Ian Holmes

I'm just back from my holiday to England. As per usual it was all too brief a visit. But I did get a chance to do something I've always wanted to do. Visit Pendon. I've wanted to go there ever since I was bitten by the finescale bug and heard about the place. But whilst living in England I never got a chance to go. From the East Coast of Lincolnshire to Oxford is a long drive and the day was never long enough to go there and back in a day. So when I discovered that Pendon was only 8 miles from the hotel I had booked in Oxford. I had to go. The wife was agreeable. The visit was on. However with the heavy snows on Saturday in the Oxford area I was concerned that perhaps the country roads to Long Wittenham would be blocked. I needn't have worried though for as we made our way over there the snow was melting to slush very quickly. But other potential visitors to the place must have thought the opposite and didn't venture out that afternoon so Lorrie and I got what amounted to a personal tour, especially of the magnificent Vale scene. The Madder Valley was excellent to see. The Dartmoor scene was super. But the Vale. If you are seeing the Vale for the first time, Nothing. I repeat NOTHING. Can prepare you for what you will see. Stunning just doesn't go far enough. When you reach the top of the stairs and see approximately 15 feet in depth of 4mm scale countryside in front of you that contains nothing but a few trees and a railway embankment. The "nothingness", the space, is almost overpowering. We are so used to seeing layouts where selective compression is the norm that to see scale countryside with little or no compression just boggles the mind. (first picture below) This view above with just a bus in the scene was a favourite view of mine. Then there are the cottages, stunning examples of the model makers craft. I often wondered in my younger days if I could do that. I saw cottage modeller extraordinaire Chris Pilton do a demo at a show once and was amazed. My guide around the Vale scene was most insistent that I could do it, the wife thinks I could too. Perhaps I could... This farm scene is beautiful. Even though a railway runs through the Vale scene I have to say I barely noticed it. The final picture shows the full length of the scene. The back wall is over 70 feet or one scale mile away. I came away inspired. Even my wife thought it was excellent. Even for a modeller such as myself who generally models tiny layouts I'm sure there was a lot for me to learn with the use of the space and the detailing of the models. There we go then, You've probably heard this a hundred times before but if you haven't been to Pendon. You really should go. You won't regret it.

I can't put it off any longer. Track laying has to start sometime otherwise I will get distracted by something different entirely. The trackplan is really simple so tracklaying is no great difficulty. But I will need to be extra careful around the baseboard joins. Firstly I was quite shocked to find this warning on the back of the pack of code Micro Engineering code 83 rail joiners... Once again the state of California is out to ruin every single part of your life. Really the track laying is going quite unremarkably. Cut track to length, add dropper wires, glue track in place. The only remarkable thing is that I was using a section of real rail to weigh the track down as the glue set...

Wouldn't be any good calling the blog "Protocrastinations" if I didn't keep getting distracted now would it ;-)

It had to happen. Didn't it? There I was happily messing around with my iPad sketching out ideas for APA Box layouts and I had to go and test fit the Purfleet Quay idea into in APA box and see if it would fit. In P4. Now I happen to have quite a bit of P4 stuff tucked away in a bag ready for when I start the project that keeps on getting aborted, so a test fit was not difficult A class 08, some Bachmann 16T mineral wagons and Parkside box vans all running P4 wheelsets, five yards of track (assembled) and some P4 track Company pointwork. All just waiting for that project to start. But there's always something that gets in the way. Last time round it was couplings and buffers. You know, the sort of thing that you modelllers located in the UK take for granted. "Ooh, I haven't got any 3-links to finish this kit off. I'll just nip down to the hobby shop to get some." My local hobby shop hasn't even heard of 3 link couplings let alone stock them. Having small things like these shipped to the US is kind of awkward too. They don't cost all that much but with the shipping and exchange rate thirty quids worth of three links and buffers is soon costing you about $50! So tiny stuff like that has to wait for me to come back to England for a visit so I can pop into Dave Hewins in Grimsby or B&H Models in Lincoln. Which I to be doing in a couple of weeks! Now there's a co-incidence.. So you'd think that returning home from the UK all stocked up with 4mm bits and bobs I'll be building the P4 APA box layout. But not so fast. Even though I have laots of handily pre cut strips of 3/8" ply available to construct the quayside to drop into the APA box just like that. Said wood is actually trapped behind my MGB wich is stored for the winter and the wood can actually be glimpsed behind the car here in this photograph. So something else gets in the way of my P4 project again...

