Rain starts play!

That is right in my case - rain did start play for me. Let me explain. 

The last few weeks has been somewhat busy with other non modelling activities. At the beginning of June I had a Cataract operation which was a consequence of the treatment for my my detached retina which happened last April. My admiration and gratitude to the NHS here in the UK is overwhelming. Their care and treatment, especially at a time when covid has made things much more complex for the NHS, was superb and they saved mine as well as countless other peoples sight.

The good weather and light evenings of the last few weeks has also meant that I have spent a great deal of time continuing to landscape the garden and sort out the accumulated junk that I have horded over the past decades. Two trips to the scrap yard this week saw me take 450 kg of scrap metal to weigh in and a bewilderment as to why I had kept such junk for so long! Anyway the landscaping is done (mostly) and I now have an easier to maintain garden and hopefully something that looks better!

Hmmm! You could build a garden railway along that wall! 

Smudge the cat seems to be surveying the possibility!

One of those things that I had to do with landscaping the garden was to level off the lawn to the same level as the edging blocks that I laid. Mostly this involved lowering the lawn. If like me trying to cut a turf to a consistent depth turns out to be impossible with what emerges on the end of the spade being more cheese wedge shaped then flat bread, you will understand the problems of having to relay turfs which all have different depths to them. years ago I would have re-laid the turf and belted hell out of it with the back of the spade to get it to some resemblance of  level and then wonder why it died! As I get older such energetic activities are now beyond sensibility so with a bit of thought I created a turf cutting plank. I had an off cut of laminate flooring to which I nailed three pieces of inch and a half batten. The picture below shows it as well as the general idea of how to get consistent level turfs using an old and expendable saw riding along the top of the battens to cut off the surplus soil. You won't be using the saw for any form of woodworking again but it certainly made relaying the turfs much easier! The laminate floor is about the same width as my small spade which made cutting the turfs to the right width easy as well. Working smarter not harder as I get older! 

The good weather has now however broken and as with all UK summers the rain has arrived! This however has given me the chance to move myself into the dry of The Room of Gloom and make some progress on the Last Great Project which is my 00 gauge model railway and in effect start to play! The four segments of the baseboard are now bolted together with some M12 bolts and large penny washers to spread the load.

If I were organised or had some common sense I would have a hard copy track plan of what I was going to do. However I don't have hard copy but I do have in my mind the basic concept. As with most of my projects I know the basic concept I then work out the details as I go along. It may not be the best way but it works for me! So at the moment I have pieces of track laid out in roughly the layout I want it and it is now a case moving pieces about until the optimal layout appears. 

Apparently its going to be raining for a few days yet so rather than stop my play more progress may actually be made!

Size isn't everything!

 

I normally do things big! 'Make it large' as the fast food chains like to entice you. Its the same with models. put a 1/76th scale kit and a 1/35th or even a 1/25th in front of me and its almost certain I will go for the biggest scale. Why? I don't know. Maybe its the cost thing in that for not a lot more with some kits you get a model four times the size with more parts, more detail and a big presence. 

However, I have been known to build small kits and on looking back through some of my models I remember enjoying making them as they were relatively quick to build and to be frank although my eyes are not as good as they were, there is still a fair amount of detail. The model pictured at the start of this post is the Revell 1/76 Panzer II Ausf. F complete with a basic diorama setting. Back in about 2015 it cost me £5 from Hobby Craft (there was a branch near my office and after a bad morning I would walk there and see if there were any bargains - very stress relieving!) I recall I built, painted and weathered it in about four or five evenings and it was very enjoyable and it looks good - or I think it does! Size isn't always the most important thing!

On other fronts, work on damaging my back continues as the garden revamp continues but hopefully the end is in sight! Wall building at the moment dodging the belated April showers that have arrived in May!

When all this is finished it will hopefully be back to some full on model making!

More wood related matters but of a different kind

Having taken a bit of a break over the Easter period from model making normal service is now resumed! Still things to do on My Last Great Project just to get the baseboards finished but progress on the 009 narrow gauge layout has been made. As highlighted in an earlier post the Woodland Scenic trees were temporarily put in place and having left them a few days and looked on occasions to see if my mind had changed on their positioning I was still happy so the placement was settled. The trees come 'plugged' into a plastic base which compared to the rest of the tree are a poor representation of the base of a tree. However as the baseboard is thin hardboard, using the base was preferable to trying to drill a hole and get the tree to stand up properly. I decided that by thinning the edges of the base and then gluing them to the baseboard and using static grass they would become part of the overall landscaping. The pictures below probably make better sense than my words!

The original base.

The thinned base.

Bases being glued into place with UHU and then PVA on top with static grass applied from a Gaugemaster puffer bottle.

You can see the base on the right has been 'hidden' whilst the other two have had PVA applied awaiting the static grass treatment.

With that job done I turned to a few other details. A few vehicles were needed and these two Oxford Diecasts had been bought some time ago for this project. Time for their emergence from the 'stock' of items that I put away over time and then normally forget that I have them until after I actually wanted them by which time I have bought duplicates! In best Homer Simpson mode - Doah!

