Stockrington - Mojo ignited. Thanks, Heljan!

[jcredfer]

Great to see you are back again, Scott.  I see the golfers have remained while you "rested".  [There's a pun in there somewhere, about them getting tee'd orf, in your absence, but I won't put you into immediate regression.]

 

Best wishes to you and your's.

 

[lezz01]

Good to have you back Scott. 

I like the fence line foliage it looks very realistic mate.

Regards Lez. 

[David Todd]

😉

[Brian D]

Good to see you back Scott and I'm looking forward to seeing further updates on your fantastic layout.

All the best,

Brian.

[Andrew P]

Welcome back Scott, good to see you posting on here again.👍

[jukebox]

Thanks everyone for the kind words of support.

 

I promise as I find my rhythm again I will make visits to your own pages, and help make this pace the useful two-way street it always has been.

 

I've had a series of shorter sessions working on the treeline this week, and have just taken some updated progress photos.

 

I will come back here after dinner my time and write it up, along with some photos of how it's looking.

 

Cheers,

 

Scott

[92220]

Welcome back Scott.  Glad to hear you’re ok.  
best wishes 

Iain

[jukebox]

Last week I had foliaged most of the wire armatures, so this week, I set about planting trees.

 

Not much rocket science to it, I use Liquid Nails, a viscous construction glue, and prop the trees with whatever is hand until the glue grips enough for the top heavy trees not to topple.

 

They shed a ton of flock as I am planting, leaving the fairway looking like this:

 

 

Reverse camera angle close up:

 

 

That rather harsh close up shows the Liquid Nails clearly - a soil-brown goo...  I'll show you how I handle disguising that shortly.

 

With the first row of trees in place, I was starting to get the effect I'd been wanting; a scenic block that offered 'glimpses' of the railway;

 

 

Looking from across the tracks, the stand of trees - centre of view - starts to make sense visually, too;

 

 

The view from a driver's perspective also is working for me:

 

 

You can see some of the trees have shed flock down the embankment.  I use 3M spray adhesive, and it's tacky as anything, but the contact area of the wore armatures is tiny.  Some of my very early trees on the tunnel hill have she quite a large amount, so I am expecting these, too, will  leave foliage, if you'll pardon the pun, so I won't clean this up; consider it 'the right type of leaves'...

 

Here's those root balls;

 

 

I cover them with PVA applied with a small-bristled long-handled paintbrush, then clump flock around the base, When dry, I vacuum up the excess.

 

Here's the fairway after I tidied up;

 

 

...and looking back down the hill;

 

 

Working on the green again there, too.

 

Those glimpses?  The way I set the trees, I have left some gaps, so as in real life, trainspotting can be done:

 

 

Even between the elms, there's some nicely framed views;

 

 

My thinking is that as Stockrington is an unashamed 'roundy', there's never going to be a huge operational element - but as it's set up to watch trains go by, I wanted to evoke the feeling of seeing them in the landscape.  That will also make layout photography (and videography) more fun.

 

Last thing I did today was add five smaller trees, that I've shubberied with a dark forest green flock.  These will sit nestled in front of the row I've created, to add some depth.  Photos of those in my next update 

 

Then it's finish the green off, and I'll pause the work in this area.  I'd like to bed it in, and see how satisfied I am with it after a few months.  If I think I need a few more trees I will come back to it - but I do think it's getting close.

 

Once I put this element to bed, I have to move to the next area.  I'm thinking that will be to the immediate right; Stockrington Station.

 

Cheers,

 

Scott

 

 

 

 

 

[jukebox]

Hi Folks

 

Sorry for the lack of updates; I just don't quite get the time upstairs I used to - small steps, right now, as they say.

 

I've been working on finishing the golf course.  The green is 4 shades of flock - and whilst I used a mask to set up the first set of diamonds, the rest is all hand painting PVA, flocking, waiting, vacuuming, rinse, repeat:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am back up in the NW of our state in the Pilbara this week, so will have to wait until next weekend to get the next shade down, but it's getting there.

 

Whilst I had the PVA out, I went across to the other side of the layout, and repaired the ballast from the turnout I dug out almost two years ago, looking for the short that wasn't:

 

 

 

 

The hardest part was finding the jar of ballast to match the mix I'd used at that location - I think I got it right. I'll add a wash of grime later on to make it blend in well, but it's actually come up pretty good.

 

Cheers everyone.

 

Scott

 

[jukebox]

So my week in the Pilbara got bookended by a request to provide input for a tender to a team based in Melbourne, and I have been racking up a few too many hours at 41,000ft and not very many hours at home, but I finally can catch my breath.

 

Pilbara trainset:

 

 

Back down in Perth, the green got a 30 min look in each weekend

 

This was back in September - filling in the last of the diamonds on the green:

 

 

I found some of the edges didn't infill, so there was a bit of precsion glue application and reflocking done;

 

 

And eventually, after I'd finished green, and stuck down some heavier flock to form the fringe, I was done.  

 

The lads are about to dig a hole, and insert the pin (once I make one)

 

 

 

Reverse view from the railway corridor

 

 

That'll do.

 

I hope Gordon would have approved.

