Swanage (again)

[Hardwicke]

Did a mock up of the goods shed while I was at it;
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These may be of interest Swanage about 1988.

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[Hardwicke]

Here's my shed built 30 years ago and presently reduced to component form.

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[John Palmer]

Resurrecting this thread because (a) there's plenty of interesting stuff in it (I'd like to discover how the simulated chair impressions in the sleepers were made)

I cheated - I have access to a 75W Epilogue laser machine. (An aging but powerful beastie.)

I drew up the sleepers on Corel, including a shaded block and 3 holes where the chairs would have been. (Quite precisely actually - from Society templates of LSWR track work.)

I then lasered them out of basswood sheets, using the “raster” setting to gently burn in the impressions. Each sleeper is then distressed and suitably bashed with various sharp objects, dental picks, saw blades and wot-not. They are then stained, taking care to stain the chair impressions a little darker.

Many thanks for the explanation, Neil; sorry to say that I somehow missed this when you posted it back in February.

Laser cutters just weren't around nearly forty years ago when we had a similar job to do with a coal yard on our model of Burnham, but we managed to simulate chair impressions in sleepers by making a chair baseplate in brass which was then mounted on a 65 watt Henley Solon iron that probably dated from Father's days as an electrical erk in the Air Force. We let stubs of wire into suitably positioned holes in the chair blank, which made it possible to burn the chair impression and form the screw holes in a single application of the iron to suitable stripwood. Less control than with the laser, but our reject rate was surprisingly low. The time is approaching when I'll have to make the rest of the extensive range of coal pens for Burnham, and as I still don't have a laser I'll probably have to revive the original technique. Ths Solon iron is long gone, so fabrication of a new chairblank and the means of fitting it to another iron seems to be the way to go.