Waton

[mudmagnet]

Hi Dave,

After all of your problems with the river, I think that this looks ok - I suspect that this will look even better when you get some greenery around the river banks. Keep up the good work. Following your thread with great interest and a credit to your modelling skills. I wouldn't consider 'N' gauge myself, but you have create something special here - well done.

[eldavo]

Must be something to do with all the rain we've been having. Leave a baseboard a couple of days and when you come back to it the grass has grown!



Cheers
Dave

Edited September 4, 2017 by eldavo

[Wherry Lines]

The cloudiness in the 'water' is much less noticeable now that you've added the grass Dave.

 

I assume you used static grass?

[eldavo]

... I assume you used static grass?

 

Yup a fairly random mixture of 4 or 5 different types.

 

Cheers

Dave

[eldavo]

From the amount of white PVA in evidence it is clearly good growing weather...



Cheers
Dave

Edited September 4, 2017 by eldavo

[mudmagnet]

Looking great Dave, the river and scenery have 'pulled-together' well.

[branchie]

Hardly notice the cloudy water now Dave.

 

In fact, it adds a certain element to the whole scene - you should claim that it was deliberate!

[eldavo]

Been on me hols for a week so no progress modelling wise until yesterday. More foliage added around the river with a couple of trees planted and a splattering of different scatters. Still lots of white PVA in evidence at the moment.

One of the biggest challenges I've been working on is that some plonker built the baseboards with the riverbed running pretty much straight from back to front of the boards. So how do you hide the entry point of the river? It occurred to me that I could make it look like the river emerges from a curve from right to left of the viewer. A whole bunch of lichen has been sacrificed in the process but I think I've managed it now and with the addition of the larger trees it's difficult to see where the river emerges when looking from a normal viewpoint.



If you resort to a bit of image manipulation to hide the hole in the sky you can get some quite pleasing shots.



Need to knock up a couple of larger trees to disguise the holes in the sky. A job for tomorrow I think as I have a day of uninterrupted modelling time demonstrating stuff at an open day at Bursledon Brickworks.

Cheers
Dave

Edited September 4, 2017 by eldavo

[PhilH]

Very nice Dave - if you do successfully disguise the hole in the sky please do tell the global warming brigade.

 

Shame I won't be able to come and heckle you tomorrow, the brickworks is just up the road from me (never been though)

[jackrob]

Looking nice. How about some large rocks, pebbles or mud/sand by the river-bed though or by the bridge supports.

[Guest 009matt]

Very nice Dave - if you do successfully disguise the hole in the sky please do tell the global warming brigade.

 

 

 

Pedants are revolting, but that would be the ozone layer with holes in it you are thinking about. Global warming is the thickening of the CO2 blanket that surrounds the earth. The two are different things

[Worsdell forever]

Looking nice. How about some large rocks, pebbles or mud/sand by the river-bed though or by the bridge supports.

 

 

Yes, definitely needs something in there, stones and general detritus, a shopping trolley perhaps?

[PhilH]

Pedants are revolting, but that would be the ozone layer with holes in it you are thinking about. Global warming is the thickening of the CO2 blanket that surrounds the earth. The two are different things

 

Global warming brigade - a generic term for all doomsayers.

[eldavo]

Not a great deal of progress in the last few days as I have spent some of my modelling time on prepping Cramdin for an exhibition in 10 days(!) time. I created a pair of handrails for one of the river bridges, only took about 4 hours! The other thing I have done is to try and disguise/hide the holes in the sky at the Western end of the layout near the river. Decided not to use a bridge or tunnel but to try and use trees. It's impossible to completely hide the holes but I think this might be a workable solution at least for normal viewing angles. There's always Photoshop for the tricky angles.



Cheers
Dave

Edited September 4, 2017 by eldavo

[PhilH]

Just a thought Dave, I'm not sure about this - does the real railway allow trees to overhang the line? I can't honestly remember ever seeing any photos of this.

 

But there again, I can't remember getting up this morning....

[Pete Harvey]

Dave

 

The layout is looking very good.

 

What are you going to do about signalling?

 

Pete

[eldavo]

Just a thought Dave, I'm not sure about this - does the real railway allow trees to overhang the line? I can't honestly remember ever seeing any photos of this....

 

No Idea. Then again that's never stopped me before. There are certainly spots around Water Orton where they very nearly overhang.

 

What are you going to do about signalling?

 

I'm going to have some. I'm aiming to fit 4 aspect colour lights based on what is at Water Orton but with slightly less feathers due to the simplified track plan. I've built one gantry (not without issues but that's another story) from bits of brass using the head from an N Brass Locomotives 4-aspect kit. It doesn't look too bad but is a bit overscale due to the type of LEDs it uses. Might be good enough. Not figured out how I am going to illuminate feathers yet.

