will5210

Not much progress this week. Since the clocks changed I’ve been doing a bit more cycling & doing a few outdoor jobs. On the layout I have done a bit more ballasting (not really worthy of a photo I think), and tonight I carried on doing the initial ‘laying out’ of the station building (including the long retaining wall) with the printed texture and foamex. Very useful to start seeing it in 3D. I can already see a few bits that need adjusting! The tower on the right was a prototype to test construction methods- it won’t be on the finished layout. Thanks!

Cheers & thanks for looking in!

That’s very kind - thank you.

Enthused by the positive start to this layout thread, I’ve finally found time to tentatively start the station building. I cut the windows out from my printed ‘wall’ pictured above, then placed it over 5mm foamex board and marked up the window holes with pencil before cutting them out with a craft knife and tidying them up and chamfering the edges with files and wet n dry. I then gave the foamex a squirt of Plasticote chocolate suede effect which helpfully matches the darkened sandstone I printed. All the cutting, filing and sanding takes a bit of time but I’m happy with the effect of wall thickness it gives.

A couple of fish vans been constructed from a couple of Nucast 12ft wheelbase kits bought from the Preston show in March. Not much fun compared to the Parkside version. The one on the left is built as the instructions with all its frustrations in 12ft form. The next night I furiously attacked the 2nd with a knife & cut it down to the 10ft wheelbase version (more suitable for my era too really). I’ll stick to parkside kits in future.

Yes there’ll be a bit of fudging fact and fiction here but my signal box will be closer to the station due to selective compression, so I should’ve said freight trains will reverse close to the station i.e into the scenic section cheers

Cheers I'll take a look

More detail here courtesy of Irishswissernie: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/33664200428 https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/32598444777

Clever stuff indeed & food for thought. What model of printer did you buy if you don't mind me asking?

Hmm, I hadn’t considered 3D printing. I’ll need a lot of it so it could get expensive. All the valence is mounted on the same type of girder, but that’s hidden away so a simple X shaped plastic section would suffice there. The Girders between the canopies could be more detailed using 3D prints, etched brass or scratch build brass construction.

Oh that’s very useful indeed! Thanks for posting that. I was thinking of ordering one of their chassis jigs too. Heres the real thing along with a useful interior shot: Does anyone know where I can get etched or plastic girders in that style or similar? Cheers

Hi David. It has certainly helped to get my head around the construction. I can also print out multiple copies for when I cock it all up! Will

The Fort William station building is unique & quite a complicated shape. https://flic.kr/p/XJEgue Getting this correct will be tricky but I've been encouraged by this nice version of FW in N gauge: So, using the station building plans in Ian Futers' Scottish Layout Plans book I've started effectively drawing up my own card kit using scalescenes textures. I can print this on matte paper on the large format printer I have at work & mount it on 5mm foamex with pritt stick. The windows will be cut out by hand and replaced with thin clear plastic. The window frames will be microstrip. The 'tower' will be a separate structure. Thanks for looking in

Hi Corbs. No luck I’m afraid. Can’t think for the life of me what I did with it. It might be worth messaging gr.king as he did 3 of the conversions and may have one he could spare. Sorry I couldn’t help. If it turns up I’ll let you know. Will

Hi, well I’m not hard & fast on 1939 so I’ll squeeze in a K2/Glen or K2/K2 combo here and there. Of course all the Mallaig trains would be K2 hauled so there’s variety there too. I cant see me having room for 8 coach trains in the fiddle yard to be honest. In my head i thought 6 would be enough to give the right impression, though the 8 coach day section of the ‘Northern Belle’ with double headed ‘Glens’ is tempting!