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pirouets

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  1. pirouets

    Trees part 2

    By pirouets,

    Following on from a few weeks ago 2 of the suggestions people gave me have been tried. The first was to use some DAS clay to cover the copper wire of the tree but so far I have not managed to perfect this given I am trying to make some Silver Birch trees at the moment.
     

     
    The second was simply to spray the trunks a few times with a white coat. This seems to be work but I do need to get something that is a bit more of a mucky white.
     

     
    Once that was done and the paint dry, the trunks were sprayed with sticky glue and then covered with lengths of chopped up sisal string as the base to which foliage can be attached.
     

     
    Finally once that had set, another coat of spray glue and then a generous coat of foliage.
     

     
    And so the first 2 trees are in place, of about the 40/50 silver birch needed
     

     
    I also have to do around 100 other trees for which I need to paint the trunks and sisal string brown so a trip to B&Q or Hobbycraft to find a decent colour will be done at some point in the future, along with also trying Atsos suggestion to use super glue and talc.
  2. pirouets
    One of the key pieces of Hemerdon will be the wooded area that runs from the farm house to the end of the passing loops and one of the things I did not consider when choosing Hemerdon as a layout idea was how on earth was I going to cover the area with trees. I guess in my mind I though it would not be that expensive to buy them - wrong on so many levels.
     
    Gven that I need around 150 trees to cover the area, and decent tree is between £3 & £4 I could have spent between £450 and £600 which was not a sum I had thought of when planning the layout, and more importantly is not a sum which will get past SWMBO.
     
    So that leaves me with a clear option of making them for myself. Hmmmmmm. How the heck do I do that, and how do I do a silver birch compares to the more generic bush trees on the site. The silver birch is much finer and means I will need to work out how to paint the distinctive off white trunk with the odd dash of darker brown that peaks through evey so often.
     
    Luckily I am finally getting the hang of searching this little beasty of a web site and there is some great stuff on here.
     
    My initial starting point has been the fact I have a load of single core copper wire so I have been playing around with this and my scenic test piece to create some trucks of different forms.
     

     

     
    One key conclusion I have come to is that the copper wire is fine for the main trunk, but I need something finer for branches, so an idea I am going for is to mix in some picture wire for the branches along with either some static grass for really small twigs or chopped up twizel string. Will see how this goes.
  3. pirouets
    I'm modelling in the rain, I'm modelling in the rain. What a glourious feeling i'm having again - Come on, sing along as i'm sure you can make the words up.
     
    What the hell is he on about I hear you cry as you look at this!!!!! Its not some wierd fantasy that I can only do things outside when its raining. Can you imagine trying to make a model from card in the rain?
     
    I've always found the sound of rain on a tent canvas to be a fairly soothing sound except when accompanied by high wind, and the other day I was in the shed on one of the few days recently when we have had some rain and the sound created was that nice gentle tap tap tap sound on the roof of the shed.
     
    I know often we talk about the music we listen to, but this was just such a peaceful way to model, and certainly beats the noise the damn cats make scratching on the roof. In no time at all I was through the mod roc I had and over an hour had sailed by.
  4. pirouets
    One of the pieces about building Hemerdon Bank has been the farm buildings above the layout and where can I get information about them other than via Google Maps or Bing. The image below is from a screen capture off Bing
     

     
    So I started hunting round for other images of Hemerdon. I found various images and pages, but nothing that really helped until I came across a link with a picture of the line and some text that told me the farm is called Parkside farm.
     
    So a new google search was sent of into the wonders of the web. The first gave me this page which had a front on view of the farm house. But then, lying there at the end of the Google rainbow, was an architects website with some information that told me back in 2007 various changes and improvement had been made. Part of the treasure turned out to be the planning portal for South Hams, upon which were 4 planning applications, 2 of which contained the same PDF file which was full of Sweet Pictures of the farm site.
     
    All the content is copyrighted so if you want to take a look, you will need to follow the links.
     
    This then leaves me with the simple question of whether my fingers can deliver on this. Only time will tell.
     
    At some point I'll get round to posting some pictures of my progress.
  5. pirouets
    The other day I set my status saying I was enjoying taking out an old layout from the shed. Cumberland Road was the branch line for my previous layout which I had kept whilst I work on Hemerdon.
     
    So earlier today everything was packed away and the old layout broken up, so I started loading the car up. Having put the old wood in, I thought i'll clear out a few other bits and bobs. The only thing was my few bits and bobs FILLED the boot of my car with the back seats down. Hidden away I found
     
    - Old bits of polystyrene I thought I might use to create slops.
    - Off cuts of MDF from mistakes past. (Some of which I am sure came from the previous house)
    - various lengths of wood.
    - So may little bits of wire clippings I could have given a bald man a full wire hair piece.
    - 1 old stair gate. (That brakes my rules of storing house stuff in my shed)
    - 3 old tins of paint.
     
    After pilling that all in the car I then hoovered up so much dust from the nooks and crannies of the shed, I filled the hoover. I had always thought the shed was fairly clean. Oh how wrong.
     
    The good news is that I am now left with this view (Just about everything is now stored under Hemerdon Bank.)
     

     
    The plan is now to get a cheap desk from Ikea to create a proper modeling space where I can work on things and not cart things back and forth between the shed and the house.
     
    The question is what will sneak in over the coming years with out me looking?
  6. pirouets
    Curves have been bugging me for a while. How the heck do you cut them out? I've tried scissors, free hand with a knife, scoring with a pencil attached to a compass, scoring with a the pin end of a compass, and none have worked.
     
    I was emptying the dishwasher the other day and it came to me. We've had pudding bowl hair cuts, so why not pudding bowl to create well cut curve.
     

     
    I used a scalescene bridge as the template to create the bridge but adjusted the measurements as needed to create the bridge I need, and then the arch of the bridge was simply done using the bowl which has given me the following..... (Need to raise the bridge up by about 2mm before I plant it)
     

     
    I wonder what else I will find in the house by the time I finish the layout.
  7. pirouets
    Forget your City of Truro, or that DCC controller, how much do we spend on all the stuff that we never see on the layout?
     
    I ran out of blades again this weekend whilst attempting yet another go at the shops for the market square on my layout. I couldn't make it out to get some proper blades but did pick up a cheap craft knife which has one of those blades that you snap off the end of the blade and use the next bit as the point with the theory that its sharp, because surely a blade is a blade. WRONG!!!!!
     
    Ok it cuts card OK but it cannot do fine work even with lots of light scoring, and this got me thinking. How much have I spent on all the Odds and Sods over the years used to make the kits, so I a quick look round the shed came up with
     
    2 decent craft knives (I lost one, bought another and then found the missing one a day later)
    Lord knows how many packs of blades I have bought and I need another.
    Cheap craft knife this weekend.
    OHP to print windows on
    Various types of glue - PVA, Super glue, UHU, Scotch mounting glue.......
    Metpack glue. (Gone through loads of this as I have knocked a couple of full bottles over whilst working)
    A pair of tweasers which I barely use.
    A glue thinner which has never been used.
     
    So with all the fun we have debating pricing policies of stock, I'm going to try and keep track of what I spend on Odds N Sods whilst building Alevscot, and see what I come up with outside of the ??100 budget I have for the its construction.
  8. pirouets

    The Captains Windows

    By pirouets,

    After seeing the Captains work on the new houses for Callow Lane it got me thinking about how to create windows. Up till now I have used black frames by printing out on OHP. Whilst it works, its not perfect AND its always black as I can't print in white.
     
    So along comes the Captain with his window method and it got me thinking how else can I do this, especially if the 2010 callange layout starts. Can I improve on what I have done, so using a few off cuts of pasticard I knocked this up.
     
    The base is a piece of .75mm.
    The brickwork is scale scenes "pasted" on by soaking in metpack
    The window frame is .5mm (To think in reality)
    The cross piece in the window is just an off cut off .5mm glued in
    The glazing is something I actually cannot remember where it came from but I have a small pile of it in one corner of the shed.
     

     
    I have to say that this is far better than the old method.
     

     
    I think I will try this on a new building I am working on for my layout, but using a thinner piece for the frame. The walls for that will be card with brick paper instead which will give a better wall thickness.
     
    Oh, and Captain - Thank you AND damn you in the same breath as this will keep me very quite for hours and drive me insane.
  9. pirouets

    How inept was I in 2009

    By pirouets,

    So as I sit here at the end of another modelling I find myself asking the question, what on earth did I actually do? Back in January my layout looked like this
     

     

     
    Some 12 months later and after numerous restarts I have finally build the terraced houses but am still no where near finishing the shops, so it now looks like this
     

     
    The wierd thing is I feel I have spent ages in the shed this year but do not have loads to show for it. Could this be because for the first time I have challenged my ineptitude and started on things like "detail".
     
    I have a spreadsheet about the layout from items such as the wiring plan, stock list for insurance, time table, etc. It also has a list of tasks that either need to be done or have been done.
     
    In that list since the layout started there are 140 things I have done and 32 jobs I still need to do that I can see.
     
    When I look at that list I find I have done things such as
     
    Laid the grass for the park area by the station
    Laid the paths
    Added the steps
    Added the wall
    Made the flower beds on the station
    Added some ground signals for the branchline
    Made the fence by the station
    Made 7 terraced houses
    Fixed the cows and sheep in place
    Started to replace the "bog brush" trees (I have plans for them)
    Added gutters and drain pipes to my buildings for the first time.
    Started creating a timetable
    Built my first building that was not simply a variation on a square box, but had angled corners.
    And finally I ran some trains
     
    So actually it may not have covered vast swathes of the layout as the 1st 2 years of this layout did, but it does seem I have taken some steps in to new area's of ineptitude that I have not done before.
     
