Ralph's workbench

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ralphrobertson
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Re: Ralph's workbench

Postby ralphrobertson » Tue Jan 05, 2021 11:31 am

One thing I forgot to mention is that once the structure is glued up it is liberally coated in shellac varnish. This is sold as sanding sealer, shellac flakes (Screwfix/Axminster etc) and button polish. This is meths based and this is applied well to the edges of the card which strengthens up the card significantly. Once it has dried hard (usually leave it overnight) it can then be sanded and this is how the corners are squared up before the brick overlays are glued on.

The next stage is to cut the brick overlays from thin card. I am currently using a card I buy from Hobbycraft which seems a little stronger than the normal standard 160gsm office card. I will dig out the reference number and post it.

The bricks are shown by drawing horizontal lines and then vertical lines not by making rectangles and copying them. In Coreldraw, the drawing package I use, there is a function called step and repeat which makes drawing brickwork quite quick and easy. The lines are engraved on the laser cutter and the outlines cut out and as soon as the pieces of card come out of the machine I coat them in shellac to hold everything together and it then turns into quite a strong piece of card. Here are the first pieces of card cut and shellacked and the front has been glued on using PVA.

20201230_134007.jpg


After having applied a generous coating of PVA to the wall I apply the overlay and then reapply PVA over the overlay, this ensures the side sits flat. There are tiny pores left in the card after cutting and the glue penetrates through the card helping the glue that has been applied across the full surface. One of the advantages, or disadvantages depending on how you look at it, is that with a shellac coated side the PVA doesn't stick like s**t to a blanket and if you make a mistake, as I often do, it is very easy to peel the overlay off and apply another. Despite this the overlay adheres sufficiently well to be a permanent fixture.

There are 2 pieces of the back wall because I will use the spare one to make the chimney and the doorway bricks. As each wall overlay is applied it is aligned trying to keep the brickwork joints as precise as I can and the inevitable overlap is carefully sanded off with an emery board or sharp scalpel once the further liberal coating of shellac has dried.

20201230_134016.jpg


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Further pieces have been applied to the roof to build up the layer shown in the photograph. The next stage is to fit the gutters, a job which I now do before working on the roof. My guttering is glued on top of the walls and this gives it some considerable strength to the flimsy guttering. I need to fire up the 3D printer again and print some guttering, the bits I have to hand are too short, these are the ones I made for the shops. Now we are back in full lockdown I am sure I can get on with this quite quickly!

Ralph
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Winander
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Re: Ralph's workbench

Postby Winander » Tue Jan 05, 2021 1:39 pm

Hello Ralph

This is really interesting. Do you shellac both side of the overlays, then pva the carcass, stick on the overlay, then pva the outside of the overlay? My assumption having only used shellac to seal knots in wood is that is would waterproof the card and any water based liquid (i.e. pva) would not be absorbed.

best wishes
Richard Hodgson
Organiser Scalefour Virtual Group. Our meeting invitation is here.

ralphrobertson
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Re: Ralph's workbench

Postby ralphrobertson » Tue Jan 05, 2021 6:32 pm

Hi Richard,

That is exactly how I do it apart from the fact I don't shellac the reverse of the brick overlay, the shellac soaks through well enough to stiffen up the card. The PVA does stick to the shellacked surface quite well regardless of what you think it should be doing. As I said it works very well in allowing you to remove anything that goes wrong - had to do that today.....

Ralph

ralphrobertson
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Re: Ralph's workbench

Postby ralphrobertson » Sun Jan 17, 2021 12:15 pm

I have been sidetracked a bit helping out a fellow club member making a couple of big bridges but now I have done that time to get back to my own work. So, and now to Mk2.

20210116_103401.jpg


My good friend, Dick Petter, pointed out to me that the brick courses were wrong. Of course they were, I had based my model on the photo from Timepix which showed a very detailed photo of what it said was an oil store whereas the much darker photo of the proper weighbridge hut I got from the LYRS showed a proper building at Middleton Junction. Manipulating the photo to make it much lighter showed English Garden Wall bonding which is 3 stretchers and 1 header so, at this stage in its life, i thought it better to make another. It only took 30 minutes or so to cut new parts and the original one would now be used to test bits out before using on the Mk2 version.

Having reclad the walls the roof platform sides were sanded flat and the guttering was mitred and glued on using superglue. The gutters are my own drawing and printed on my Anycubic Photon. I have used Modelu rain water goods in the past but they lack any strong mounting points so I have designed my own. In the past I have added rainwater goods after the roof has been completed but now I use the thickness of the top of the walls so that the gutters are made into a strong part of the structure. Similarly downpipes are held in place by downpipe brackets which have a spigot which glues into the walls - more on that later.

20210116_142632.jpg

20210116_145754.jpg

The support structure for the roof was cut and glued in place. Then the roof was cut by hand from 1.5mm mounting board, the height of the roof was not obvious from the photos so I used the height that was drawn in Martin Neild's article which is a slightly different design but that has to be better than a guess.

From there it is down to slating the roof. I cut slates on the laser from a very thin card/paper and mark the next row position on them. I have tried self-adhesive slate paper but find that far too restrictive in that your only get one chance to get it right. With the way I do it using PVA glue you can slide the row of slates around until you get it right, not saying the other way is wrong it is just that it isn't for me.

20210117_110238.jpg


Both front and back have been slated, the slopes will be trimmed with a sharp new blade once the glue has set hard the next day. Then the remaining sides will be done and in the meantime thoughts will turn to making the ridge tiles and the 'finial' in the middle of the roof.

