Scalefour Forum

This gizmo is pricey but is fantastic:

https://www.handlaidtrack.com/tl-0004

So ugly it’s beautiful. Love the shunter riding along on the footboard!

On the subject of rivets - a brief side bar: In securing the rivets, does one give the back a sturdy thwack with a hammer (ala Iain Rice), or is the preference a rivet punch? I see a variety of jewellery punches available, but they all seem to be a significant investment..... largely in shipping cos...

I’m safe and sound back home on the Prairies, and thankful for the wide roads and open spaces. I had a wonderful time in the UK, and thank you all for your wonderful hospitality! I imagine if you lot weren’t such courteous drivers, those narrow little roads would be death traps! I did find a book in...

While continuing my visit to the UK with my customary visit to Swanage, I took this photo for you diesel types - just in case you wanted to weather your diesels ever....

I would second that on the small diesel layouts. The track work on Clackmannan goods was astounding. Fantastic attention to detail.

Good day all. This may seem like a dumb question to most of you. I gather tarmac/ asphalt was an early twentieth century invention. As far as I can tell the roads around Swanage were tarred in the twenties. (?) So the obvious question is - what were the road surfaces in the twenties? What were stati...

Thank you Ralph for taking the time to explain your methods to me. The mill is even more impressive “in the flesh” than I imagined! My projects seem tiny by comparison.
You have certainly given me some ideas to try.

What a magnificent model! Well done good sir.

With some tweaking that could become a Drummond 700 pre superheating.....

Gents - is there a bring and buy table again this year?
I have a few brass loco kits that I will never get to....

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...