Scalefour Forum

Thanks for the kind words Flymo and Julian. The figures are indeed brush painted. My wife and I have been doing them over the last few weeks as my work schedule hasn’t allowed me the time to work on the big project (i.e. the layout itself.) she has a great eye for colour and is a very neat painter. ...

Some idle doodling done last week:



I still need to do the faces - but I prefer oil washes for that...

Tackling the last of the rough jobs - fascia boards. Now that I have the basic contour of the landscape, I could shape the ply accordingly. Bending around corners requires some soaking and plenty of clamps..... 2E3CB8CC-7418-4374-A4C8-BB703C0F6F34.jpeg 3B617692-F98B-4549-9485-16F4AFA0CA3A.jpeg BF4C1...

Some details- ashpit with stone walls, service pit in brick (can’t really be seen -in the shed, but I was playing with Corel. I suppose I should have tried to do Flemish bond, but I was having fun drawing little bricks..... 00C9B80F-0C0D-42C9-89C1-341EBC095AD5.jpeg EB59A57D-29F5-40B6-9987-BA8F3A27C8...

Greetings all. I fear my understanding of steam operation might be lacking a tad. I am scratching the old head regarding the MPD at Swanage. Alongside the coal dock and water tower is a loco pit between the rails. Whenever I am there it seems relatively clean, but I gather ash and coals were dumped ...

Great start - for me overcoming the inertia of baseboard construction and all the head scratching that goes into conceiving the layout is the biggest hurdle.

Looks like the heavy lifting is done and you can start construction of a railway!

Hi Dave The goods shed is a basic shape mock up drawn quickly on Corel. I have some dimensional corrections to make, and I missed a few windows not on the plans I had. (Period photos don't lie.) I'm still not sure how I intend to do the stonework. The Chooch stone used on the turntable is a funky fl...

Moving to the turntable pit - some Chooch Industries flexible wall placed- coping glued in place: 94EF5323-1343-4FE4-873D-65D250697EEC.jpeg 5871D052-0075-4284-9A07-4E88E1B5AA7B.jpeg Feline Inspector of Works, Kato, seems to approve: 0734FD7B-3188-4C32-854E-13025329086D.jpeg E96F519F-BF1E-4489-BD70-4...

Patrick, I must applaud you for going to such great lengths to get it right! I don’t even like diesels particularly, (not even the era of my modelling interests), but if you do one P4, I would probably buy one just for the halibut. It is quite the beast and watching you go through this process has g...

Can someone also recommend a small inn or hotel where one could stay? Leatherhead had a super traditional English Inn down the road (Running Horses I think).

Is there something near the new venue? My wife and I are hoping to make the trip over in September.

Revisited the turntable coping and approach Epilog laser makes quick work of things.... BA69EA8E-9FF4-4461-9996-E463EA3D42C4.jpeg EF87784A-C3C9-4BA4-9F07-7D2AA876BBD2.jpeg D59E4351-AE04-4861-B91F-BE731531CBCA.jpeg Did a mock up of the goods shed while I was at it; 8C7F3186-3DC4-4D28-939C-38773EC0EE3...

This is magnificent. I must have received some inspiration from this before, as I seem to be using the same baseboard methodology! That when I thought I was being original......

The trackbed. I’ve experimented with a variety of track beds with P4 track products on my “feasibility” project some years ago. I found Woodland Scenics foam to have quite a bit of “give”. This seemed fine on thick plastic sleepers, but flimsy for the thin ply product from Timber Tracks. I resorted...

Here is the link the Mark’s description:

viewtopic.php?f=95&t=2503&p=26912&hilit=Turntable#p22020

It’s the C&S 60ft from Midland Railway Centre: http://www.midrailcentre.com/4mm-scale-00-em-p4#anchor As far as I know it is the correct turntable, but I did use some modellers licence and made it a 60ft instead of the prototypically correct 50ft. The original Swanage turntable was somewhat limi...

Some further tweaking around the MPD. I think some improvements can be made. I’ll recut the profile when I get a chance.... 70B9BBC5-CA9C-416E-AC08-E685E2E3BD7F.jpeg DFF39F08-D173-4DFB-9AF0-F3A395FDEB57.jpeg The roadbed has been glued done now - curves look right when I lay the template over it. 951...

I thought I would shift over to a formal layout thread, as the “scenic modules” have now progressed beyond “baseboards and carpentry.” What started out as a potential module of the Swanage MPD to showcase my locos has suffered from a massive dose of concept creep, and now is an attempt to model Swan...

Also modified the geography to look more like the real thing...

Did a little gap filling today. Expandable foam from a can. Caution - do not be tempted to smear smooth - it becomes hard to remove excess. A light spray of water and let it set up, then trim back with a sharp no 21 blade. Sand smooth. ED6A6109-A02C-4062-AF0F-562518E46802.jpeg 4435A613-C154-4D50-867...

Hi Tim - the foam bridge is a temporary structure while I manhandle the foam. I wanted the contours to be consistent each side of the bridge. I need to tweak this a bit after studying some photographs..

How pink was my valley

The spot below the books is all I really have. We downsized for a typical humangous Noth American home in suburbia into a trendy hipster loft. Although I love the place, space is somewhat limited when it comes to layouts!

Trying to get an idea of scale

Hi David - all of the above I’m afraid!

And finally a use for Edward Gibbon: