naturol

Memorable weekend at the Bristol show. Picked up a DEMU award and the best trackside feature. Very chuffed. Derby show next week.

Today I have mostly been casting plaster of Paris into woodland scenic cliff latex mould. £3.00 gets you a large bag of plaster of Paris from hobbycraft. Allowing the plaster to set in the mould for around an hour then removing the cast has been an on going chore all day. I've made ten casts now and can safely say I've had enough.

and only a stones throw away at the Barry shed attachment=702116:image.jpeg]picture from FB the Barry tourist railway.

I was given a bag of dubious origin chocolate mini Easter eggs on Saturday, and they came in a small nylon sack, finer than those used for oranges, which would make excellent cliff stabilising meshing, which will also obscure the few areas where the ground covering will be off a less visible scenic nature. Little modelling this week, still haven't bought the other three boxes of sugar cubes yet. Paul.

66059 worked the ADJ to Barry today, and was unloaded on a different concrete apron located on the north side of the dock where DUNN bros, scrap used to be located. There was a secondary reach stacker performing here whilst the normal one was moving containers across the water as normal. Three shots taken whilst the train blocked the roadway as it re positioned to allow the final three frets to be unloaded.

Hi Dan. Well the truth is, I was asked to take Vopak terminal.. But it's having a heavy touring spree this year, and I thought locals would be fed up with it. So, I offered the boys at Cardiff 4mm club ( part of the organisers) this instead, which they have provisionally accepted. Need to get it finished, draw up a plan and write a little text for their show website next. This weekend should see the scenery develop and track go down. A places 96 sugar lumps on the layout last night, but even that number wasn't enough, so another two Tate and lyle box,s are on their way. Paul.

Got a deadline. The Cardiff show this October. Hope to see you there.

wooh. A sugar lump scales to approx 900 X 1200 X 1000 well within acceptable compromises. Sprayed up a few dozen in a grey / beige colour and will overspray a silver colour through a net to get the cage effect. Plaster bandage and set track point all make appearances this evening.

I was hoping to lay the track permanently today, but a heavy night on the lash yesterday put paid to that, by the time I'd rolled out of bed it was nearly 1330. I haven't slept like that in about ten years. So to answer the question, yes I have had it running, but took the track up, ready to put it down again imminently, I intend to use plaster bandage to cover the landscape first mind, but I have that to hand, and a RH set track point to have a small siding adjacent to the large screens building. If it goes to plan, hopefully have movement by next weekend. Spent a few hours yesterday in another local quarry taking some backscene landscape pictures which will need to be stitched together digitally, so progress is onward and upward. Paul.

Fantarta to one and all. Problems arise. As I put the roads on,it has become apparent I can't get the buildings on the layout in a believable way. So I can't replicate the wenvoe plant as I had wanted, so hello compromise. Progress to date.

Started to assemble the various kits and rough out in polystyrene and polyurethane insulation the general landscape. I have decided to make the inner diorama area on two levels, around 16' difference in scale height. This will hopefully add further to the undulating theme for the layout set in a quarry. As I've been building the kits, ( which have concrete cast basements and steel cladding above.) ive thought more on the lines of pre cast concrete tunnel portals with gabion cages as the retaining walls either side of the tracks. These will be built from sugar cubes, sprayed with varnish to seal them, then sprayed a stone colour, then clad in a thin silver net as the cage. They scale at just over 1m cubes so not that bad. Also decided to add a backscene, from flexi MDF. ( with a cut out to access the lower track beneath the works should I suffer a derailment.) With a landscape photo of the inside of a quarry. I will take this at wenvoe when next there. The backscene will enclose the front also with my usual letter box style viewing into the scene. Also now thinking of adding a point on the upper section to feed a stabling siding or small workshop come shed.

Found this little number as well, can't wait to start the structure. (Need to build the footprint flat area for the plant first.)

