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BG John

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  1. BG John
    With the walls built and assembled, the next job was the roof. I was trying to use as much of the Dapol kit as possible, especially bits that would otherwise end up in my collection of spare parts that may not find a use elsewhere. The slates are a pretty good match for size and spacing with the Wills sheets I was going to use for the rest of the roof, but nowhere near as sharply defined. As the shed was going to be at the back of the layout, I didn't think this would matter.
     
    The first step was to fit the ventilation grills in the raised part of the roof. As I needed 1½ of the parts from the kit for the visible side, the hidden side was cut from plain Plastikard. They were stuck in place, trying to keep them as straight as possible, as they are quite bendy.
     
    Next I tackled the Dapol part of the roof. I'd built the lean-to a suitable length to leave enough roofing to make up the length I needed. The parts were joined using a piece of Plastikard on the back for reinforcement. Due to all the messing about with the kit, the resulting roof wasn't wide enough, so I cut strips two slates wide off the top part of the Dapol roof, that I wasn't going to use, and joined them to the "top" of the roof, staggering the joints for strength. It was then stuck to the building:

     
    The joints are far from perfect, but good enough as they won't be seen from normal viewing angles:

     
    More by luck than any great sense of foresight, the strips on the back of the roof that are designed to locate inside the Dapol kit, actually fitted neatly on the outside, and will be used to attached the barge boards away from the walls:

     
    It's a shame that Wills sheets aren't bigger, as they need to be joined on a building this side, and due to inconsistent thickness and width of slate courses, that's not easy! I cut two pieces of the required size for the main roof on the visible side, and joined them as best I could before attaching them to the walls:

     
    Although I got the slate courses to line up pretty well, the sheets at this point were different thicknesses, and reinforcing them on the back meant that the front surfaces didn't line up. This is a rather cruel photo though, as it's not so obvious in real life! A forum discussion revealed that I'm not the only one who has problems with this though, so I don't feel quite so bad about it!

     
    Before fitting the raised part of the roof, I attached pieces of embossed stone Plastikard to the ends of the vertical part to represent the thickness of the stone walls.
     
    The raised part of the roof was next, using the same method, and joints in the Wills sheet that were no more successful! I sanded the top edge at an angle, so the two sides meet up fairly well, and the ridge tiles will cover the imperfections:

     
    The "hidden" side shows how the Wills and Dapol slates compare. I certainly wouldn't mix them like this on a viewing side, but I think they will be fine here, especially when painted. Being a cheapskate, I made two joins in the Wills sheet this side to save material!

     
    This is the view from the inside, showing where I've reinforced the various joints. Having not bothered to make any parts that won't be visible on the layout look good, I suppose I could get caught out one day if a train mounted video camera appears!!!

     
    This is the shed as it is now. The windows aren't fixed yet, as I have some work to do on the stonework, and they are probably best painted and glazed first:

     

     
    This is how I'm leaving it for now. The main purpose in building it was to help with planning the layout it will go on. To start with, this layout will be used as a test track for renovating my existing EM locos and stock that haven't run for many years, and for testing my unbuilt and part built kit collection as I work on them. When I've got enough stock to operate it, I'll develop the scenic side, including adding the missing details to all the buildings. As I'm gradually getting back into some serious modelling after a very long break, I'm trying to develop my skills, and get tools and materials organised, in different aspects one step at a time. I hope I'll make a better job of the smaller details after some more practice. I'm trying to avoid painting for now too, as there are so many new ideas since I last did any, and I'm very rusty, and want to wait until I can spend time learning and practising.
     
    Having built this shed with the intention of putting it at the back of the layout where the imperfections are less obvious, a change of plan now means there's a good chance it will be placed right at the front of the layout! I think I'll just about get away with it, if I'm lucky!!!!
  2. BG John
    Way back in the late 1970s, I started building the Hornby Dunster Station Building kit for my EM gauge Abbotsbridge. Here it is in 1982 at an exhibition, showing clear signs of being unfinished.
     

     
    I often used to comment to exhibition visitors on how the layout was far from finished, and the usual response was that it didn't look that way to them! About the only exception was the late Bob Symes, who was judging the layouts at the Astolat Club exhibition in Guildford, and remarked on how the layout ran beautifully, and will be very nice when it's finished!! The photo also demonstrates how Colonel Stephens loaned stock to the GWR when they didn't have enough to operate their lines!!!
     
