The Burford Branch

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martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Sat Aug 06, 2022 2:46 pm

More than two months have passed since I last reported on progress on the layout. This was partly due to the hot weather, and partly to the fact that I diverted for a time onto work on rolling stock for the layout (on which I’ll report at a later date).

I had not forgotten my intention to add ballast and cosmetic rail chairs to the track, and so in the last week I have been getting on with this. I have decided to take this in easy stages, starting with the two goods sidings behind the platform. I filed and fettled enough rail chairs for this (including some slide chairs), stuck them to a piece of card with double-sided tape and sprayed them with grey primer, together with some etched fishplates.

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Before final painting of the rail chairs and sticking them in place it was first necessary to paint the sleepers, using a dilute mix of Humbrol enamels (#28 Camouflage Grey and #72 Khaki Drill). The resulting sleeper colour is very light, but I can always darken it down later if I decide that it’s too light. Attempting subsequently to lighten a colour that is too dark is much more difficult; hence my practice of erring on the side of caution.

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The space between the tracks (the ‘6-foot’) originally consisted of just the surface of the black ‘Plastizote’ track underlay. I was not satisfied that, even when painted, this would make a satisfactory base for the colour and texture of the ‘6-foot’, and so a couple of years ago I stuck down a layer of thin card intended as a support for soft pastels (which is what I actually bought it for). This has a toothed surface akin to a fine-grade sandpaper. I had some off-cuts of this material left over from a pastel painting I had done, and so I cut pieces to size to fit in the ‘6-foot’ and stuck these in place. Glimpses of them can be seen in some of the photos posted here over the past couple of years.

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The original colour was a rather light ‘sand’ colour, and as part of the preparatory work before ballasting the track, I have recently adjusted the colour, after looking at various colour photos of the ‘6-foot’ in various locations to check the colour. Some shots showed various shades of grey, but others displayed a brownish/grey tint which I thought would better match the colour balance of the layout.

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I decided that the textured surface of the card, which is specifically designed for artists’ pastels, could be coloured equally well with dry poster powder. I have some 150 cc tins of Winsor and Newton poster powders that I bought more than 50 years ago (!) Using these, I mixed White and a small quantity of Black to give me a light grey, and then added some Raw Umber to provide the brownish tint I wanted to reproduce. This dry mix was then applied to the pastel board with a stiff brush (intended for stencilling), using a stippling action and then brushing it into the toothed surface of the pastel card. [All the nearby buildings and structure were removed from the layout beforehand. These photos were taken later after they had been put back in place.]

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The colour is still rather light, but adjustment (if required) can be dealt with later with a further application of poster powder. Surplus poster powder was vacuumed off the layout when the initial colouring had been completed.

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I have not applied the pastel card to the '6-foot' between the main line and the loop. I originally intended to carry the ballast across between these two tracks, but I might insert more pastel card here. I saved the surplus mix of poster powder, so matching the colour won't be a problem.
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steve howe
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby steve howe » Sat Aug 06, 2022 4:01 pm

Hi Martin,
Having done it with MJT whitemetal chairs I can sympathise! Whose chairs are you using? I haven't needed to apply plastic ones individually yet, but I will be soon as part of Watermouth's restoration, I guess they need cutting in half individually? :?

Steve

martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Sat Aug 06, 2022 4:50 pm

Yes, they're MJT cast whitemetal chairs. Having filed off the casting pips underneath, they have to be separated into their two halves.

This is the penalty of having used the Brook Smith method of track-making.

In my case, this was a 'historical accident', because plastic chairs were not available when I built my track for this layout, and Brook Smith track was the P4 'standard' back in those days.

martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Mon Aug 29, 2022 1:28 pm

From time to time, I have carried out some casual research into the putative origins of the Burford Branch. This is a railway might-have-been, relying on ‘faction’ (fiction based on fact).

The Windrush Valley would have provided a very easy and obvious route for a railway, and it comes as no surprise that schemes were repeatedly put forward at various dates between 1836 and 1904 to link Oxford with Cheltenham by rail, via Witney, Burford, Northleach and Andoversford.

At least two of these schemes were actually authorised. The GWR itself obtained an Act for a broad gauge line in the 1840s, but they had no intention of building it. It was simply a spoiling tactic to keep the London & Birmingham Railway (and its successor, the LNWR) out of Great Western territory. The GWR had already invested in the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway and wasn’t going to undermine this investment by building a more direct line to Cheltenham, via Oxford.

This didn’t stop several other schemes coming forward in the 1850s and 1860s, and it was one of these, the Gloucester, Cheltenham and Oxford Direct Railway, whose Bill was deposited in the parliamentary session of 1864, that I lighted on as the ‘excuse’ for my model of the Burford Branch. In reality, the Bill for the GC&OD was thrown out in May of that year, but I have assumed that it was passed (in preference to the revised Bill for the East Gloucestershire Railway, via Witney, Lechlade, Fairford and the Coln Valley, which in practice did receive parliamentary approval).

