Pause, reflect

I've reached that stage.  I'm the vast majority of the way through the layouts construction. It's just detailing work to do. I can add bits and pieces here and there to my hearts content to make the scene looked lived in. Like a place of work should. There's so many little things to be done, or could be done. But what? Time to pause and reflect. Here's some things to think about.

To do: Detail the workshop with tools and other rubbish. Perhaps a delightfully dated, (maybe some will say sexist), pinup poster on a wall. The workshop will need properly bedding in, like all the structures on the layout. In the future, I may also run a short section of panel track into the workshop to model a wagon under repair.

 

To do: Do I need to do more? I could add pipe, or girders, bag of cement, and even more wood to a pile of workplace junk. But would it achieve anything extra to what's already suggested here?

Quite a nice vista. Not a view that the regular layout viewer would see.
To do: Anything? Right now I can't think of anything much. A new viewpoint like this can make you think. How about a rack of steel sections in front of the sheeted over items maybe?

To do: Why is that ladder up against the gutter? Is he going to clear the gutters out? I once had a sunflower growing in one of the gutters of my garage. Weeds in the gutter to add to the scene then. The door does need a handle though.

Just messing around. To do: More tension needed in the weighted down ropes that hold the tarpaulin in place.

This is good. Seriously, I might not ever top this as a vignette where I set out to do something and achieved what I set out to do. Nothing else needed here.

Aerial view. There's a surprising amount of space to fill. If I wanted to, that is.

From this view you can see all three tracks, as set out on Carl Arendt's original Squarefoot estate railway layout.

I have a couple more Binnie skips to build, and as you know I plan to model those as fairly new and free of damage. There's a Motor Rail kit coming from LocoRemote too. Then there's an 'Issing Sid kit to build for fun. All those items will need painting, and it's too cold here in Minnesota to go down to the garage and spray paint things right now. Perhaps I will have to wait until March to do that job. The only truly major task to do is to devise the tipper to fill the wagons. I have a few ideas on that, it just needs fine tuning to fit the location. So perhaps there won't be much activity on here in the coming weeks. We'll see. 

What do you think I could add? Reply here or wherever you were referred from, either Facebook, NGRMOnline, or Voie Libre. I'd be interested in feedback. 

*It should be noted that the figures aren't painted for a reason. My wife wants to paint those. So I'm leaving them well alone.

Skip two my Lou

A dreadful play on words, for which I’m deeply sorry.

Two of my Binnie skips have been at my novice weathering hands over the past couple of days and though not perfect, for some first efforts at serious weathering in any scale I think they pass muster. 

A couple of my Binnie skips are now looking well worn

Even though I have discovered pictures of new, almost pristine Hudson skips. The real things spent the vast majority of their lives in battered conditions. (I’ll bet that there isn’t even a clean one in preservation, he said hoping to be proved wrong). So I needed to model a couple of them after some years of hard work. 

Both wagons started off the same, assembled per the simple instructions as befits such a simple piece of rolling stock. This was followed by a spraying of a red oxide paint. They sat in that condition for many a month, waiting for inspiration to hit me. For some reason inspiration hit me a few days ago.

The first thing I did was give them a washing over with my favourite paint. DecoArt “Asphaltum”.

My favourite paint

It’s an Acrylic paint I found in my wife’s collection for her ceramics projects. She used it, (note the past tense) for dirtying things up. So that’s what I used it for. Oh my Lord. What a weapon this paint is. Just a thin wash over a painted item kills stone dead, any sheen in whatever colour you apply it to. When I first started using it many years ago, I dry brushed it on axle boxes and loco underframes for a little basic road grime. But as time went on I started using it more and more. I have even used it as a base colour for scenery in places. 

So I attacked the skips. The wash was applied pretty unevenly, thicker in some places than others. As I was adding other colours to it,  I erred on the side of caution and kept it simple. I could always add more colour, but removing it might be difficult.

Before the Ashphaltum wash

Afterwards. The sheen has gone.