 

***

 

I'm going to switch gears and have crack at weathering some rolling stock next.  My demo train of shiny 21T hoppers feels a bit incongruous...

 

Cheers

 

Scott

[jukebox]

I noticed this morning as I was checking the forum that today is the 10th Anniversary of me starting this thread.

 

Happy 10th Birthday to Stockrington!

 

There's a fair bit to be melencholy about in the last decade - upheavals in home life, the passing away of family, and passing away of friends here on RMWeb, the evaporation of all those photos recording the progress as the layout took shape...

 

But I'm still here, and the wheels of progress are still turning.

 

Thanks everyone who has visited and continues to do so.

 

Here's to shared interests, long distance friendships, and inspirational efforts.

 

Cheers everyone

 

Scott

[92220]

Thanks for the past 10 years, Scott, and here’s to many more!

 

best wishes,

 

Iain

[jukebox]

Welcome to December!

 

Slight change of plans here Down Under.  About six months ago, I had mentioned to my good friend Paul that I'd stumped up for one of Al's fro NUI models NE snowplough kits, and he recently saw a YouTube video of a large scale US outline slowplough actually ploughing - he pondered how well the kit plough would work...  Needing little excuse for a diversion, I pulled the box of the shelf, and decided to build it.

 

 

Here's the box from NUI:

 

 

Inside you get all this:

 

 

It's 3D printed, and the bulk of the "kit" is the body moulding, plus a roof, the plough blade, and an axle keeper plate.  You also get wheels, spring buffers, couplings and decals.  My kit cam sans the screws to attached the keeper plate, but that's an easy find in the parts box.

 

Here's some views of the main moulding, so you judge the detail in the print - I was impressed with the crispness and fidelity:

 

 

 

 

 

A couple of points:

 

The body around the skirt area is a touch wavy.  It's not noticable now, and wil be even less so under a coat of NE dark blue.

 

The four handrails are well formed, and I am still wavering on whether to replace these with 0.3mm brass wire.  It honestly probably doesn't need it, but I'll see how I go.

 

"Building" the kit is a bit of a misnomer: you glue the buffers and blade on, the paint, and glue the roof.

 

I used Araldite, my preferred adhesive for resin - others may prefer cyno, as the drying time for eposy is a PITA; I am happy to trade that for superior tensile and impact strength.

 

So the kit is now ready for the paintshop.

 

I did a dummy run, to see how it sits on the wheels (the roof is left loose for now, so I can glaze the windows after painting):

 

 

Looks good from this angle, but a little lower and it does seem a tad high

 

 

I can't imagine a plough blade that far above the rail head being much use...

 

Reference photos are mixed - some show a very tight clearance, others do seem to suggest a higher placed blade. The profile on the box shows about half the clearance the model currently has.

 

Lowering the ride would not be hard - just routing out the axle slots with a Dremel

 

With that kit put to bed, bar painting, and not wanting to fire up the airbrush for just this one item, I looked around my kit shelf...

 

Sittiing there were two Chviers Fineslines LNER pigeon vans.  And then I opened my Hattons email to see Heljan have just announced they are producing RTR Newton Chambers car carriers.  There's four of *those* in my stash, too.  Luckily, my kit building mojo as been triggered.  Turns out it's going to be a busy Christmas!

 

 

Edited December 4, 2022 by jukebox
Link to NUI thread added

[69843]

44 minutes ago, jukebox said:

Reference photos are mixed - some show a very tight clearance, others do seem to suggest a higher placed blade. The profile on the box shows about half the clearance the model currently has.

If I'm not mistaken mate, the blade was lowerable with a series of bolts or similar that lowered the lower section closer to the rail head when ploughing, and then could be retracted for running. It seems that the U19 has been modelled in the raised position here by that last photo.

[jukebox]

8 hours ago, 69843 said:

If I'm not mistaken mate, the blade was lowerable with a series of bolts or similar that lowered the lower section closer to the rail head when ploughing, and then could be retracted for running. It seems that the U19 has been modelled in the raised position here by that last photo.

 

 

Makes sense, now that you say that.

 

Curiously, the few reference photos around online suggest the slots should be in the frame underneath, not the blade:

 

 

 

 

 

Which makes sense - you would not want those slots filling with icy slush and freezing up; having them on the body, the blade may offer some coverage/protection.

 

I'm not OCD about it - will leave everything as is.  Including the ride height.

 

Cheers

 

Scott

Edited December 4, 2022 by jukebox
typo

[Markeg]

Excellent work, Scott.  

Mine arrived early last week.  Have test fitted it and ran it in front of an 0-6-0 Tank engine.  Will build it shortly.

 

Mark

[manna]

G'Day Folks

 

Are we about to see Stockrington covered in 'White' stuff.............!!!!!!!!

 

manna

[Sasquatch]

Nice! It's always a welcome sight to see LNER engineers-blue stock on layouts!

Looking forward to it after the airbrush treatment.

 

Regards Shaun 

[jukebox]

Good evening everyone.

 

Just a heads-up that I forgot I had a dedicated thread for my layout Rolling Stock:

 

I will be continuing my summer adventures over there.

 

Cheers

 

Scott