    Anyway, here was the same building a few days ago. Over the years, most of the doors and windows fell out, as well as other bits, and it still didn't have the canopy! Fortunately, I still had all the detached bits, the parts for the canopy, and the gutters for the road side, although I assume there should also be gutters and downpipes for the platform side that are missing.
     

     
    The current plan wasn't necessarily to finish building it, just to attach all the loose bits and tidy it up. It will be used on the new Abbotsbridge, which will be built as a test track to start with, with just basic scenery, and a place to plonk down the buildings that would otherwise be hidden away in boxes. It could be a few more years before it's finally finished!
     
    Here it is today, with nearly everything now attached. Not a brilliant job, but as I made progress with it I came to the conclusion that it's not such a good kit as I used to think it is, so just used it as something to practice on after years of not building anything.
     

     

     
    I rather lost interest in doing a perfect job on it when I realised how accurate a model of the real thing it was. The kit must have been created by someone who had never seen the real thing, and had just had it described to them by a blind man who had visited it! How many differences can you spot?
     

     

     
    I'd never intended for it to actually be a model of Dunster, and had made some changes to it, like covering it in embossed Plastikard, and mounting it on a balsa base. I also started converting one of the doorways on the road side to a window, but it's obviously been changed a lot from any prototype that actually existed.
     
    I've only just got round to making the window for the former doorway! This is a really cruel view of how I butchered the door that matched the other one on the rear, to achieve it. As it doesn't match the others, presumably the original window needed replacing for some reason! I'll add the sill later. This photo shows up one of the glaring errors in the kit. I wonder how long real windows would last with lintels like that!!!
     

     
    I'll do a bit more to it gradually, but I've got a bit carried away by my next project for now. I'm intending to have a big painting session on all the buildings for Abbotsbridge 2 (as it's referred at the moment) later on, so there's no rush to get it to that stage yet.
  3. BG John
    Being new to 7mm scale, I haven't got my head round the size of it yet, except that it's BIG!!! I've got a track plan for the layout printed out full size, with some track and stock standing on it, and I wanted to see what the buildings would be like. For my OO Ingletyme, I knocked up some quick mock-ups from the main parts of the Scalescenes kits I'll be using, but without the paper overlays. For this one, I thought I'd do a bit better, and use it as an opportunity to practice designing buildings on the computer, and actually building them. It may well be in use for some time, so I wanted something fairly presentable too.
     
    I want one of the original Rother Valley Railway buildings. They were all corrugated iron, and all but one was in the usual position at the back of the platform, and had a canopy. The exception was Wittersham Road, which was on ground level behind the platform, at right angles to the track, and didn't have a canopy. I think this fits the space I have available better, but I may end up with either arrangement. The smallest surviving building is at Bodiam, and I have drawings of it from The Colonel Stephens Society. Below is the road side in 1978, when the station was unused and overgrown. I actually used the second photo on this page as a guide while building it. The platform and road side of the building have the same layout of doors and windows that makes building it easier.
     

     
    I haven't got blow by blow pictures, so here's a description of what I did:
    1) Scanned the rear of the building into GIMP from the Colonel Stephens Society drawing.
    2) Only a small section of the drawing has lines drawn to represent the corrugated iron, so I copied and pasted this multiple times into a new layer to cover the wall. Then I cut out the areas where there were doors and windows. I then applied a colour fill. It should be cream, but mine came out a rather gaudy yellow, so I must do better next time! I set the Opacity of the layer to 85.5%, so the other layers show through.
    3) On a new layer, I coloured the plinth in a dark grey and set the Opacity to 88.6%. These Opacities were set by pure guesswork/trial and error/incompetence!
    4) Next I added a colour layer for the doors and windows, again with 85.5% Opacity. The frames were filled with red, and the glass with light grey, although they printed with a bit of a red tint. I must experiment more to improve things like this. By now, you may have gathered that I wasn't planning to cut window openings!
    5) I then copied and pasted the wall area only into a new file, and resized it as the drawing is rather smaller than 7mm scale.
    6) I followed a similar process for the end walls. I haven't bothered to add lean-tos, but may do when I build the final version.
    7) I printed two copies of the sides and ends on my HP Color Laserjet, then started building.
    8 ) The entire building is built out of Bonio packets. When shopping for dog food I make sure I choose undamaged boxes, and treat them carefully until the contents are eaten! I stuck the sides and ends onto the plain side using Pritt, pressed down firmly with a roller, and left to dry. Then I cut them out, leaving an extra strip at top and bottom of the sides, and the bottom of the ends. I scored along the edge of these strips, and bent them at right angles. This great increased the rigidity.
    9) Assembly was then pretty much by making it up as I went along, with corners reinforced with right angled triangular pieces of card and strips bent longways. I used a mixture of Pritt and UHU, depending on which seemed best for each part. I hadn't made the roof at this stage, but added two long uprights angled at the top to support it. Edges of most of the card were coloured with a black felt tipped pen or highlight pens before assembly, as it's better than doing it as an afterthought!
     