Just as the EGR eventually petered out in a field near Fairford, I was prepared to assume that the GC&ODR managed to build its line only as far as Burford before the money ran out, because of the banking crisis following the failure of Overend & Gurney in May 1866. But I have to confess that if it had been designed as a through route, the station at Burford would have been near the river, to the north of the town, whereas I have placed my terminus much closer to the centre of the town.

This has prompted me to invent an alternative scenario, following the rejection of the Bill for the GC&ODR in 1864, which would have seen a genuinely local line, the Witney & Burford Railway, whose Bill only got through parliament in 1865 by demonstrating that the line could not and would not be extended beyond Burford; hence the more central location of the terminus in Burford.

This also provides an explanation of the GWR having been persuaded to withdraw its opposition to this more modest proposal, and then agreeing to work the completed line as an extension of the Witney Branch. I have assumed that the engineer for the W&BR was E F Murray, who had been responsible for the extension of the Wycombe Railway from High Wycombe to Thame (opened in 1862). This explains the design of the overall roof at Burford (based closely on the structure of the train shed at Thame) and also the design of the goods shed, which was similar to those at Prince Risborough and Thame.

Another aspect of my fictitious scenario is the assumed completion, at a later date, of the East Gloucestershire Railway in its entirety, with an interchange station for the Burford Branch, called Witney Junction, south-east of Witney. This would have become the Oxford to Cheltenham main line.

In this scenario, the Burford Branch takes the place of the Fairford Branch in operational terms, so that locos and stock that were in practice seen of the Fairford Branch could be used instead (in my parallel universe) on the Burford Branch, although without the choice of branch rolling stock being unduly restricted. Nevertheless, wherever possible locos will be used on the branch which were allocated to Oxford and its sub-sheds.

Armchair modelling of this sort can sometimes provide a welcome interlude when I am not in the mood to work on the layout itself.

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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Mon Sep 26, 2022 7:20 am

Work on the layout during the Summer has gone in fits and starts, jumping about from one thing to another, and not much to show for it. I eventually got fed up with work on the track, and once again (for the umpteenth time) put the chairing and ballasting of the track aside.

I decided instead that this Autumn I would get back to work on the remaining buildings at the right-hand end of the layout, starting with the group of three buildings that I have been in the habit of referring to as ‘Station Road’. I started this group as long ago as October 1993(!) This was the state of play on these models in February 1994.

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This next shot, taken a few days ago, shows that not a lot had changed in the intervening 28 years.

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Building the road in front of this group about 20 years ago did at least give a better impression of the intended design.

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Removal of these models from the layout to work on them revealed a view of the brewery store which can’t usually be seen.

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The first building that I have been working on is the pub at the left-hand end of the group, which I have called The Three Tuns, named after a well-known watering hole in Bishops Castle, Shropshire where they serve the finest draught ale I have ever tasted. It comes from the brewery immediately behind the pub, as it does on my version of Burford.

The actual prototype for this model is a pub in Witney Street, Burford originally called ‘The Masons’ Arms’, but more recently ‘The Angel’. I took a photo ‘square on’ to the building in 1980 as the basis for my design.

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Some years ago, I had built the interior of the central passage through the building. (I don’t generally model the interiors of buildings, unless it is possible that they can be seen through an open door.)

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I posted the next photograph a couple of years ago in this thread, showing the view through the front door.

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Unfortunately, when I did this work, I had not appreciated that the pagoda-roofed cycle shed on the station platform would entirely block this view! But it was fun to add this detail, even if it can’t actually be seen now.

The further work on this building started with the addition of the front door (wide open, and so not really visible) and the windows. There was no reason why this work could not have been done many years ago; the window etches had been cut out and were simply awaiting fitting. I used etches of sash windows from Scalelink, or it may have been the Langley Models range, and pre-assembled the double windows, with outer frames from Evergreen strip. These were painted in the buff colour used by the brewery for all of its buildings in and around the brewery.

I always avoid sticking the glazing to the window frames, preferring instead to trap it in place with styrene strip

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Having positioned the windows inside their openings, I added further styrene strips to secure the windows in position.

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Although there is still quite a lot of work to do, the building now looks much less unfinished than it has done for the past 25 years or more.

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This street-level view shows up the current absence of signage and other details (not to mention the roof). I hope to carry on with these items in the next few weeks, rather than leaving it for several more years.

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The truncated form of this so-called ‘Station Road’ (now comprising only three buildings) is explained by the supposed demolition of earlier buildings that previously adjoined this group on the left so as to make way for the new brewery maltings in the 1890s and for the private siding that was extended across the station yard into the brewery premises.

When I photographed The Masons’ Arms at Burford in 1980 there was in fact a gap next to this pub where an adjoining building had been removed.

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So I reproduced this feature on the model. To give the required clearance for the brewery siding a corner of the pub also had to be cut off.

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I hope that I can now maintain progress on this and the other buildings at this end of the layout.
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Alan Woodard
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Alan Woodard » Mon Sep 26, 2022 3:22 pm

Stunning modelling Martin. Always look forward to your posting's.

Cheers.

