Chute!

The chute is a great feature. I’m proud of the overall effect of it. However, the pouring of the sand needs slowing down. It’s gravity and mass, you can’t scale it down. 

I’m using Woodland Scenics” fine ballast for my sand and it just falls straight into the skips, and the “sand” can bounce out. I needed something to slow things down. A baffle, a filter. I knew I had some  3.5mm scale wire mesh fence that I thought would be perfect. But I couldn’t find it. (I bet it’s with the track spikes I can’t find). Then as I was doing the grocery shopping with my wife. I saw one of these.

A sink strainer

It was only a couple of dollars. I thought it was worth the experiment. I cut a section of mesh out of the strainer, and placed it in the chute and tried it. It slowed the flow down a great deal, but the material was clogging up the strainer. I guess that’s what the strainer is supposed to do. But not what I wanted it to. So I decided to make the holes larger. I kept poking at the mesh, making the holes larger, until I got a flow I was happy with. 

The filter in place

Tipping into the skip, thinned out and slowed down

A slower tip seems to result in a more rounded pile of sand

A new bucket

At the other end of the chute I added a new bucket. The original one was small and I had to fill it with a teaspoon. One spoon at a time. A pretty slow process. It was simple to make one large enough to take a skip loads worth of  “sand”. Having made one it seemed a sensible idea to make two of them. The second one would be used to fill the first. That way I’d get pretty much the same amount in the skip every time. That sounds like a winning idea to me.

Consistent filling

The skips are filled with a consistent amount, and the rounded pile of material is pleasing to the eye. This has really worked well. What do I work on next?

Taking (my) Stock

Now I’ve got a layout ready to go to an exhibition, I need a box to carry and protect the locomotives and rolling stock that I’ve accumulated. But what to make it from and how to make it? My woodworking skills are certainly not good enough to make anything.

But I run, I ski, I wear boots and shoes. I could make a stock box from a shoe box. They aren’t just for building micro layouts in. 

I have lots of shoe boxes around

All the boxes were different sizes. I just tried a few for size to see how the stock would fit best.

Not quite right.

This looks pretty good.

It only took to the second box for me to find a comfortable arrangement that would be easy to make.

I just cut some dividers to size and glued them in place. Easy peasey.

I’m quite happy with this fit.

A little padding in there might not go amiss, but things are in there pretty snugly, with a handy dandy spare pocket that for now will take coupler tools, couplings and other loose bits and bobs.

The next big step.

We all progress in this hobby. As we spend more time working on our layouts, we develop. We learn skills.  We become better at them, Then we learn new skills. Things that we thought impossible become easy. The bar becomes raised. Sometimes without even noticing it.

Then one day you do notice it. All the little steps amount to one big step. You’re left wondering how did I get here? 

It was only a few years ago that I learned how to make my own panel track seen in this image. That too was a big step preceded by lots of little steps.

In this image there are many of the little steps since then, that lead to this next big step. 

A 16mm scale Peter Binnie skip. This is a new scale to me. I actually don’t make many kits, and those I have started usually end up unfinished. I have half a dozen Slaters O scale wagon kits in such a state. This is a simple kit, little more than 10 parts so it got finished.

It’s battered and rusty. I don’t weather. I don’t trust myself. I don’t want to ruin really nice trains with some hamfisted dirty streaks. I buy R-T-R trains with weathering on them. The rim of the skip is banged up. As I don’t weather, I never thought about this before. This simple trick was suggested to me by another 16mm scale modeller. It’s a simple fix but it makes the wagon look like it’s been in service a while.

Static Grass. I have never used static grass until recently. While you were all covering your layouts with grass fibers from expensive, or even home built applicators. I was still in the last century using scatter materials. I had convinced myself that these fibers of grass were round whereas a blade of grass had width so the two couldn’t look the same. To a certain extent I still subscribe to that point of view. But the way those long fibers grow around the timber baulk buffer stop looks very pleasing.  

