wagonbasher

Mark.... A small tear has come to my eye............ A

Intresting view .......................................

My opinion would favour the derilect mine type scenario over the wheathy land owners house. Its not that there arn't any, clearly there were (just look at the village of Knowle) but to me it is not what the Black Counrty is known for (personal opinion I know) But... I do have a problem with the industrial pumping engine , fan house being on top of the hill. Driving around today I did see a number of those classic brick built victorian schools, decorated, girls entrance and boys entrance, walled playground. How would that work ? A school on the edge of an unseen village / town. I went to one such school in the 1970's and other than the portacabin in the playground it was unchanged from the day it was built including the outside loos - one for Stubby....

The stone blocks that make up the front faces of the pillars are scribed and then the castilations are cut out for the section inside the arches. Insides first, carve to the curve, then the front face and carve to the curve. Note tie plates - still lots of those to do. Just the parapet and some tidying up to do. There is a further layer of 40 thou plasticard to go at the top of the pillars since there is a three inch overhang on the prototype. Two of the pillars have had the foundation stones modelled since these two are either side of the river / stream and will be slightly visible, the other pillar bases will be lost into the valley floor.

With the casting in place. It is necessary to get these in place so that the triangular stone at the foot of the arch can go in which sets the height for all of the stone work on the pillars.

How about lots of small timber buildings on an enlarged site.... Allotements, Sheds, greenhouses, coal frames (is it coal or cold?), pea frames, upturned wheel barrows and water butts. There are plenty of these around the BC

A canal breach like that is going to more than flush stubby's toilet !!!! Andy

Disapointed to learn about the none flushing loo.... I trust the pan will be modelled 'flushed' Andy

I have a problem with this un-manned approach... I don't disagree that in such a case the guard would leap out and do the honours and the reset before leaping back on the train - however, that is difficult to model. You cant leave the gates open for road access without the need to close them when the train comes. You cant leave them closed to the road, how would the occassional road user cross the line. To have them operated - you are into the realms of Micheal Bentine's potty time. And.... our invisible gaurd can only close one gate at a time ! A

You can never say never but this question arose in earlier threads. There seam very few industries that access the canal across the towpath. Access is either on the no tow path side or via a private canal arm with a roving bridge over the top. I can think of some British waterways workshop / stables that were on the towpath side but otherwise I am struggling. Just a thought, driving around Bilston this luchtime there are a few low walls that are remains of factories and they always have faded / missing paint on the inside wall. A

This is the mould and the out put - need 10 of them and over 50 wall plates

The front pillars are also clad in 20 thou plasticard to get the plastic to the same level. At each stage the plastic is carved down to match the curve of the pillars. The stone work over the arch (fancy word starts with V ) is particularly detailed so I opted to cast them in Resin. This is the master from which I produced the mould. Note also the master for the wall plates

OK First a layer of Flemish bond to cover the sides of the upper arches, and the insides of the arch. I am having IT issues so I will post this then some more A

You are only bitter because Chris posted several shots of the saw being taken to your boards...... A

Where is he going to find a FULL drinks can ? A

Rivits on the bridges side girders, what have you used ? A

I love it... I am posting more of the viaduct tonight, it is very much further deveoped than my recent posts suggest. Have you given the point at where your right hand front (when viwed from the front) wingwall clashes with my right hand rear wing wall ? I am sure you have thought about it any ideas ? A

I used to steer preserved working boats owned by British Waterways as a volunteer through the tunnel from event to event. Once you enter that tunnel and the light behind you gets smaller and smaller, you stare into the absolute blackness. At that length there is not the tiniest spot of light. Even though the portal is circa 30 foot wide you can see no sign of the light beyond. You are probably over half way before you start to think that somewhere in the blackness you can see a chink of light. Mind you, it could be a bloke on a bike on the tow path Andy

I tried wearing drainpipes in the late seventies but they clashed with my white knee high platform boots A

A bit more viaduct. When I made the timber frame I imagined that I would use plasticard to make the flares and then re clad in stone and brick. What I had missed is that with the pillers flaring on all four sides it was going to be murder making two pieces of plasicard meet in the corners on a variable curve !! I realsised that I had to have a solid shaped base on which to clad. I used two part wood filler which I knew sticks to wood but not plastic so I produced a mould that was the opposite curve out of plasticard, spread the filler pushed on the mould then clamped so that all of the filler oozed out. 20 mins later, snap off the mould and clean up with some fine sand paper.

Question How did they get the tie bars through the viaduct ? Did they close the line and dig the top out down to the arches ?? I have some big SDS masonary bits but nothing that going to get through a viaduct (that's the prototype) A ?

This is the fourth time I have tried to post this.... Viaduct update: So undersides of arhes complete... 20 thou plasticard plus a layer of slaters stretcher bond as per original...

Chris I have printed the picture out and offered it up to our viaduct and to my surprize, ours is bigger... A

Do you have windows yet.... Let me know the size and quantity and I will rummage in my box... A

Hi Laurance Firstly I have sent you a personal mail (top right on the top of this page)- just exploring some memories. The model is initially based on the 1970's so I guess a bit of second hand lock furniture would have been in place. The projects objectives is to make the layout as typically Black Country in 1975' ish as possible. It's a tough call in a small space that is pretty well dominated by the railway. The group believe that the canal and the railways in the black country are unseperable. We picked Ryders Green / Tipton as a basis because we are only dropping 6 foot per lock and there are many examples of shallow locks around the BC with single bottom gates. This we believe is more common in the BC (factory locks, ryders green, the walsall canal) than elsewhere around the UK and so a nice regional feature. We need to scratch build some lock furniture / gates / paddle gear so I guess this is the area we need some help - we have measured up Tipton and Ryders green so if there are some 1970 traps please shout. The plan is to capture a scene that is like looking at the two locks on the Wolverhampton Flight that are adjacent to railway whilst standing on Carvers rather smokey carpark. The towpath is on the carvers side of the canal and the locks are built to Tipton spec with Ryders Green overflow arrangements. The length of the pounds are a bit short but tollerable I think... The third lock, only just on the board under a road over bridge is adjacent to a canal side pub which is to be broardly based on the 8 locks at Ryders Green. I hope to have given you an idea of the layout, what detail are we missing ? We imagine that this is a backwater canal so how overgrown might it have looked ?? I have part built a joey for parcial sinking and I am guessing that is about all of the boat traffic we need. As I said in my personnel mail, Barnet looks great, I saw her at Tipton factory locks in the summer a far cry from my dasys with the Working Boat Project where we were instructed not to volenteer to move Barnet for H&S reasons.. Andy