BG John

They had the best price I could find on a Peco Loco Lift I wanted to experiment with, and delivery was amazingly quick. Far quicker than my putting the item to good use, that hasn't been done yet!!

The rear gutter was a lot quicker than the front one, now I know what I'm doing (well sort of anyway!). I've made it in two parts to fit round the chimney, and will cobble something up to make the bend look a bit more convincing, although it will face the back of the layout and won't be seen from normal viewing angles. Once all the glue is set, I'll do some adjustments to all the guttering. I've also tiled the roof, and fitted it. I'll add the ridge tiles, bargeboards and chimney top in the next session, and then it will be almost done. The next Scalesecenes kit will be more challenging to scale up, so I'll probably redo the buildings at the left end of the layout first, as they will be fairly straightforward scratchbuilds using Scalescenes brick paper.

Today's developments were a bit dull. Just attaching a couple of bits of architrave to the bottom to strengthen it, and make the base for the quay. After all the work over the years, there are a lot of bits that would ideally be straight, but aren't, so I need to plane some of the edges of the wood I'm attaching, once the glue is set, before I can move on to the next phase. The parts that matter do seem to be square and flat though. As there won't be any pointwork, and all the stock will be compensated, hopefully it will all be up to a suitable standard for reliable running with P4 wheels. I also filled in the hole where the controller was. I think the next job will be to sand the top, before attaching the backscene. Although I won't be laying the new track yet, I want to get on and make the building that will hopefully block a good part of the view into the fiddle yard, to make sure I'm on the right track with it.

Do you need quite so many sidings? Yes! It's supposed to be somewhere I can run stock as I build it for a potential future layout, so needs a fair bit of capacity. I wouldn't have put so much effort into extending it otherwise. The original version had three sidings. 1. Short bay line maybe and room for station building at back. 2. Behind that space for semi-flat buildings, dobbins with carts and carriages, in the space you've gained. There won't be a bay, as that means building more coaches, although the siding may run parallel to the platform behind a fence. I don't want to spend a lot of time adding details, but I do want somewhere to run and test locos and rolling stock as I build it. Details can wait for future layouts. 3. Just a quayside siding in front. 4. Splitting into two sidings front and back takes up most of their length with a point. There's only one siding at the front. The tracks were drawn with a permanent marker pen, so when it changed direction to get the quay in, I couldn't rub out the original lines! It's a totally pointless layout, and has no points, so they don't take up any length! The rear ones may well diverge so close to each other that it looks as though there's one just off stage. 5. Having so many tracks converging into the sector table will make treatment of the exit "bridge" or whatever difficult. I agree, but that's part of the challenge! I'm planning three "half layouts" like this, and bridges across the middle of a branch terminus are very rare. The other two will have them (I have explanations/excuses prepared!), but I want to try to do this one without a bridge if I can. I have half a plan, and the rest will be trial and error, which may fail! 6. Sector table or cassettes? (I'm a cassette fan, me) Sector table. It represents all the pointwork in the station throat, and operating it needs to feel like it's being done a bit like a proper railway. It's one great big multi-way point! On a real railway you don't unplug the track with a train on it, and drag it across the ground to connect it to the next line!

You have to work hard to stop my warped and devious mind finding ways around even the most proper explanation! How about finishing Cadbury first, then finding a use for them? I know where there's a lovely Lima continental coach that's crying out for a big layout with large radius curves. Even my weird brain is stumped by trying to find a use for it on a British light railway - so far!

I think a tree up in the air will be rather surreal, and spoil the image you've created with the rest of the layout. http://images.uncyclomedia.co/uncyclomedia/commons/3/3b/Floating_Tree-1060233399.jpg I had a similar dilemma with some O gauge track someone you may know gave me. Along with the copper clad stuff, there's just enough Peco to make a nice little micro layout. Watch out for news soon!!

