Day 7

Day seven. Technically that’s one week since the project started. From the outset, I doubted that I could build a 16mm scale layout in the time frame. I’ve come on a long way though. It’s definitely starting to look like a micro layout. How does the old adage go? The last 20% of a layout’s construction takes 80% of the time? I’m getting perilously close to starting on the last 20%.

One thing that has been causing much head scratching has been the shelter for the tipping point. In the photograph I have, the structure looks flimsy. Very flimsy. It looks like it would get blown away in a strong wind. I’ve since had it confirmed to me that these structures were not to the strongest construction. The problem was to be recreating that flimsiness while building a structure that will withstand trips to model railway shows. 

With only one photo to work from and no dimensions. A lot of guesstimation was involved. I had a feeling that to keep things simple, the shelter height was the same as a sheet of corrugated metal (why waste time cutting things?). The standard sheet height was eight feet. The internet also told me that a sheet was about 28” wide. Knowing that there would also be a one and a half corrugations overlap between sheets helped calculate the length. I had some corrugated sheet that looked right and cut it to size. After that, I searched through my stock of styrene girders and found stuff that, once again, looked the right size. There was even more guesswork attached to the roof. But no-one will know. Besides, I probably used the same frame of mind in the construction of my model as the man who built the original.

My take on the tipping shelter. It looks good enough for me.

As for looking flimsy, but being sturdy. I’ve accidentally dropped it a couple of times and it has survived each fall. Job done then.

One job I hadn’t done yet was to bed in the tipping dock. I’m surprised I hadn’t done it as soon as the rails were laid on it. Because that meant I could run a train on there. There’s still lots of work to do on the tipping dock, finishing off the shelter of course, hand rails around the edge and a buffer stop at the end for starters.

But that shouldn’t stop me fitting it in place and trying things out…

You know you wanted to see a run of the train on the layout… 

The Motor Rail uses Chris Rennie’s LocoRemote WiFi system. Right now I’m perfectly happy with it. The big thing is there’s no wires to the track and the rails can be as dirty as you like. The trains will still run.

I suppose that you could say that with trains running and some scenery in place, I have built a layout in seven days…

Day 6

Right now I feel compelled to work on the ground, the contours.

In the smaller scales you can model the ground level in something like a small quarry as flat and get away with it. Maybe a larger bump and rut in a rough road. You could get away with using different grades of  scenic scatter to suggest the unevenness of the ground.

Not so in 16mm scale you can model every bump and rut, every puddle. You could even model every messy footstep in a muddy morass if you so desired. 

I built up lumps and bumps with offcuts of EPS, and cut away the basic shape for my ground contours in the sand loading area and gave it a skim over with lightweight spackle. There’s lots of lumps and bumps and even a pile of sand shaped out. The areas that I cut away might end up being filled with water for puddles.

Shaping the ground on the sand tipper level

The lower level called for something much flatter. So I gave a general, level coverage to the area. Then thickened that up in places and dragged a piece of strip wood through it to simulate tyre tracks, then just because I was feeling silly. I took a figure and childishly walked him through the thick patches to leave footprints. Right now It looks like someone has been out in a snowstorm so I need to add a wash of earth colour to get rid of the snowscape.

Tyre track and footprints in the snow.

After letting the spackle dry for a while the surface was given a base colour to kill the snowscape.

The mud looks good (though has not reproduced well in this image), and you can still see the footprints among the tyre tracks.

The tipper vignette starts to come together

I sit staring at this mock up of the tipper shelter, and the picture in issue 134 of The Review trying to work out how to make one myself

All in all, another good day with lots of solid progress.

Day 5.

 First thing on the cards today was the laying of the rails onto the deck of the tipping dock. Spiking rail, as you know, is not my favourite task. But as confidence was at a high after yesterdays progress, I felt pretty good about pressing home tiny nails into basswood. 

Spiking in progress

When a succession of spikes go in easily, I feel good about it. Sometimes they don’t. Then the job becomes tedious. But this is still a new technique for me. I’ve been spiking little more than a year. I’m sure I can grow to tolerate it. 

But I did feel good when I had the whole deck spiked and a wagon on it..

A skip tipping on the dock. As it should be.

In other news, there’s been a slightly major change of plan. Having waxed lyrical in praise of the prefabricated concrete garage. It’s now gone from the layout, to be replaced by a skip loading chute. 

Last night as I was about to go to sleep, an idea came to me and I needed to sketch it so I didn’t forget.

Had to scribble this before I fell asleep

As I was emptying a skip at one end of the layout, it seemed to make more sense from a story telling point of view to load wagons at the other end. 

I had been having informal discussions with Chris Mears about his scheme, and he told me how he would get more pleasure out of loading and unloading skips than anything. That remark stuck at the back of my mind a while. Laying there dormant, until I needed it. 

There’s nothing wrong with my idea of a workshop scene. I’ve done too much research on prefab concrete garages to let the idea totally drop. But it doesn’t tell a story. Wagons would just appear from offstage and be tipped. Without reason. Small layouts, and particularly Micro layouts need to tell a story to get audience engagement.

If the two scenes here can be successfully separated to represent two ends of a small industrial system. Then a story can be told. Material is loaded into a wagon at one end of the line. Material is tipped out at the other. There’s countless small systems where this happens. 

I’m liking this concept more and more as I think it over. There is the potential at a show, to invite punters to load the wagon somehow, and then see the load tipped out. For a child, you could even tip some sweets or candies into a wagon to be transported to be tipped out in front of them. Audience engagement.