    This is after completion, but helps to show how the walls were assembled:

    10) The roof was cut to fit from a single piece of card, then scored and folded down the middle. Fortunately I'd managed to get the building pretty square, so the roof was no problem.
    11) An oversize roof overlay was drawn in GIMP, with a section of the "corrugated iron" from the end wall copied and pasted multiple times. Then it was coloured grey, but didn't print quite as I would have liked! I also added two finials copied and pasted from the end walls to this sheet.
    12) Gutters were made from a strip of card coloured with a black permanent marker. Several parallel lines were scored close together, and shaped by wrapping round a steel rule. I doubled up the thickness where it went under the roof and it all fitted together nicely without needing fascia boards.
    13) The printed roof overlay was stuck to the roof with Pritt and pressed down with the roller. When dry, I cut the paper round the edges, rather than wrapping it under, then coloured the edges. I then stuck the gutters to the roof, and left it for a while to dry.
    14) I stuck the roof to the building using UHU. I need to sort out some better way to hold roofs in place, than holding it in place with my hands, as I don't have enough fingers and bits with no pressure applied tend to move!
    15) Finally, I added a ridge using one of the strips cut off the oversized roof overlay, and stuck the extra finials on the back of the ones that were part of the wall.
     
    The end result is a bit basic, and rather bright, but it was a good way to practice some of the techniques I can use for more sophisticated buildings later. It doesn't look quite so gaudy in real life, honest! When I get round to learning how to do weathering, it will be something to practice on! I'm impressed with how strong and rigid the building is, with a just a single thickness of Bonio packet, although I don't know if it will warp in time. If it does it won't matter, as it will have served its purpose, but it will be interesting to observe it.
     

     
    I plan to make the final building with full 3D corrugations. And proper windows of course! It won't be for some time, and I need to investigate what sources of plastic or metal 7mm corrugated iron are available.
  4. BG John

    Hello World!

    By BG John,

    I have to admit that I find RMweb blogs so irritating that I rarely look at them! I much prefer the forums, but decided to give blogging a try, as it seemed the most logical place to write up what's happening on my workbench. Maybe I'll become less irritated by them in time if this works!
     
    I've had ambitions to model several subjects for between 40 and 47 years, but haven't yet managed to achieve any of them! I've built a few layouts, but never had enough locos and rolling stock to operate them, and much of the stock I have had has been the wrong type or from the wrong period. I used to exhibit my layouts quite regularly, but always needed to rely on borrowed stock. So before they cart me off in a box, I want to try to achieve these ambitions, if only on a modest scale. It may not seem like it, but I actually have some sort of plan for this, and it seems to be working so far. I can't guarantee it will last though, as life has a habit of getting in the way!
     
    When I first got interested in railways, when I was about 12, I discovered the broad gauge and thought it would be great to model it. At the time I never thought it would be possible, and it wasn't until some years later when the Broad Gauge Society appeared, that I realised I could actually do it. I started my first broad gauge layout in about 1986, and exhibited it quite often, but relied entirely on borrowed stock, as I only had five wagons, and two locos. I've got plenty of part built and unbuilt kits though! I'm currently on my third BG layout, and the stock situation has actually got worse, as several wagons have started falling apart!
     
    It wasn't just the broad gauge that interested me. Early on my main interest became pre-grouping railways, especially the GWR. I gave up OO gauge and went EM when I was 16, but didn't get anywhere with building a layout until about four years later. I exhibited Abbotsbridge regular in the late 70s and 80s. It was set in the early 1900s, and had a few people and horse drawn vehicles to suggest that, but contemporary locos and rolling stock were rather thin on the ground. Most of my stock was converted Airfix RTR, dating from the 30s and 40s, as a temporary measure until I could build the right stock. It's only now that plans are afoot to resolve this problem!
     