 

I need 3 simple 4 aspect heads and 2 more 4 aspect heads with a single feather. All but one of these will be mounted on gantries of some form. I don't envisage getting these all built by the deadline and the chances of them all working correctly is nil as I need to build a fairly sophisticated control system.

 

Cheers

Dave

[eldavo]

After a somewhat busy weekend at the Kernow show with Cramdin Yard this morning it was time to unload the car and sort out the garage. Cramdin has been put into cold storage for a few months so I can more easily work on Waton. It's now rigged on trestles at what will be display height (I think) and highlights just how much needs doing.

Very much in evidence are the blank patches and the fact that there are no buildings. Oh and then there is the issue that my prototype control panel only delivers volts to half the layout so far! There is no way this will be complete by the deadline but I'll see what can be done.



Cheers
Dave (Currently in search of energy)

Edited September 4, 2017 by eldavo

[Penlan]

..... Of course if my dear employer forces me into early retirement in the next couple of months I will have lots of time!

I think you may have a miss-conception of retirement activity, my experience shows there is LESS time.... Good to meet you and PhilH over the weekend.

[eldavo]

I think you may have a miss-conception of retirement activity, my experience shows there is LESS time.... Good to meet you and PhilH over the weekend.

 

Heck I better get a move on then otherwise it'll never be finished!

 

It was a very enjoyable weekend and good to see you again. Actually that was PhilC as PhilH was skiving with his ankle in plaster. I brought him along as my interpereter so I would be able to speak with the Australian contingent.

 

Cheers

Dave

[bcnPete]

Looking good Dave - What height are you displaying at? I also like the tall backscene and the subtle colouring of it - what colours have you used?

[eldavo]

Looking good Dave - What height are you displaying at? I also like the tall backscene and the subtle colouring of it - what colours have you used?

 

The rail height will be around 42" (110cm) from the floor. This is about as high as it can be and still allow vertically challenged operators like me to see over the backscene from the rear. Conveniently it is also low enough for smaller folks and wheelchair users to see the majority of the action but high enough that the average adult won't miss out on seeing detail.

 

The backscene is very simple being a base of white emulsion with pale blue emulsion (listed as China Blue). It's blue at the top running to pretty much white at baseboard level applied with an airbrush. Really needs a mini spray gun to apply this much paint as it takes ages to do with an airbrush.

 

Cheers

Dave

[bcnPete]

This is about as high as it can be

 

...it's also high enough to hide behind in the event of a derailment etc

 

Thanks for the info re the backscene.

[eldavo]

Time to crack on and fill in some of those gaps with buildings. In the real Water Orton there is a parade of shops by the junction with Minworth Lane and Birmingham Road. I took a couple of shots of these on my reccy visit...





Hardly the worlds most startling architecture but it is what it is. I can't fit a fullsize model of this into the available site so some compression is required. In fact by the time I make things fit the best I can say is that I will have a building which is loosely based on this.

First up build a basic box out of card and plasticard. This is the rear view which will mostly (I hope) be hidden by trees and bushes etc.



This is then given a covering of Scalescenes brick papers (well at least the front has been so far!). Not quite as simple as it could be as there are two colours of brick so a section of cream coloured brick was cut to the size of the front of the building, overlaid on a sheet of brown brick paper then the sections of brown brick were cut through both layers at the same time. This rendered some brown brick panels that fit exactly the holes in the cream brick section. These bits were then glued with PVA to the carcass.

When gluing the paper on I spread a thin layer of quick drying PVA on the carcass then let this go tacky before applying the brick papers. If there is too much PVA or it is too wet it will soak into the paper and smudge/blur the printing which, being just computer inkjet ink, is not waterproof.

With the basic brick texture in place I added a bit of card for the overhanging bit above the shop fronts then went to work on the computer with Paintshop Pro and The Gimp. From my location photos I cropped out individual windows, adjusted the perspective and printed them to the right size for the model. These windows were then glued one by one to the brick paper with Pritt stick. There's also a panel of pebbledash finish that was added along with the 4 windows in it. Additionally a thin strip of card was cut and window sills were trimmed from it and glued below each window. Tedious job but necessary (I think!).

The whole lot was then given a blast of Testors Dullcote to seal it. So what does that result in?



This is how it looks on the layout. The site needs adjusting to fit it better but I think I'm getting there.



Cheers
Dave

Edited September 5, 2017 by eldavo

[PhilH]

That's very nice Dave. Try Pritt stick (or in this tightwad's case Tesco own brand gluestick) to attach the brick papers to the card / plasticard. I used that on the few structures I've done and, as you know, they've survived. Also used Tesco 35p value hairspray to seal the papers, again all ok so far.

 

Is this the project your employers wouldn't give you funding for...?