I mocked up a wagon loading chute to get a feel for the idea. 

A mock-up loading chute idea.

The mock up looks pretty good. I went a bit further and mocked up a few more scenes up and took a few more shots. This time I converted them to black and white to remove the distracting scenery and colour of my kitchen. The overall effect has great promise. As with Croft Original Sherry. “One instinctively knows when something is right”

A pile of sand or some change of relief is needed to help separate the two scenes

Aerial view

Perhaps a shelter for the tipping point could be useful.

Still lots to think about. A lot of headway has been made these last couple of days. Things are feeling really good.

Day 4.

The days seem to be rushing by. I don’t see how I could finish this in three more days. I desperately need something to come together to make me feel like I’m getting somewhere.

Today that happened. 

I’ve been cutting and staining strip wood and slicing up styrene girders for the past 2 days. I was desperate to see some progress. Today, with some jigs and a little patience, I achieved something.

Something!

The tipping dock is in a state where it looks like what it’s going to look like. It stands on its own 10 legs. I shan’t fix the deck in place until I’ve laid the rails on there. 

The superstructure is rigid thanks to all the bracing I put in place.

The underside showing all the bracing in place

After that my confidence was at a bit of a high, so I started to think about the garage/workshop. I poured over photographs of prefab garages getting a feel for how they were assembled. You can even find the instructions on the internet. For a while I gave some thought to actually making panels and assembling them like the real thing.

Perhaps not…

I mocked up a shell of the building to get the size right. I was originally going with a scale 16’ long building bit I felt it was too long. So I decided a 12’ structure would fit the bill.

A slightly smaller structure than planned. But all is good.

All in all a good day. A confidence building day. I’m looking forward to getting a lot more done in the next couple of days.
 

Day 3.

 I left the decking overnight hoping that it would be likable in the morning. It wasn’t. I gave it another wash of a lighter grey to kill the blue tinge of the darker wash. Then let that dry. 

It’s not too bad now

It’s better now. I’m looking at it from directly above, an angle no-one will see it from. 

While this dried, I started work on on the legs and support frame. I have expended much brain power on working out the best way to assemble all my sections of Plastruct girder to make something that looks like the prototype. I figured a pattern of some sort was in order to make enough identical supports.

After a few hours I had five pretty identical legs.

This may well look like a wooden fence, (something to bear in mind for the future) but it is actually the timber deck for the tipping dock.

Another day finished. I expect tomorrow I’ll have to lay the rails on the decking before assembling the substructure. What else will I have time for?

Day 2.

It does seem strange typing that after all these years.

With the liquid nails setting, there was nothing I could do to the layout itself. So I decided to cut the sleepers for the deck of the tipping dock to size. I had gone out and bought some basswood strip 5/16” x 7/16” after I’d dropped my wife off at the airport inn the morning. I picked that size because that was what Roy Link used for his sleepers on his 16mm Crowsnest layout. I made myself a simple little jig for scale 6’ long sleepers and started sawing with my razor saw.

A very simple jig using a mitre box and some foamcore

Timber decking for a 17” long deck. My deck will be 24” long. Back to the hobby shop then.

24” of timber decking

Not buying enough basswood strip on Thursday, I had to go back today and get some more. I still didn’t buy enough strip but manage to piece together enough from off cuts. 

This is one of those aspects of the layout build that I think doesn’t translate time-wise from a smaller scale. Having cut all the decking to size. I had to distress and paint/stain them all.

I’m still trying to find a good mix of India ink wash and acrylic staining. Sometimes it goes on really well (bottom picture) and then it starts to fade as it soaks in (upper image). 

We will just have to see what these look like in the morning.

On your marks…

Do you remember way, waaay back in the olden times… (2009 actually), I set out on a seven day model railroad project. It garnered quite a following and the layout was quite popular at shows in Minnesota. I loved the spontaneity of the project, working to that self imposed seven day deadline. I’ve tried several times since then to recapture that spirit, but failed. Perhaps I was trying too hard. I forgot all about the idea.

However, now I find myself in the situation where I could have another go at it.

My wife, her sisters, cousins and an aunt have disappeared on a break to the San Juan Islands, leaving me to my own devices for a week.

Hmmm…

You know that I’ve mocked up the layout…

And built some track…

So it seemed quite natural to build a baseboard for the project.

As the layout is built on EPS sheet. The weight is neglible. So the support framework for it can be pretty simple. 

It just so happened that some good friends were moving house, and when we went over to help them pack, Roger said to me. “I’m getting rid of this shelf unit. Do you want it?” 

I had no room for a shelf unit, but the 4’ x 2’ shelves made of 6mm MDF were very tempting. So I said that yes I could probably use a couple of them. Amazingly I had ended up with some free baseboard material. A quick trip to Menards to get some 2 x 1 pine to brace it, and I was well on my way. 

This is the way things look right now, 5pm on Friday evening. The EPS sheet is being glued to the wood using liquid nails adhesive. Everything is under weights while it sets.

Is this another seven day project? I don’t want to commit myself to that just yet. 16mm scale is a lot different to HO scale. I’m not sure if everything will translate time versus increase in scale. I have some other things going on as well. I’m training for my 25th marathon in October, so there’s training to do every day. 

I’ll endeavor to work on the layout every day for the next 7 days and see where it ends up next Saturday. 

Who’s up for the ride?