Thanks for this posting. You got me looking at the IKEA lighting for my APA box creations. Are you considering the DIODER or INREDA strip lights? Ian

Looking great.

The mirroring on the right and all the associated "anomalies" bothers me too when seen like this but that area butts up so close to the edge of one of the buildings that its barely noticeable when I put it in place on the layout

A further test. Seems like I've got more control over monotone at the moment. (Which is OK for me) David Hockney uses the "Brushes" App on his iPad and iPhone. So I'm downloading that as I type so I'll try that and see what happens with it. Last night I reached for soe P4 track I had and discovered that this sketch would fit in a APA box in P4. A5 turnouts and the stock would only be things like short wheelbase shunters shunting 16T mineral wagons and box vans. Food for finescale thought...

I just threw some P4 track into an APA box (28" x 14") and it will fit (albeit rather tight) in P4 using A5 turnouts.

I had a vision of a small layout came into my mind at work today and filled full of admiration for the latest iPad works of Art by David Hockney I thought I'd try sketching it using the Adobe Ideas App. I've been messing with Adobe Ideas for a while off and on and I'm starting to get the hang of it. I'm still "drawing" using my finger rather than a stylus which can be a bit annoying when the line doesn't quite go where you want it to. The idea is basically Purfleet Quay in Kings Lynn http://binged.it/yaTLNr So this is a test of the technique to see if it works and to see if you can actually understand what I've drawn.

I am not the greatest photoshopper in the world. Unlike some members of this forum who add snow and smoke and even themselves to their pictures. My abilities stretch to cut and past and crop and tweaking colour a bit. But that doesn't stop me wanting to have a go and do something really neat on the backscene. The only part of the backscene that really needs some detail is the section with the road between the two buildings. So for a while now I've been looking around for suitable scenes, which is not as easy as you'd think. Most roads into industrial parks are four lanes. I've only got enough space for two lanes. There is one road close to work that I two lanes. So I used that for a starter. So. I just sat down measured up, cut and paste, flipped things and copied things. and I ended up with something not unreasonable. All good practice. Proving that photoshopping is not all that difficult. The section is only about 8" x 4" so any dodgy pieces of cutting copying are not that noticeable. It will work for the moment though but I think in the long run I'll wait until the spring and the grass is greener before I produced the finished item.

I know what you mean with the classic sports car analogy. My '76 MGB developed an interesting "short" whereby the brake lights, indicators and side lights on the left hand side only don't work.

Having been presented with a day off work due to the celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday and being rather fired up over my APA box layout concept. I devoted my day off to some serious construction work. Principally the structures. The first one to be worked on was the small low relief at left rear. It was already well on the way to being finished and some plastruct stone cladding, a Pikesfuff door and a scratchbuilt fire escape (which might just get re-made) coupled with some kind of a/c unit on the roof courtesy of Walthers modular bits and pieces and it's ready for a visit to the paint shop Hopefully to end up looking something like this: Next up is the building front left. This is the one that I plan to cut away and have an interior for people to view. I already have in my possession a Pikestuff kit that I had made rather unremarkably so I dismantled it and re-assembled it around a .5mm styrene shell. A loading door was also cut into the shell and the Pikestuff wall sections were fitted around it. The interior to this point has a loading dock and flight of steps in place. Roof beams and some sort of supporting steelwork is also likely as well as a rollled up door. Perhaps a truck pulled up to the loading dock as well. I don't know just yet. This view of the outside shows the patchwork of previously painted, primed and unpainted sections that have been used to make up the shell. I doubt that much detail will go on this wall as no-one will be able to see it. I'm thinking there's a good six hours work invested in these structures today and while glues have been setting on these projects I've also been messing around with the major low relief structure rear right. But that's a story for another posting.