Rusting is a subjective thing. What you, personally, might think is right, someone else might say that’s wrong. So for these first steps I went with what I myself was happy with. I used a bright Orange acrylic I had in stock. A cheapy from Target, from their ‘Mondo Llama” children’s range. Zesty Orange. I brushed it on where I thought rust and rusty streaks would form. If I didn’t like anything, I just smeared it off with my finger. The Asphaltum wash underneath killed the colour and added another tone to the base.

 As I say, overall the effect pleases me. I need to do a little fettling and fine tuning with some rust streaks. But it looks like a rusty, well used wagon to me and as it will spend time on the layout filled with rock and stone. It’ll be perfectly fine. One piece of advice that was passed on to me through my Facebook page was to ‘beat up” the edges. This was achieved by softening the skip over a flame and then bending and tweaking it with a pair of pliers. After a touch up with paint, the final result really pleased me, 

One of those days when I impress myself with what I can do

One down, one to go. 

From the earliest days of this concept. I really wanted one of the skips to be derelict and form a little vignette on the layout. It seemed pretty obvious to me that the best way to represent this would be by having a big hole in the skip itself. This was achieved with a reamer bit in my Dremel. Of course, the model skip is far thicker than the real thing, but I managed to hide that thickness when it was placed on the layout, as I added weeds growing out and around it. I used a new product to me from Woodland Scenics. Something called “Briar Patch”. It looks to be just smaller pieces of fine leaf foliage. It certainly helps create the right impression.

Left to rot

There we go, another footstep on my 16mm scale journey. A footstep that I am more than happy with. I am reminded of what I wrote in my on my panel track building in issue 127 of Narrow Gauge and Industrial Railway Modelling Review. 

“If I ever find myself doubting my abilities, all I need to do is pull out <my original section of track>, take a good look, and remind myself of what I can do when I put my mind to it.” 

You can do it too. Just put your mind to it.
 
 

When a picture is worth a thousand words

Things are coming together

 (Don’t worry, I won’t write 1,000 words).

 It can take a lot to please me when it comes to my model railway projects. I think that may be why I flit from project to project, scale to scale. I’m trying to find a way to create that indefinable "it" quality that I see in other peoples work that drives me on in this hobby. Like when I first saw pictures of the old Model Railway Journal O scale layout Inkerman Street. That layout had the "it" quality for me. So therefore, I reasoned, if I want to produce a model railway with the "it" quality, I must model in O scale. Or if we choose a more up to date layout. James Hilton's Canal Street Wharf also has that personal "it" quality. Therefore I should model in 006.5 if I want to produce a layout with those qualities. Of course we all know that’s not the case. It’s what YOU put into YOUR layout that gives it that quality.

 For me, this new picture of my layout has that quality, the atmosphere that I’m after. It feels like the corner of a yard on a small industrial or estate railway system somewhere. The elements are there. The workshop with tools and equipment on view. (I may yet lay a temporary section of track into the workshop, so I could display something in there). The wall on the left hand side looks the part. It was the correct decision to go with this rather than the hedge I originally considered. The track in the back corner is getting buried up to rail level. I wanted a short section of buried track. I didn’t want to bury it all as I’m quite proud of what I achieved with Plastruct sheet to make the sleepers. I may yet use this back corner for a working tipper feature, as was the original plan and also on Carl’s layout. The corrugated building will be used for loading the skips. Much like the original Squarefoot. I’m very pleased with the way the angled wooden building draws your eye towards the loading shed. 

 Just peeping into the picture is the Landrover view block. That works surprisingly well, The Amberley loco is a little too tall to be totally hidden by it though. Shorter locos are hidden very well.

 In my minds eye I can now see the weeds, litter, and other detritus on the ground all adding to the atmosphere. Buildings need to be bedded in, bargeboards, gutters and down pipes added. Some weathering needs to be done, but its getting there.

The layout is really coming together now.

A new addition to the roster.