    I have a feeling 2010 will be more of the same.
  10. pirouets
    Fingers crossed some where in the post is a ticket for this years show, but before I start getting flustered because it has not arrived I find myself with a greater conundrum, how to get there.
     
    Living in Reading I can get a train direct to Birmingham International, and it takes about the same time as the drive by the time I have got to the station BUT, the ticket for the train is ??40, where as the petrol will cost me around ??20 plus i'm guessing around ??7 - ??10 for the car park.
     
    The train will get me there relaxed, I can snooze, have a drink and some food or watch a film (if I dare take a back pack with my little DVD player in i)) if I want whilst the car costing less, means a little bit more money to spend when I am there.
     
    The cheapest train ticket means I have to get a specific train home, whilst the car is there when I want it, so if I get bored or want to stay longer I have the option.
     
    Both journey types may get affected and slowed down, so that's not an issue.
     
    If my wife or Kids are ill, not doing the car journey costs me ??0, but not using the train will cost me something.
     
    All I can say is, its a good thing I bought the ticket before I thought about how I get there, other wise I would be left stuck in "analysis paralysis" trying to work this out and suddenly I would realise its Monday the 23rd and the show is over.
  11. pirouets
    Today has been a good day. The house is clean, had friends round for lunch and my wife makes a mean cheese cake, London Irish are top of the premiership and my "puffer bottle" does indeed produce grass with a far better texture than scatter, and it took no time what so ever.
     
    My test piece consisted of a 15cm by 15cm area of neat PVA on card, some Jarvis static grass and the said puffer bottle.
     
    The biggest challenge was actually getting the bag of scatter into the bottle without covering the shed, but once achieved, I spent 30 seconds shaking it like a looney and then the bottle "huffed and puffed and after about 12 puffs the area was covered. I got the hover out to remove the unwanted scatter lying round the edges, and then simply used it to suck in various directions to both get scatter that had not been grabbed, and to create some texture.
     
    Looking at my work proudly, and then casting my eye over the rest of the layout I am left with this feeling that I need to find a way to cover/change the flock that has been used, but i'll worry about that another time.
     
    I still have to buy the ferns from scalelink yet though as looking at their website I did not trust their payment system so i'll give them a call on Monday instead. I'll make a few of them and stick them into the new grass to see what the effect is like.
     
    Apart from today's 5 min job I had a good play with the branchline side of the layout just running a few short freight trains around.
  12. pirouets

    Detail, Detail, Detail

    By pirouets,

    As the last post said, what to do next as I seem to have stalled over the last couple of months, so I have decided on a small plan of action.
     
    Rather than work on anything big, over the coming month apart from running the layout I am going to do just those little jobs such as:
     
    Add gutters and drain pipes to buildings
    Get flowers in the flower beds.
    Look at where people should be and the cameo's
    etc
     
    It will take a couple of days to get through but to help me on my way I have ordered 2 things, a puffer bottle to have a crack at static grass, and some bracken stems from Scalelink to help me create some weedy and overgrown areas.
     
    I reckon the beauty of this approach will be I will probably find I have spent 2 hrs in the shed, doing lots of things, rather than getting bogged down in creating yet another building.
     
    I've also decided to sell off some of my steam stock with as for the main line side of the layout it is definitly going green & blue diesel, however all my steam stock that suits a branchline scene will be kept as I still swap the branchline back to steam on a resular basis.
  13. pirouets
    So what's the difference between the old way I posted information and updates compared to this brave new world of bloggery, apart from this is the first time I have ever written a blog, and more to the point what do I want to share, and get out of it in return.
     
    At the moment I guess my biggest challenges/questions in no particular order are
     
    1. What do i want to do next with the layout?
    2. How do i avoid ripping it up to start building the next of many plans I have and becoming a serial builder
    3. Now that my kids are interested, how am I going to encourage them?
    4. No that I mainly run diesels what on earth do I do with all those steamies that I have?
    5. Will the shed leak again this winter? (Fingers crossed that will be a NO)
    6. Do I want to have a crack at something in a larger scale to whether that makes like any easier?
     
    Whilst I ponder those for now I will add the link to the old thread http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=7671&hilit=wycliffe#p112381
     
    I know that Martin Wynne has written us a tool for copying threads across, but I may just add a "potted summary" with a couple of images and my thoughts on what I have learnt or failed to learn.
  14. pirouets
    Not sure how many of you remember the film "field of dreams" with the line, "if you build it he will come", but I finally got round to giving the track a good clean. OK, I used a track rubber becuase at the moment that is what I have, but boy O boy did it make a difference.
     