I am really impressed by the quality and finish on these models. Even get a registration number on them. They do need a coat of matt varnish to take away that 'Showroom' finish and make them actually look as though they are driven but that will come later.

Also in my 'stock' I found this Corgi RB19 Face Shovel that should be right at home in the quarry. It needs some weathering unless I pretend its just been delivered. In reality probably far too big a piece of plant for this quarry but it makes the area look interesting and I like it!

I am going to have to search through my figures collection in order to populate the layout but some sheep have appeared!

They were kindly given to me by a fellow modeler but I have no idea of either the maker of the sheep models or the breed they are. Given that I have no location or time period for the layout I feel safe in not annoying any experts in the field of animal husbandry! However I will as a precaution clear a file space for correspondence from annoyed sheep experts!

Overall the layout is coming to life. Still more to do but it is fun making my own World which is what all this is about especially as the real World cane sometimes be a strange place!

All about the wood!

Well here at WMD HQ its been all about the wood for the last few days! My last great project still sees me battering pieces of wood together but progress is being made. Three more pieces to put on the last of the two end boards and that is the main sub baseboard constructed to stage one. Stage two involves a lot of sander work and some filler to hide the blemishes (a nice word for my poor workmanship) and then a final coat of paint to seal the wood and hopefully keep the structure sound and free of moisture.

It was a glorious day to be outside too so it despite the war of Woody and the wood going on I did enjoy it! Several people walking by must be wondering 'What is he up to???'. Certainly looks like a strange shelving unit. Looking at the weather forecast for next week and I see predictions of temperatures of 2C - I will be heading inside then.

Dealing with wood of another sort, the narrow gauge layout need some trees. I should be making them myself but on this occasion I have splashed out on some Woodlands Scenic trees about 4 to 5 inches high. I have placed them on the layout temporarily just to get a feel for where they look best. From my enforced gardening activities I am told plants and shrubs always look best with three and to be truthful even my eye can see that. Luckily that is how many trees come in the pack - they must watch Gardener's World at Woodlands Scenic too! As the baseboard to the layout is thinnish hardboard, mounting the trees was always going to be an issue. However they do come with a base into which the trunk plugs into. The base is not exactly fashioned by someone with an eye for nature but I think I can use the base and hide it so that the trees will stand without holes in the baseboard. More of that adventure another time - possibly next week when it is 2C outside! In the meantime lets have a look at the current temporary placement.

On the T80 tank front, all I can say is that the tracks are testing! I will get there but it is not a quick job and when a kit fights you like this you have to be in the right mood to make progress.

Further wood butchery but creative times for the 009 gauge layout!

Although a bit sparse on entries over the last few days progress is being made on My Last Great Project with further battles at the WMD HQ garage/Room of Gloom between me and various bits of wood that just do not want to go together. The good news is that I have the basics of the 'trolley' that the layout will sit on in my Man Cave. The idea is that I can easily move the layout around to access all sides. As I talked about in a previous post I am not getting younger and I really do not want to have to duck down to get into a central operating well and I don't want a lifting flap with the issues that can cause so whilst it has compromises this trolley idea works for me - well at the moment at least! The trolley castors are rated for 55kg each so should be up to the job which is good as I want to put a shelf on the lowest level for storage.

Meanwhile back at the WMD HQ garage/Room of Gloom those geometry lessons all those years ago suddenly came in useful! I did not want a straight end to the baseboard, more of a curve and this is what I came up with.

The picture makes it look a little distorted but in essence there is a 2 foot radius 'curve' on each side. Lots of head scratching, lots of cutting, lots of bits of wood ending up in the firewood pile but eventually it all got there without to much in the way of force to make things join! Still more to do and probably several more days until the four sections of baseboard are complete.

Moving onto the 009 gauge layout there has been some progress made. In brief the dummy point levers and the buffer stops have been installed, the quarry siding has been 'toned' into its surroundings and a scrap pile and wood pile have appeared as well as some additional fauna.

First off the dummy point levers needed to be set into the scenery so a bit of ballast and landscaping had to be removed to reveal the baseboard surface onto which the lever was glued. Luckily the damage caused to the ballast and landscaping was minimal so little in the way of repair was needed. I must be getting good at this!

Having left some of the original plaster mix to set in the tub I mixed it in, I used this to tone down the ballast in the siding to give the effect that the quarry material had spilled onto the track over the years. The hardened mix was broken up and crushed to a powder and as the ballast is sand and is like a sandpaper, some lumps of the mix were simply rubbed along the ballast to produce a powder that adhered to the ballast and surrounding area.

After a little while the original siding turned from this

To this

To add some interest a scrap pile made up from parts from the scrap box and mainly consisting of 1/35 scale tank parts was created, sprayed black and then treated to some rust weathering powders. A srip of balsa wood was cut up into some suitable00 scale plank sized pieces, randomly glued together and then treated to a dilute wash of Vallejo black paint. Both were glued in place and then using a variety of grass tufts and vine type scenic products some further fauna was added to the area to give that 'wild' look. I think it all came out well - but I would! These photos give some detail as to what I did.

