly wall mounted on gallows brackets which I have had made by Julie at York Model Making. I am also hoping to create some mechanically operated figure movement this time albeit limited to 4 or 5 situations.

I have been busy painting building carcasses and have gone through a good dozen Humbrol paint pots in the process! and am now beginning the window construction process. For the building walls I was looking for a depth of colour with a tone that is pleasing to look at. They should provide a very good background for the dozens of cameos that will be staged.

Ray Plasticard to card, and card to card I tend to use Evostick or Unibond contact adhesive (Sparingly and even ). Spread a little on the card side and spread with a finger to even out , then quickly press the plastic on and take it off again and spread the residue on the back of the plastic thinly and evenly with the finger again and leave for a couple of seconds to dry before firmly pressing together. You will still have 2 or 3 seconds after all that to adjust the alignment. I am aware it melts the plastic if applied too thickly but in all the years using this process I have never really had any issues; apart from once on the Etton layout where the warehouse roof tiles did distort slightly in one area. That was the only time. Creating wall panels as flat pieces may mean they begin to curl due to differential material expansion chemistry stuff, but once straightened again between fingers when dry and additional card reinforcement applied egg crate fashion, as is my method, they are fine and very strong. cheers. Pete

And finally; before painting starts in earnest, a couple of ground frames on banks which control the points and bar signal in the central areas.

An array of shop fronts for the High Street scene based on contemporary photos from the town centre. This justs about completes building carcass construction.

Worthington's Offices building for Board A ready for painting. I am just completing the remainder of buildings for board A before painting starts in earnest in a couple of weeks or so as all the building carcasses should / will be completed by then. cheers

A disguised use for the OO Gauge Ten Commandments track cleaning wagon. The ends have been cut off right back to the wheel positions and false sides and upper detail added to create an elongated MR shunters wagon. I shall use it to transport chaps around the layout. Note the spring and axle box positions don't match the very long wheel-base of the cleaning wagon wheel centres. It is all an illusion! The wheels are covered by the lower footboard so shouldn't be too obvious. The original MR wagon was based on a much shorter length vehicle, a 3 plank 9' wheelbase open. Livery will be black. cheers Pete