AJ427

Thanks for the comments. Glad I've managed to inspire somebody!

Weathering is just too additictive. A large chunk of last weekend was spent renumbering and weathering my Jinty. A project started to kill time whilst some glue was drying quickly got out of hand and took over proceedings. Other, arguably more important jobs, such as further tracklaying and wiring have been largely sidelined. As a result progress on the layout side of things has been slow but steady with just the track laid for most of the station area and the headshunt. The Jinty has been renumbered to a local Farnley Junction loco and heavily weathered. I tried out some streaking techniques with acrylic thinners and Tensocrom and I'm quite pleased with the results - just smokebox number plate, crew and couplings to add now.

My initial euphoria at finally getting some track down and running some trains soon turned to despair when I quickly discovered that the boards built last year were badly warped. These had got wet when the shed leaked but I thought I'd managed to save them. The problem is that they are now covered in very small micro-hillocks - almost impossible to notice until you lay track on them. Okay, so this is a cruel close-up and exaggerates the problem but nevertheless, this just won't do. Oh no. So, back to the drawing board. I took the opportunity to review the track plan and signalling requirements past the gurus on RMweb and a couple of minor tweaks resulted which were committed to paper. I initially wanted to have the boards potentially relocatable but since this is now only a remotely possible requirement I whipped the lot out and replaced them with an L-beam structure covered in chipboard - for time, strength and cost. The boards have been sealed with a mixture of PVA and wood stain. Track laying has started again and I have now begun the dropped landscape area at the front of the layout. Built from cut-up parts of the scrapped boards (waste not, want not) this will become a coal yard with coal drops at one end, with a road rising up the side of an embankment to the goods yard at the other end.

Thanks Simon.

The 4mm bogie in particular looks excellent - lots of detail. A question if I may - when you are working with thin parts in FUD do you design the model to Shapeways' minimum tollerences where possible or do you beef it up (i.e make it overscale) anywhere for strength? I'm aware of the minimum 0.3mm thickness allowed but this doesn't give any indication of how strong the material is at that thickness and if it would be brittle or too flexible for everyday modelling use.

All of the above - and the chair looks very comfy!

That is really superb. The landscape becomes one.

Wow. I've just found this one. Very atmospheric and your scenery and buildings are superb. Clecklewkye above mentions the buildings on Dewsbury Midland and I think these are in the same league. I also like the moody yet subtle backscene. Love the flowers (foxgloves I'm guessing) on the embankment in front of the tenements. More please!

Thanks for the compliments guys! I will be using Spratt & Winkle couplers as I wanted a remote, delayed action coupler. I've tried Kadees but didn't like the look of them (or the cost) on wagons and tank locos. I've made up a batch of S&Ws from the starter kit and tried them out and found them to be economical, easy to make and they look fairly unobtrusive. They also work on the quite tight curves that I will need to use in the off-stage areas.

A bit of spare time last week meant I was finally able to make a start on track laying for my 1950s West Riding layout (name tbc). At some point soon I'll have to publish a bit more info about it as well as a track plan but briefly it will be a ficticious suburban station situated on a secondary mainline somewhere near Leeds/Bradford. Anyway, the first section of cork underlay and C&L track has been laid in the station area. Not a lot to see yet! I picked up a PO wagon from the Hartlepool show last week - brand new but nearly half price due to lack of a box. I've been itching to have a go at transforming one of these into BR days. Firstly, the sides were attacked with a glass fibre brush to remove most of the lettering, leaving enough to suggest the origin. Next, BR transfers were applied and the diagonal strapping painted white to denote the opening end before I set to work weathering. I wanted this wagon to look fairly decrepit and patched up so some of the planks were repainted as if replaced. The frame was painted in dark browns with rust detail picked out and dry brushed with goauche. The body was washed several times with dark mucky browns, most of which is wiped off with cotton buds. The metal parts of the body were painted in very dark rusty shades that received further lighter washes to pick out detail. Next some rusty water streaking was applied with goache and finally weathering powders were applied to the frame to give that gunged up dirt look.

Not much modelling for a while now due SWMBO allotment clearance and a subsequent elbow injury. A lot of stock has been purchased recently so hopefully I might get the chance of a bit more weathering next week. Off to Hartlepool this weekend to visit the folks and take my dad to Hornby Magazine Live. Hopefully it will provide a pleasant distraction.

I've returned to the hobby after a 20 year absence and after a lot of planning, false starts and mistakes I built some baseboards in the sizeable garden shed in 2009 ready for track laying for a fictional OO layout that would be set in 1950s Yorkshire. However, last year disaster struck and a number of leaks in the shed ruined the boards. So start again, have a rethink. Now I've finally just about got the garden shed cleaned out, weather proofed, insulated and boarded out and most of the baseboards are re-built and ready. So now it's time for some proper modelling; to re-learn what I'd forgotten as a teenager and learn what I never knew and apply new techniques that I've since learned in other hobbies. First up is this small scenic sampler. I built this embankment section to try out ballasting and scenery techniques and if all went well to use as a photo stage for stock. It's built from scrap foam board retrieved from work, covered with thin card and papier mache before painting with kid's poster paint. Next was the track. I've used C&L flexi for this with fine ballast. I really struggled with the brush on and shape before wetting method with this track - the sleepers are quite thin and I couldn't seem to get it to sit right. I also found the webbing quite obvious so I cut it out. The track was painted with brown emulsion before acrylic paint rust washes and weathering where applied to the rails and sleepers. Ballast was eventually applied by painting neat PVA with a brush before covering with ballast and vacuuming the excess once dry. I think more experimenting is in order with this. For the foliage I initially used Wilkos hanging basket liner ripped apart and stuck on with PVA. It was OK but looked a bit overscale so I added some ground cover foam material over the top. For the grass I wanted to try static grass so I built a generator from an electric fly swat and a metal tea strainer. Brilliant - this cost less than a tenner and actually works. I'm quite pleased with the result and will definately be using this from now on. The whole scene was then airbrushed with watered down poster paints before weathering powders were applied to tone it all together. Finally a quick backscene was cobbled together just to see how it looked and to take a few photos.

For me a big inspiration is the scenery, the buildings, the landscape, so mine are: Tetleys Mills - Dave Shakespeare - just captures that mill town atmosphere perfectly Dewsbury Midland - MMRS - the buildings are amazing Catcott Burtle - Chris Nevard - a little layout with a big impact, awe inspiring attention to detail Thanks

Hi, I'd like to see: 1) Back to back terrace housing 2) A station booking office for use on an overbridge, perhaps with integrated steps down to the platforms. Although I'm sure this could be fairly easily created from one of the existing station kits and the steps. 3) Anymore older warehouse/factory type-structures would be welcome - maybe some of the smaller types you get hidden away in back streets. 4) Big pre-War high street department stores - the ones that most towns used to have with an ornate facade and basic brickwork to the building behind. You could also have a modern image version where the ground floor has become a budget DIY shop (or similar) and the upper floors are flats. 5) A station hotel. AJ