This weekend's modelling is going to suffer as we loose an hour going into summer time but hopefully progress will still be made on this layout over the following weeks. 

Just to finish off, it's always nice to 'play trains' so here are a couple of photos of a West Highland Railway Baldwin loco doing the very unlikely haulage of some Lynton and Barnstable Railway coaches. But its my railway so anything is possible!

More Bridges and Roads

 With the road in place and painted it was time to start some detailing. I find I work best by doing a small amount and coming back on several occasions to add to the overall effect. For the road I first misted a very fine earth brown along the edges where the road surface meets the verge usually referred to as the gutter. If you look at any road the gutter will be full of dust, litter, nuts, bolts and many other things that commonly get called detritus and have either washes into the gutter or been dumped. For a country road like the one modelled I have assumed the locals are proud of their area and don't drop litter so the dust and other natural materials is the only things that accumulate in the gutter. On bends you tend to see an additional accumulation of detritus. My rendition of all of this so far and still more to do, looks like this -

With the road in place the bridge structure could also be added. This is the Wills SS28 Occupation Bridge and in an earlier posting I detailed how I had to make new abutments. I have painted the railings white and then have given both the bridge griders and the railings some rust weathering which I ma pleased with.

You'll notice that track ballasting and scenic work has also taken place but more of that another time. In the meantime I will await the first 00 gauge vehicle to cross the bridge and test its strength!  

We're on a Road to Nowhere!

Roads are a strange thing. They take you to places and most of us use them everyday. Lots of songs have been written about them including that classic by Talking Heads - We're on a Road to Nowhere - Youtube video. However in model form they usually go nowhere apart from in our minds and despite using real roads every day our modelling interpretations of them can be far off the mark. The main thing is that tarmac roads are not black apart from a few days after they have been laid. They weather and organically dry out so that the oils in the binder that holds the stones together become less effective. That is in essence how potholes start with the small stones becoming loose in the surface as the binder dries out forming a depression and allowing moisture into the structure. Anyway this is a modelling blog and not a highway maintenance tutorial! 

As we use roads so much it is interesting to still see the number of model railways where the road is modelled black. Have a look at some of the roads around where you live and you will see all sorts of shades of grey tarmac and chippings. On my 009 layout I do have a road which goes to nowhere and is of shades of grey. From one of my earlier posts you'll see in the picture below that the road just went along two thirds of the layout. 

Thinking of my plans to extend in the future I decided to run the road off the end of the board across the track. Some mounting card and some filler saw the road installed and then it was time to paint it all. The original part of the road had been given a random spray of Halfords (other brands are available but it was what was in the WMD HQ stores at the time ) grey primer just to seal the surface and I never saw this as the finished road surface. The grey for the road was mixed by putting some acrylic white paint into an old ice-cream tub (raspberry ripple if you are interested and no doubt there is a website somewhere that tells you what sort of person you are by the type of ice-cream you eat but I'm not going to look....yet!) and then putting blobs of black acrylic into it. Mixing the two colours in different parts of the tub gave slightly different hues of grey as you can see from the picture. 

You will also notice from the picture above a stranger to modelling materials - Talcum Powder! Strange as it may seem talcum powder mixed into paint gives it some texture. Roads are not smooth otherwise it would be like driving on a skating rink so they have some texture to allow tires and shoes to grip. Very difficult to achieve in 4mm scale but the talcum powder gives a good impression of it. In case you are wondering I have purloined this tin from Mrs Woody who informs that talcum powder is now out of fashion these days for various reasons so I have given it a good home and the road smells fragrantly lovely! Or is it my aftershave???!!!

Anyway the painting of the road continues and this road to no where will get finished!

Lets get plastered!

It maybe time for a drink but in this case the plastering I am referring to is part of the landscaping process. I had a rough idea in my head of what I wanted to do and although there are some modelers out there who have the skills and mindset to plan and draw out their layouts in incredible detail before they start to build it I am unfortunately not blessed with such skills. If you want to see someone who has theses skills, I would suggest having a look at James Hilton's Blog and this post as an example.

In the meantime my method is very much one of physically putting things on the baseboard and seeing how they look and making alterations as necessary. With this layout, there is a quarry face with a hill and a bridge taking the road across the railway. Having already built the bridge that at least set up a reference point for the rest and I had already shaped the profile boards on the edge of the baseboard when I built it so that gave further reference points to work to. So in true Blue Peter fashion out came the mount card that I luckily had in stock and I built a contoured set of formers to get the basic shape. Hacking bits off and adding bits eventually gave me the shape I wanted complete with the road in place. I infilled the contours with some styrene packaging that I had and carved this to shape with a bread knief. All very messy but great fun!

With the contours set and the styrene in place it was time to give a surface to it all. For this I used paper towel cut into strips roughly 8 inches long by about 2 inches wide and used a thin mix of wall filler type plaster to coat and soak these as I laid them over the contours. Two or three layers of paper towel were laid to eventually give a firm shell over the card formers and styrene. It takes about a day to dry fully in a warmish house. If you are doing a similar job it can be messy so make sure you cover what you don't want plastered. How do I know........!

Next time it will be time for some scenics.