    It wasn't just GWR stock from the wrong period that appeared on Abbotsbridge at exhibitions. It often tended to have a bit of a Colonel Stephens flavour to it, as I used to borrow stock from Les Darbyshire's Maidstone Road, and several times we joined the layouts together at our club exhibitions. That's what got me interested in light railways, especially those that the Colonel had a hand in, and it's something I've wanted to model ever since. It's only starting to happen now, as I was recently seduced by the forthcoming Dapol Kent & East Sussex Railway Terrier, and couldn't resist pre-ordering it. Until then I had absolutely no intention of modelling in O gauge!!!
     
    Last Christmas I was getting fed up with not having had a working layout with enough stock to operate it, since my OO days that ended in my mid teens. So I decided to do what I thought I'd never ever do again, and started a OO gauge layout using Peco track and RTR locos and stock. It's not quite working yet, but a few days spent on finishing the wiring and it should be.
     
    My priority is to get Ingletyme, the OO layout, running, and to work towards finishing it. Just being able to operate it will be a big achievement though, after so long without having a fully usable layout, even if it's not one I had planned to build. Having done so little modelling for years, I'm going to try to work through my collection of unbuilt kits and other projects in some sort of order that helps me to practice and develop my skills, and get my workspace properly organised. So I may concentrate on say, plastic rolling stock kits for a while, in whatever order is easiest, regardless of scale or gauge. I've never got on with scratchbuilding in 4mm, so maybe I'll have more luck starting with 7mm, and move down a scale once I've mastered that. So my projects will be jumping around all over the place! I'm planning small layouts in every scale and gauge, but they will initially just be test tracks, and I'll only aim to finish them once I have enough stock to operate them.
     
    It seems like a big and rather crazy plan, but as each scale/gauge combination has quite modest aims, it's much more achievable than building one big layout. I only need two locos and a fairly small amount of stock for each of them, and I have some of it already. I just need to try to work at it at a steady pace, and not let life get in the way again!
     
    PS: I've also wanted to build a narrow gauge layout for just as long, but that can wait for now!!!
  5. BG John
    I'm currently building a Dapol loco shed, but think I must have misread the instructions, as it looks a bit different to the picture on the packet!
     
    All through the late 70s and 80s when the original Abbotsbridge was on the exhibition circuit, I got away with telling viewers that the loco shed had burned down, so I thought it would be rather nice for the new Abbotsbridge to actually get its shed! As this is intended to be a quickie layout, and getting something presentable to run my stock on is more important than strict accuracy, I thought a Dapol kit might be a quick solution. It would need covering in embossed stone Plastikard to match the other buildings, but that should be pretty straightforward. I found one on eBay for £6.50 including postage, so didn't have much to lose by having a go. Having ordered it, I thought it might be a bit short, but decided that as only one side would be visible I could get round that by pinching half of the other side! A few days ago, I got started.
     
    Step one was to cut one side in half, and cover the inset area around the windows with embossed Plastikard:

     
    Then I cut the window openings, and joined them:

     
    I thought the plinth might be OK on a brick building, but not on a stone one, so packed out the walls with plain Plastikard:

     
    The end wall may not be visible, but I thought it would be best to make that flush too:

     
    Then I packed out the front wall, to remove the plinth and hide that horrible hole for the fan:

     
    Next step was to make a new wall for the side that will go against the backscene, using plain Plastikard and the remaining piece of Dapol wall. The Dapol wall is at that end as it had the locating slots for joining to the end wall. I covered the other side with embossed Plastikard as it will be visible through the windows, and cut a small doorway:

     
    To strengthen the new piece of wall, and to provide a reason for not adding windows, I built a lean-to on the side. The roof is roughly half of the main building roof, that wouldn't be needed elsewhere. Not much of this will be seen on the layout, so it's only partly stone covered, and I won't be adding much detail:

     

     
    This is the inside view. I've stuck the window in from the "wrong" side, so it's a bit set in when seen from the inside of the building. The door into the lean-to has a frame, and is partly open, but not so far that I need to add detail inside the room! The door is one of the small rear doors from the kit:

     
    It then dawned on me that as it's now a stone building it needs thick walls, and these would be very visible in the entrance, so I built them up on the inside. When covering the front with embossed Plastikard I added a new lintel from some plastic girders of unknown origin I've had for years:

     

     
    Then it was time to stick the sides together. I attached triangles of Plastikard to each corner to help keep it square. It had needed a fair bit of fiddling around to get everything the right length and for all the corners to line up nicely, as they're all different. It was a trial and error job that I couldn't describe here, but the errors were resolved, or mostly fairly well hidden! I added the roof truss from the kit to the centre to help keep the walls straight, and to support the roof:

     

     
    As you can see, it's being built to fit a particular location, and any parts that won't be visible on the layout aren't being made pretty! I wasn't planning to spend this long on it, or make so many changes to the kit, but got rather carried away. And anyway, I'm quite enjoying it, so it doesn't matter! Is it easier than scratchbuilding? I'm not sure, but I think I'd have put off starting a scratchbuild, and the kit is a useful starting point. And I'm looking forward to telling everyone who sees it that it's a Dapol kit, and seeing how many believe me!!!
     