More cobbling together bits of wood I have lying around, to add the seven inches on the back. It seems to have come out pretty well. Once the glue is dry, I'll add the backscene that will strengthen it. The board is still quite light, which makes a change from my other layouts! I've quickly drawn a couple of sidings at the back, to show roughly where the new ones will go. The scenic area will be 35.5" x 19", making the area 4.68sq ft, and no longer a micro by Carl Arendt's definition, although he frequently broke the rules! Bit of a failure though, as I've managed to get a 7mm layout in 4sq ft, with O and O-16.5 gauges. The new sector plate will take up the whole width of the fiddle yard. It needs to swing right to both edges to line up with all the tracks. I'll sand the baseboard, and hopefully stick a non stick surface on it for the traverser to slide on.

Thanks Jack. That would be great. I'm a bit stuck here at the moment, as my van is playing up and I'm only doing local trips. The local shops don't have much variety, and the ones that do may not be reached before overheating occurs! So I'm buying most stuff online, and it takes days to get things, possibly to discover it's not suitable!

Are we talking about things like this, which looks quite thick: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121722675462 foil like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Baco-Bacofoil-Non-Stick-Disposable-Kitchen-Foil-10m-Roll-/272004772152 or something different?

Slower progress tonight. There were various things about the roof I wasn't happy with. The first picture shows the ceiling, with gutters sticking out of the sides. The gutters are flat, that I wasn't that impressed with in 4mm, even though I left them like it, but in 7mm it wasn't so good. The rear gutter doesn't run behind the chimney, so the short bit to the left of the chimney has no downpipe to drain into. Although scaled up to 175%, I used the thicknesses of card recommended for 4mm scale, then added an extra 1mm thickness at the door end, so was expecting some difference in the proportions, and it shows up in the roof. The second picture shows that the overhang on one end is much bigger than the other, and there is no overhang on the sides. So I reprinted the ceiling and roof, and started again. First I cut the new ceiling to fit inside the ends and round the chimney better. Then I removed the gutters to make the front and back flush with the walls. I stuck just the ceiling part of the printed overlay on the bottom, and glued it in place, with a bit of strengthening on the left side, where it's not supported underneath. Next I took the gutter I'd cut off the ceiling, folded it back on itself along the marked fold line, and stuck them back to back. With a lot of trial and error, I bent the shape of the gutter by wrapping it round a steel ruler, and put a right angled bend at the back. By the time it was done, I'd rubbed much of the printing off! I blackened the outside of the gutter with a felt tipped pen, but left the inside for now. Then I cut a piece of 1mm card to bring the ceiling up to the level of the wall ends, to support the roof, stuck the gutter to the ceiling, and stuck the card on top. There are no ends on the gutter, so I'll have to think about that. This photo shows how I've cut the roof differently. There was a big gap behind the chimney (that didn't fit that well in 4mm either). I've cut the length to the same as that of the gutter, which meant leaving more on the right end to give an equal overhang. I've also cut the front edge a little outside the marked line, but haven't done the back yet. The roof held in place to show that it will fit much better now. I need to do the back gutter before fitting it.

I made a full size mock-up of Cheapside Yard on the actual baseboard, with full colour flat buildings, and all the ground cover. It certainly helped to get everything right before I started building. Then I started replacing parts of it with the real thing, rather than removing it all and starting with a bare baseboard. Much of the mock-up is still there, as I haven't finished track laying yet, and am currently working on the first of the final buildings. I'll probably do similar in the future, especially where space is really tight.

Hopefully this stage will be the last bit of "interesting" history, as I can't face another rebuild! If I can get the fiddle yard right, I think it's finally got the potential to get somewhere. What I was looking at on eBay is described as heavy duty, and had a visible thickness, but I couldn't tell what it was. I was hoping it would only be needed on one surface.

The thinnest I've got is about 6.5mm. The current one is 3.6mm Tufnol with copper clad sleepers supporting very low bridge rail. So it's probably too thick. Add the oven liner, and it will be far too high. Lowering the baseboard would be a big job. I'm inclined to buy some 2mm Tufnol, put aluminium angle along the top edge, and some strips of something slippery at right angles to it to slide on. How thick is the oven liner?

It would make a change from mud, I suppose!