20210117_112017.jpg


Ralph
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ralphrobertson
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Re: Ralph's workbench

Postby ralphrobertson » Tue Feb 02, 2021 3:15 pm

Time for an update.

20210126_130302.jpg


Roof completely glued on and ridges laid. I drew up and 3D printed a finial to what I think is an approximate shape and also drew some drainpipes and elbow bends. Painted the model with 2 coats of Vallejo grey primer prior to another 2 coats of Humbrol 100 matt red. Slates are Humbrol Metallic 53 which gives the glint of a slate colour when 2 coats are applied. Even after weathering it still glistens.

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Next job is to apply the mortar mix and paint the woodwork. For a BR(LMR) 1955 - 1965 period thoughts are for maroon with cream windows. Does anyone have any colour photos of weighbridge offices in this period? All my b&w photos that show any goods yard buildings seem to indicate this colour combination but a prototype photo would be ideal.

Ralph
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ralphrobertson
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Re: Ralph's workbench

Postby ralphrobertson » Wed Feb 10, 2021 10:23 am

I eventually found out via the LYRS (thank you very much Martin) that the photo of Middleton Junction weighbridge office was taken around 1955 and to me the colour looks the same everywhere indicating it would still be an LMS colour. I therefore decided on brown and proceeded on that basis. Looking at this photo now there are lots of spots I missed the paint but that doesn't really matter as it eventually got covered up. Here is the hut before 'mortaring' and weathering.

20210203_164201.jpg


And here it is after

20210204_145451.jpg


I am probably going to give it more of a spray of the wash colour yet, not really made my mind up yet. I intend to make up the LMS notice board between the front windows, just need to draw one up. Information on all the sizes in the LMS Journal first edition which is very useful.

Ralph
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CornCrake
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Re: Ralph's workbench

Postby CornCrake » Wed Feb 10, 2021 5:55 pm

I can almost hear the rainwater trickling down inside those wonderful drainpipes!

tmcsean
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Re: Ralph's workbench

Postby tmcsean » Thu Feb 11, 2021 9:52 am

[quote="Terry Bendall"]Very nice Ralph. Looking back I see you found some files on the web to produce the lathe models and no doubt you have now found something for the milling machines. In your period there would probably still be some overhead line shaft about in factories but that might be a step too far. :)

Until the end of the 20th century (and perhaps a little beyond) there was a furniture factory in Homerton (near Hackney Downs) with all the machines powered by shafts and belts. The Serota company specialised in hand-made high quality library furniture which will outlast us all. Michael Serota reckoned that this was one of the very last of its kind in the country.

Tony

ralphrobertson
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Re: Ralph's workbench

Postby ralphrobertson » Sun Mar 21, 2021 12:48 pm

It's been a while but I have been involved with work on the Chester Cathedral layout https://chestercathedral.com/event/making-tracks/ which has taken up quite a bit of my time. You can see more about this if you are interested on the Railnuts pages.

I did manage to complete the weighbridge hut and after printing up an LMS notice board on my laser printer I gave it all a spray over with a MIG dark wash and I think this will be it.

20210317_154349.jpg


Time to move on to something else now, first a clear up of the workbench, it is very messy.

Ralph
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Will L
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Re: Ralph's workbench

Postby Will L » Sun Mar 21, 2021 1:36 pm

ralphrobertson wrote:It's been a while but I have been involved with work on the Chester Cathedral layout https://chestercathedral.com/event/making-tracks/ which has taken up quite a bit of my time. You can see more about this if you are interested on the Railnuts pages.


Having pointed this out to my wife I can see there is little chance I won't be paying a visit to Chester Cathedral (our diocesan mother church ) this summer. I was rather amused by the choice of loco chosen on the Cathedral's web site to illustrator a layout of the West Coast Main line.

ralphrobertson
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Re: Ralph's workbench

Postby ralphrobertson » Tue Aug 10, 2021 11:19 am

Not posted for quite some time but I have been busy on several things. The Chester Cathedral layout took up more time that I expected and the results are now on show in the Cathedral. https://chestercathedral.com/event/making-tracks/. The layout is 64ft long by 12ft wide and is impressive, I attended the formal opening ceremony last Thursday.

Apart from starting the mammoth clear out of our late friend Dick Petter's layout room I have been doing some work on Gt Jackson St trackwork. I took temporary possession of Knutsford East Jnc to allow a bit of space in Dick's room so I had to take my layout down to accommodate it. I am pleased to say Knutsford has now been moved to a new home and it is looking like it will possibly reappear on the exhibition circuit if that ever comes back to us all.

With my layout in pieces I was able to remove the trackwork boards and start chairing and ballasting. As this is an industrial style layout ash ballast is the order of the day and time was spent sorting out methods to chair the ply and rivet track and then apply a mix of sieved ash to the track. A long process. Then along came Martin with Templot and the latest version which lets you 3D print chairs.

This certainly got my grey matter going and I thought I might be able to do something with that given that I had an Anycubic Photon 3D printer AND a laser cutter. What is wrong with laser cut shellacked card sleepers? Well I messed around for a few days and came up with something that looks like it might work for me and the tools I have to hand. I haven't tried them in earnest yet, only on a test piece but the results are very encouraging and I will do some tracklaying using this technique once I get the layout back up.

The Templot forum covers this in more detail https://85a.uk/templot/club/index.php?threads/3d-printing-plug-track-from-228.229/page-4#post-2244 but here is a photo of the track before I painted it so you can see the result a bit more clearly.

20210807_134044.jpg
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