The timber baulk is distressed, something else I hadn’t thought about until recently all you have to do is drag a razor saw blade down it. That’s not hard.

Weeds. The weeds are the last step. I have no idea why I thought modelling individual plants was something I could do. After all, I had seen Roy C Link’s nettles in his Crowsnest Tramway book, and thought to myself. Never.

It just seemed at that moment something I wanted/needed to try. I remembered that I had made many tiny trees for my Hitsu and Gonou T scale layouts. It couldn’t be any more difficult than that. I made about half a dozen, Then another dozen, followed by 20 more. Now I have about 40 weeds, a mix of Goldenrod, Ragwort and Cow Parsley to plant. It’s probably not enough. They are individually identifiable plants. A new skill has been learnt. A new step taken. Strangely, I find myself wanting to model nettles now.

I started to plant a few weeds on the layout. Ragwort at the sand pit end because they like sand. I pushed the skip up against the timber baulk. Just to see what it looked like.

That’s how I got here.

Looking at the scene, and the image, made me pause. I was gobsmacked. Without realizing it I had just raised my bar. All those small steps and decisions have pulled together to create a whole. The scene has a sense of place, an atmosphere. To a certain extent I feel like I’m there. To be honest, I want to go over there and tip that rusty old skip bucket over. 

So I did.

 

So here I am. In a new place. A new realization that I can do whatever I put my mind to. I’m still a long way off the abilities of the true artists of the model railway world. But in my own way I think I’m with them. In spirit at least.

Day 14 (or so) Bins

What I really want to be able to do on this layout is to empty the contents of a skip into the back of a truck. A long search, accompanied by helpful advice on the NGRMOnline forum, has sourced some good ideas for suitable builders lorries to receive a load. However, one particular manufacturer is quoting 2 months delivery on an item, While another would appear to be reticent about delivering to the USA. (To be honest, I don’t blame them. The transatlantic mail service is not what it used to be.) So, I’m giving consideration to making a bin to tip into, while I wait for a lorry to arrive from wherever it may be. 

From the outset I’ve been considering the concept of tipping different grades of sands or gravels into different bins. I thought perhaps three at the start, now I think only two different grades would be needed. To that end, I started to mock up the size of bin that would be needed. I’ve no idea how this feature would translate into 16mm scale so mock ups are a must.

Mocking up the bin

As you can see, once you add the Land Rover and a bin, the area starts to fill up. I think I could only get away with the one bin on the layout. A few millimeters here and there in the size of the bin are going to  make all the difference. Proportions of height to width, are important. If you make it too tall and thin it’s going to look flimsy and like the walls could collapse under the weight of sand. Too short and fat and the sand or gravel will spill out of the bin as the amount tipped into the bin increases. 

How much gravel/sand will a bin hold? How much spillage outside the bin will there be?

A mock up and test is needed.

The bin holds a lot of sand/gravel

Successful tipping experiments

What this tells me is that despite the long drop there is no overspill. Perhaps as the bin fills up the chance of material ending up outside the receptacle would increase but right now I’ve emptied 6 skip loads into this bin and there’s no overspill. I’ve also run out of fine buff ballast so I can’t add more. I think that’s a success.

I’ll add a handle to the back of the bin so I can easily slide it rearwards off the layout to be emptied or perhaps even change it out with a lorry when it is full. All in all, a successful days work.

  

Fueling up.

Another project that has seen the light of day in the 16mm scale workshop over the past few months, is this fuel bowser arrangement. It’s a project I’ve wanted to create for a long time. In fact, I think I’ve considered it in most narrow gauge scales I’ve modelled in. This is the first time I’ve put my thoughts into action. 