    In Part 2, I'll cover the roof, and whatever comes after that. At the time of writing this, I'm still making that part up as I go along!
  6. BG John

    My First Scalescenes Kits

    By BG John,

    I still don't like the RMweb blogging feature, but thought I'd give it another try. I'd intended to do a lot of modelling during the summer, and have done quite a lot on my O/O-16.5 gauge Cheapside Yard, but getting back into modelling led me to discover lots of interesting stuff about why I'm so disorganised, and not good at starting and finishing jobs, and I've been working on things to help deal with that. So it's been a worthwhile distraction, as it's just possible I may turn into a prolific modeller, although anything has got to be better than the last 20 or more unproductive years!
     
    Last Christmas I started building Ingletyme, a OO layout intended to get me started with layout building again, and have something running quickly. It didn't get far for various reasons, and has now been dismantled. So this Christmas I'm having another try, with a similar theme, but a new plan, as a test to see if I really have learned how to get things done. While I've been planning it, I've started on the buildings, that will be mostly Scalescenes card kits.
     
    I've been fiddling around with Scalesecenes kits for a while, making mock-ups for Ingletyme and Cheapside Yard, but this is the first time I've made any for real. Unusually for me, I've built the first few following the instructions, so I won't bother with blow by blow accounts. This is what I've produced so far, on my nice tidy workbench that's currently dedicated solely to building card kits:

     
    First up was the old free Small Goods Store, that's no longer available. It's quite a straightforward kit, although a bit less sophisticated that the more recent ones. The front and back walls fold up from the floor, and when I came to fit the ends I found I hadn't got the folds in quite the right place, so there will have to be some junk or something piled up around one corner, as the worst bit of misalignment will be on the visible side right at the front of the layout! I think It's probably a good idea to be prepared to make the buildings twice, once for the practice and to find where things can go wrong, and a second time to get it perfect. I want to get on with the layout, so won't build another now, but might some time.

     
    The second building was the current freebie Weighbridge & Coal Office, which is pretty small, but very solid. I found a few problems with this one. Following the instructions carefully, but without my brain engaged, I made up two glazed windows, and when it was too late realised there is only one window in the building, and I should have stuck frames on opposite sides of the same piece of glazing! I suppose I could have reprinted it, and tried again, but instead I stuck the two windows back to back, and have an extra thick front wall! I don't think it shows, and may help to hide the strange quirk in the design of the kit. Whether you're inside or outside the building, the door knob is on the right of the door, which is why there's no interior detail, as no one can get in! Strangely, that internal wall also has no brickwork printed on it, while the other three do.
     
    The design is quite clever, as the downpipes are part of the inner end wall, that is wider than the outer layer, and the door end is stuck to the side walls with no visible join. But the same method is used at the other end, with no downpipes, so there is a visible join in the brickwork on the front wall. This won't matter to me though, as the front of the building will face the backscene. The badly done join in the brickwork on the chimney won't be seen either!

     
    At the back, the corresponding join is hidden by the corner of the chimney, and this is the side that will be at the front of the baseboard. I didn't get the chimney and roof lined up very well, so this is another candidate for a new build some time. I need to find something suitable to make a chimney pot.

     
    The last kit where I strictly followed the instructions was the road bridge. This will be at the end of the layout, against the backscene, so only one side will be visible. I haven't made the wing walls yet, as I'm not sure if they will be needed. I bought some magnetic corner clamps while I was building it, and they make getting the corners square so much easier than anything I've tried before. I need more of them!

     
    I didn't get the parapets the right length, so may have to get a bit creative with greenery to hide it!

     
    It's been a useful learning experience, and I was definitely getting better as I went along.
     
    The next building followed the instructions for most of the build, which isn't finished yet, but is now starting to diverge from them. I've got another bridge and a tunnel mouth, or possibly two of one or other of them, to build, and I may have trouble not following the rules for them, but I'll try!
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