    In fact it got me thinking that as well as running trains and building things I need to try and start a regular cleaning cycle, but what does that entail?
     
    1. Track, well that one is obvious
    2. Loco wheels. I lubricate the loco's but I have no way of cleaning the wheels. Needs looking into and will see what Aly Paly has to offer on this one.
    3. Plastic wheels on wagons. Orrible things and I am going to start looking at replacing all of these as they are real "cludge" grabbers. Having counted the wagons I will need around 180 sets to replace on the peco wagons.
    4. Coach wheels. Metal and they don't look to bad, but they still need cleaning
    5. Hoover the shed to keep the dust down
    6. Hoover the layout to keep the dust off
    7. Air the shed to help keep it fresh and the damp air from building up.
     
    If I come up with any form of magic new trick that has not been posted, i'll let you know, but I think it will more be copying everything that has gone before.
  15. pirouets
    I'm starting to mull over just what to do with the fresh boards sitting down one side of the shed at the moment. Whilst there is the temptation to rush in, I made that mistake with the fiddle yard last time and it became the major reason for the destruction of Wycliffe.
     
    I am playing with various configurations, but I may hold fire until the code 55 3 way point is released. Hopefully that will be at some point in Q4 of this year.
     
    in the mean time the debate goes on within the darkest recesses of my brain as to what's next. There seem to be little groups of men scurrying around in there with differing idea's currently going something along the lines of
     
    1st group - It should have big station
    Next group - don't be daft, that hasn't worked the last 2 times, so just 2 tracks in scenery
    Next group - Nah, do something like a set of exchange sidings by the main line. You know like the bit on the way to Paddinton where those old EWS trucks are sitting. Its near Southall
    lone voice in the corner - Try P4
    everyone - Get him :-)
     
    Seriously though, in the above there are 3 ideas
     
    The first is a main line running past a load of semi's, with may be just a passing loop on either side.
    The second is a main line with a couple of carriage sidings on one side, and a large set of exchange sidings the other.
    The 3rd is based on a C Freezer plan. If you have PSL Book of Model Railway Track Plans, go to plan 70a
     
    I have sketched out the second which currently is leading, and I am doing some reading on exchange sidings, but we shall see where my inner demons go over the coming months.
     
    The three things by the way I can share are
    It will be Diesel with the ability to be green or blue era
    It will be a roundy for watching trains go by
    It will interlink to the other side of the shed so in the future when I decide I have had enough of Cumberland Road I can link it with some form or terminus station.
     

  16. pirouets

    I've become a wimp !

    By pirouets,

    I have recently noticed something about my modelling habits. When I returned in 2001 I used a cold loft which it was not possible to heat, (or was pointless to try because of the drafts) so I simply made sure I had plenty of layers on. I used to have a long sleeve T shirt, then a rugby shirt and then a fleece jumper which was fine and if needed a fleece jacket.
     
    Having just got my annual electricity bill and, I am wondering why now that I have a shed which is not draughty, I feel the need to run a heater flat out so I can just wear a T shirt B) . Why don't I just bung the thing on low to take the edge off, and go back to wearing plenty of clothes instead. Stuff new years resolution, I am going to make this one now.
     
    I should point out that currently the shed is not insulated. Whilst this has not caused any problems, I do plan to fix this when I feel the current layout has run its course (which will be as soon as peco n gauge 3 way points come out)
  17. pirouets

    Time travel in a shed

    By pirouets,

    Does anyone else experience the issue that you "pop" out to the shed for a quick 5 to 10 mins, and by the time you get back 45 mins has gone by in real time?
     
    Is my shed some how travelling some where near the speed of light, or was it just the battery in the clock running out, so the clock was very slow?
     
    Amyway, this did lead to one of those moments where I returned to be faced by with my wife and the jobs I should have been doing. Its a scene you never see in Doctor Who!! I some how doubt this will be the last time I make this mistake !!
     
    In the mean time I managed a few more 5 min jobs done in the evening. I got some old telegraph poles out and put them on the branch line. Looking at them I will replace them as the molding is not that good, but it did help me work out the spacings and get me removing a few more bog brush trees.
     
    I've also started on fixing the buildings in place now that all bar 1 of the houses have their drain pipes fitted. Having use 2 methods to make the house I am finding the card ones easier to attach that the plasticard based ones, so I will pop out on the way home and get some super glue for those.
     
    My other conundrum is the fiddle yard and its awful design. I worked out that I could add 2ft to most of the tracks which in turn increase the overall capacity from 12 trains to 16, BUT can I do this reaching over the backscene without killing the layout. Given I am in the lucky position of having some money saved (plus the sale of some unwanted stock) to spend on new stock I think this will be one of the winter challenges, especially with the upcoming release of a peco 3 way point. (This is one of those moments where time travel really would be useful to fix this mistake before I made it)
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