I used an insulfrog short diamond, and the layout was DCC, the only locos that ran over it were Bachmann and Hornby 08s none had stay alive chips. But we're sound fitted. The idea to use the insulfrog was to keep wiring simple as I only had two wires feeding the layout through the centre point, The problem came from the wheels of the shunters arcing across the track elements of the diamond. It was annoying as when the loco crossed the diamond it shorted and the sound was re booted, it could be overcome with speed, but it looked a tad daft with the 08s throttling around at far to an excessive speed. It was cured by painting nail varnish gloss enamel over the offending bits of the diamond to extend the insulation from the wheels. This worked, but at each exhibition when the track was cleaned, the diamond needed to be re-insulated with the nail varnish. The layout was sold on to a modeller who frequented the local model shop, but to my knowledge it hasn't been exhibited since. The size was the problem for storage, it sat on a single board 1200mm dia. Which could be stood on its side and the plant building lifted straight off to allow cleaning, In a nut shell, Liz said NO. When I moved in with her, the train set wasn't. Is the tolerance Mrs SG uses available over the counter?

I put a second round sheet of ply under castle works ( steelworks)And fitted a lazy Suzanne cake stand bearing on it. This allowed the whole layout to rotate. But by hand. As this layout will have a front and back it won't rotate but will be visible for the full 360 deg. Thanks for the kind comments. I am Following progress of your Base boards. Still struggling to fathom how you get to justify all that layout to, someone who must be a very tolerant partner. Paul. Ps updated on my smart phone so may be lots of typing errors but I don't have my glasses....

Thanks Dan.It's being built with exhibiting in mind, so it fits on my old trestles, shares the same blue curtain beneath, fits in and out the loft easily, fits in my own van. So if it's what managers maybe seeking I will be happy to take it, Only the front 2/3 will be visible not the cross over. The front is where the two lines pass each other at roughly the same level, The rear will be where the cross over is, but hidden beneath the asphalt plant. I'm hoping this will be more reliable than my previous 8 layout which suffered a troublesome X diamond crossing and was level. But it was very well received around cardiff at the 4 shows it went to around 5 years ago.

Wanting to run the MPV with containers is still on the cards, but I can't overcome the issue that the MPVs use an electrical connection between the units, not a Kadee, I want to run some frets between the power cars similar to that found by Ben for me in this image. Luckily I've also got the RES 47 to hand, so thinking caps on.

as I'm quite secretive about what I do in my spare time, I'm quite used to smuggling the odd package in through the back door. And keeping £80.00 of walthers kits hush hush and straight into the loft, saw manoeuvring not seen since we took the settee out of my nieces first floor window.

Oh my goodness, what a distraction. Finished off the base board joinery (butchery) using biscuits as the alignment set up and worktop bolts as the fixing system, routed into the baseboard edge using a butt and scribe jig. Next up was to scribe the arcs of the two circles ready for the scenecraft inclines. I use a lot of superglue, and tried it on a sample and low and behold it fixes polystyrene to MDF a also. Affix track with an additional straight section to complete the loop, and add power. Tried to upload the video but it's a tad too big. Suffice to say the Hornby 08 pulls 10 Dapol 12 toners with ease up the 3% incline.

With the off cuts of MDF I've made a frame, got any Jenny Agutter images going spare?

These are off to brian Tucker ( care of the parish. See abercynon .) for a spot of weathering,nand hopefully distressing with a warm soldering iron. Great bargains off Ebay.

The track has been sourced from L & B. As to is the 3% woodland scenic incline, will conduct a few trials to see what will go up it befor I but either another 3% or 4% set for the remainder of the incline. Walthers kits have arrived also, so more progress tomorow once glue has cured.

Having a B&Q trade card is great. Bought an 8'x4' 18mm sheet of MDF earlier, a bag of kitchen worktop bolts and a 4'x2' 2" sheet of celotex, all for £25.00 So I whipped out the router and cut the boards myself today, ( Wattsy is busy in work and struggled to get time to machine the boards up.) I routed four semi circles from the MDF sheet adding a strip of wood to the edges to allow me to fix my home made tramel, at the edge with a screw at the centre of the circle. Two of these boards were then reduced down further by removing the centre section of the semi circle to create a frame. These were then screwed and glued to the full boards.

The last image for a while shows the various discharge bins. ( from which baz's screen will feature.)