The first time I saw the set up was in Roy C Link’s Industrial Narrow Gauge Modelling Handbook. Ostensibly a vehicle for his own products, the book contains a lot of useful information about industrial narrow gauge railways and how to recreate them using his products (the range is now produced by KB Scale and carried by Light Railway Stores.co.uk). The arrangement was meticulously drawn out in Roy’s own inimitable style and I knew one day I’d model it. Wether it would be using the kit in 0:14 scale or a creation of my own, was hidden in the future. 

Waiting for final details and the paint shop.

I thought that the internet would be filled with pictures of a prototype. I was wrong. I could only find a couple of images online in the Industrial Railway Society archives. Even asking fellow modellers only produced the same pictures. Anyone who had modelled it was using the same source material as me. I was going to be on my own. 

However, it was a pretty simple job. Binnie tipper chassis are used as the base, and the oil drums are produced by a company called American Diorama. These accessories are made for the automotive modeller, in scales such as 1:43, 1:14 and 1:18 There are nice items for workshops, as well as mechanics, workmen, and even bikini clad car wash girls.

The rest of the work on the project, like the cradles for the oil drums and the hand pump was modelled using styrene tube, rod and angle. The main achievement was the bending of some 2.4mm styrene rod on a convoluted path from the oil drum to the pump. A task completed at the first attempt.

Bending the pipe around the chassis at the first attempt.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with this.

Simple but effective

There we go. It was little more than a day’s work. Though I expect it would have been longer if I hadn’t been able to bend that styrene rod correctly the first time…

Tasks to finish the model include strapping to hold the drums in place, a handle for the pump, and a hose for dispensing the fuel. These tasks wait for things to warm up, so I can get into the garage to spray paint everything.

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.
 
 

Did you know that Hudson skips used to be clean?

It’s difficult to believe I know. Generally, the only pictures we see of them are when they are battered and caked in mud, dirt, and rust. With that rust eating though to become fully fledged holes. It’s difficult to believe that at one time they were brand new and clean.

I often wondered what they must have looked like brand new, or at least just a few weeks or so old, they must have got dirty very quickly.

Then while leafing through Steve Thomason’s excellent website industrial narrow gauge railways in search of  atmosphere for the revamped challenge layout. I discovered some pictures of skips that were only months old. The rust was starting to build up. But they were quite clearly yellow in colour. Upon delivery this must have been quite the bright yellow indeed, probably matching the hi-vis yellow of the loco’s. On top of that, there was a logo on the side. “HUDSON RALETRUX”. The spelling didn’t do much for me either. But it was there, and working on the theory that you don’t see many Hudson Skips in a relatively clean condition on layouts. I thought that when I assembled the next two Binnie skip kits I have, I’d do them in a relatively clean condition. So I would need decals for this logo.

Hudson “RALETRUX” logo

I call myself a graphic designer. I spent 15 years designing and making signs after four years at art college. But I left the art and design industry behind almost 20 years ago. Things have some along a lot since then. Tasks that were done in design programs like CorelDraw that cost hundreds of dollars back then can now be done in Apps that are free or cost only a few dollars.

I design trackplans in an App called Graphic ($8.99). So I though that producing the artwork for my own decals wouldn’t be too much of a problem. Especially as the typeface was very square. Then I as I started started to work on it, I recalled terms like “node edit” vector/raster graphics, which I knew little about back then and had forgotten most of that by now. But I was confident I could solve those problems. 

Let’s get started…

I opened up Graphic and full of the confidence that working in a new scale brings, started work. It’s true that I got a tad frustrated when I couldn’t add nodes to manipulate things the way I wanted, but the simplicity of the typeface made it quite easy to find a workaround, and after a couple of hours had flown by. I had a logo that I was very happy with. It might not be exactly to scale, but it looks pretty good. Now all I have to do is print it off. Printing my own decals. There’s something else I know nothing about. 

Done! Feeling pretty pleased with myself

The lesson learned from this is to try things. You never know what you can do until you try. I need to take that attitude into other aspects of working in 16mm scale. Already this 16mm scale journey is very rewarding.