Say “Hello” to Amberley

After all last weeks activity, I decided to take a brief step back from the layout. Things have been going pretty well, but I need to think about a few details and consider what the best way to do them is. So I decided to build one of the LocoRemote kits I had in stock. It’s the Brush battery electric number 16303 from 1917 loco that ran at His Majesties Explosives Factory at Queensferry in North Wales. 

All the Brush b/e locomotives in preservation are rather unique/ugly in appearance (depending on your opinion) and when Chris Rennie at LocoRemote announced his intention to release a 3D printed kit of the models in preservation I couldn’t decide which one to buy. In the end I went to for the Amberley one. It’s called Amberley because that’s where it’s preserved. I like the curved battery compartment covers over the more angular ones of the version from Manod. 

I shan’t give you a blow-by-blow account of how I built it. Just to say that it is to the same high standards as Chris’ other kits. Everything fits perfectly together, and there’s only a few parts that need to be glued. The battery and control unit are under one of the battery compartment lids and weights under the other. Both are hinged to open, you will need to get at the LiPo battery to change it when it needs to be recharged. The on/off switch for the power unit is in the side of the compartment but is very unobtrusive.

The cab is rather cramped, and as a consequence, the figures that will fit in there are limited. Clavey Models in the UK make a couple but as the shipping for a single driver is over twice the cost of a figure, I won’t be in a hurry to get one. Perhaps wait until I need a few and get a bulk shipping rate. Besides, the loco needs painting, and it’s going to be a couple of months before the temperatures here in Minnesota warm up enough to go down to the garage and spray paint things.

Anyway, there you go. A great little model. One that makes me glad to be working in 16mm.

Amberley hogs the spotlight, Huddy lurks in the background

Amberley looks tall but still just fits under the door

Overall, a pleasing addition to the fleet.

Real progress

 The relative success of creating the workshop really spurred me on to make further progress on the layout. 

General overall view. I was planning a tall hedge behind the workshop. But I think a brick wall is easier.

The workshop interior. The up and over door feels right too. A short length of rope hanging down to facilitate the closing of the door will set it off perfectly.

Debris and detritus around the yard will help create the right feel. I might also run a disconnected length of track into the workshop.

Aerial view

The brick base to the building really makes this. The door adds something too, a big improvement on the plain wall previously.

The view is layered, creating more depth. Final positions of scrap  to be decided.

Calling Arthur “two sheds” Jackson

 That’s a Monty Python reference for you young ‘uns.

Progress ground to a halt on this layout for a while as I couldn’t decide how to treat the left hand side of this micro. I knew that I wanted a shed cum workshop on there, but I couldn’t find a shed to inspire me. Yes, I really do have to be inspired by a shed to build it. I don’t quite know how I found it but a video appeared on YouTube of a German gentleman’s Feldbahn collection. I spent hours on the internet watching his videos and perusing his website in the name of research. Feldbahn in Obersulm is the site, and I heartily recommend it. I don’t understand a word of German, but I found the videos very interesting. His backyard railway would make a great micro layout. He has, on his railway, a workshop, and it spoke to me. It’s a home built thing. Using pressed siding for walls and roof, and though I didn’t have the siding type to match it. I had plenty of different corrugated siding.

A couple of stills showing the workshop/loco shed

That was all I needed. I set to and using the video stills as a guideline. I started. I also had plenty of strip wood in stock, so I could model the framing inside, it would be clearly visible. The most difficult part of the project was deciding how large the shed should be to fit some workshop equipment inside. Construction was quick, just cutting wood and sheet styrene to size, and before long I had a shell that I liked. In my mind, it has the correct homebuilt feel to it.

Workshop shell. Not a match. But the original gave me the push I needed.

The speed of the project quite fired me up and before some of the glue was fully dry, I had a quick test fitting of some workshop equipment, just to see how it all looked. I think it looks pretty good.

The workshop seems to sit well in the scene

The door opening might look tall. It’s a scale 8 feet, and as there is little room for swing doors to open. I may model an up and over door instead.

That quick project has certainly got the momentum going on the layout again. You can now look for more reports as things progress in the near future.