Getting to B&Q (or anywhere similar), especially on the off-chance they might have something useful, is a problem at the moment. Do you mean like laminate flooring, as I have plenty of that? The non-stick oven liner looks interesting, and I was thinking I needed something like that. There's lots on eBay too, which solves the getting to somewhere I can buy it problem.

Promising start? I started planning it in 2006: and building it in 2008: It's heading for its tenth anniversary

No gap on the A1? Nowhere near as bad, but it's a good thing they're not fitted with a smoke unit!

I didn't specifically have Kingswear in mind, but you're not far out. Newham is another one with a quay. With what I'm planning to block the view into the fiddle yard, it won't be either of them, but a creation of my rather warped mind! Having removed 3 inches from the front some years ago, I'm now adding 7 inches on the back, for two sidings. I'll be able to put the station building on the back of the train shed, where it should be, too. It will also have a three track fiddle yard, as the one track one was always a severe limitation. I've cut various bits of old plywood for the extension to the board, and the backscene, and will start putting it all together soon. The original sector plate is made of Tufnol, which came from a family member's stock of useful stuff, but I'll have to buy some for the new one, and rather annoyingly it seems to come in 600mm or 1200mm lengths, but I need 611mm! I have to use the same pivot point, so can't shorten it. It will end up being a bit less Small, but will still be Totally Pointless!

My plan was to concentrate on building rolling stock, and knock up some very quick layouts to run it on, but I seem to be on a roll with buildings at the moment. I'm just going to keep going, maybe until I've got all the buildings I'll need for the rest of my life!

The patient survived the night, and had reconstructive surgery this morning. The front edge was glued and screwed back along the cut edge, a piece of wood fixed under the top to join the two halves together, and a big chunky piece of ply fixed along the back. The tracks line up far better than I thought they might. They may need a bit of work to improve the joins, or I may cut out a small piece and redo it, but it shouldn't need much done. I'll be getting on with the next stage of the cunning plan this afternoon. Can you guess what it is?

More work on the scaled up Scalescenes office tonight. It's rather big compared with the size it's intended to be, but it shows the quality of the Scalescenes products if they enlarge this well. The interior looks pretty good too, although not much will be seen with the roof on. There are a couple of errors with this kit. The door knob on the inside is on the right side of the door, but should be on the left. I've added one in pencil, although I doubt if anyone will notice, or that they'll see that the other one is still there! There is no brickwork on the inside of this wall either. I've used the same thickness card as advised for the 4mm model, so added another layer on the inside of the wall, with the doorway cut out, and a print of the opposite wall added. This wall sticks out of the sides, and forms the downpipes, so I think it needed thickening anyway.

Surgeons at the baseboard hospital have amputated the ends of the baseboard frames where the boards join, and part of the front of one board. What further suffering will be inflicted on this poor layout? Will it survive?

The bottom one is Great Western Wagons Appendix, although it's out because I'm building a visiting GWR wagon for the planned K&ESR layout!

I'm getting a bit carried away with buildings at the moment. I've been making them for my OO layout (that hasn't got a topic yet, although some can be seen in my blog), and now I've had some practice with 4mm Scalescenes kits built at the intended scale, I'm having a go at one scaled up to 7mm. This is the freebie Weighbridge/Coal Office, that's easy to print on A4 at 175%, but the the others will be more interesting without an A3 printer! I've recently discovered that Adobe Reader has a "Take an Snapshot" feature, that allows part of a page to be selected and printed, so I can break each page of the Scalescenes file into small sections that will print on one page when scaled up. I was quite pleased with the quality of the mockups I made when planning the layout, and this one is looking quite good so far. It's actually brown brick, but when I was building the mockups I discovered that my HP Color Laserjet's Toner Saving option prints the brickwork much lighter, and the bricks come out in a variety of colours, giving the impression that the buildings were constructed with cheap bricks. I saw the new year in sticking the prints to card, and cutting out the overlays. I was out of alcohol, so managed to cut straight! Then left them overnight for the Pritt to dry under part of my library: Tonight I started assembly:

You might be asleep again before much happens .