Alan.

martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Tue Sep 27, 2022 8:51 pm

Thanks for your kind words, Alan. I do enjoy modelling buildings (but not locomotives!). My wife says my hobby is not railway modelling; it’s architectural model-making! I think she may have a point there. (She was complaining the other day that she hasn’t seen anything actually move on my layout for ages.)

Since I posted the latest photos yesterday morning, I have been amusing myself by experimenting with the sign writing that will go on the parapet of this pub. I had already decided that I would use a ‘Wide Latin’ font, and it was just a question of working out the size and spacing of the lettering. I won’t bore everyone with illustrations of all the combinations I tried out, but the photos below show a couple of alternatives.

The first example was printed off on paper on the computer to discover the maximum size of lettering that could be fitted on the parapet. This was 18pt (equivalent to 12 inches high in 4 mm scale), but I felt it was far too big and brash. I printed this lettering in black as I was looking purely at the size of the lettering in this case. The actual lettering will be a faded grey colour, applied directly to the stone of the parapet, rather than onto a painted background.

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The next three shots show the size and spacing I have decided to use (although I have still to determine where on the ‘grayscale’ the waterslide transfers will be printed, i.e. how faint or faded the letters will look on the bare stone). These letters are 14 pt, which equates to 9-inch high lettering.

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The next job will be to print out the lettering on decal paper to make waterslide transfers.
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Noel
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Noel » Wed Sep 28, 2022 1:30 pm

martin goodall wrote:My wife says my hobby is not railway modelling; it’s architectural model-making

Whatever it is, Martin, it's very very good.
martin goodall wrote:She was complaining the other day that she hasn’t seen anything actually move on my layout for ages

No spiders?? :D

You draft signs has made me think about the practicalities of the sign in real life. Large signs are relatively modern, mostly, and older signs especially are sometimes very modest indeed, unless intended to be visible from a distance. Also, the sight lines make this one not particularly easy to see or read from street level. The locals will all know where it is and what it's called anyway. so wouldn't a smaller sign immediately above the door [either painted on the wall or on a wooden panel attached to the wall] be more likely, and much simpler for the signwriter to produce?

Just from curiosity, did you have a particular reason for not using the "Brewery Tap" name, which seems to have been fairly common in such circumstances [apologies if I have missed an earlier answer to this]?
Regards
Noel

martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Wed Sep 28, 2022 7:32 pm

Thanks, Noel.

I had a look at quite a wide range of old photos, and was surprised to find that sign-writing on pubs was more widespread than one might expect. Some of it was very large indeed, and was occasionally plastered all over the front wall of the pub, sometimes even in small rural villages, which is the last place you would expect to find that sort of thing.

The locals would certainly have known all the pubs in their area, but many public houses would have looked much like other houses in the locality in the absence of clearly visible signage, so a visitor to the town would no doubt have appreciated the identification of the local pubs. No doubt the brewery would have wished to draw customers arriving in Burford by train to their pub, before they walked up the street and discovered first The Bell, next-door but one, and then the Great Western Hotel at the top of the street.

'The Brewery Tap' would be an obvious name here, but I was not attracted to it. In the parallel universe in which the Burford Branch exists, the Three Tuns Inn was established before the brewery, which was founded by the licensee of the pub in the 19th century and named The Three Tuns Brewery after the pub.

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johndarch
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby johndarch » Thu Sep 29, 2022 9:12 am

and you have the Seven Tuns much closer at Chedworth. Used to play skittles there many years ago.

martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Thu Oct 20, 2022 11:42 am

There are some weeks when nothing seems to go right. Last week was one of those weeks for me. Having worked out the size and density of the lettering for the signwriting on the wall of ‘The Three Tuns’, I printed the lettering out on decal paper, but then found that the margins had been inadvertently changed, so that the lettering had been enlarged proportionately, and would not fit the space available. Just to compound the problem, when I tried to reprint the decals at the right size on a different printer, it refused to take the decal paper despite having its paper feed set for ‘cardstock’. So reprinting the decals will have to wait until I have access again to the original printer. (Grrr!!)

In the meantime, I decided to get on with a 3-D representation of three barrels suspended from a beam above the door of the pub. The only prototype I was able to find for this was in Uxbridge High Street. I suspect that this is fairly modern, but I plead modeller’s licence (or ‘Rule 1’ if you prefer) as I wanted to liven up the façade of this pub a bit. However, I made a complete Horlicks of my first attempt, and these two shots show that my bodgery was totally unconvincing.

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So it was back to drawing board for a quick re-design to produce a rather ‘tighter’ assembly bearing a closer resemblance to the Uxbridge prototype.

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These barrels are certainly not tuns (which are massive vessels holding 216 gallons of beer, and would be used only for internal storage within the brewery). Both on the Uxbridge sign and on my model much smaller barrels are used, simply as a symbol for their larger counterparts.

Taking these photos gave me a chance to try out one or two new views, looking out of the goods yard past the station, and in the opposite direction towards the goods yard.

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I hope to be able to reprint the waterslide decals next week, and can then apply the intended sign-writing to the parapet and the front wall of the pub.
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Terry Bendall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Terry Bendall » Fri Oct 21, 2022 11:06 am

A very convincing scene Martin and as expected very typical architecture of the Cotswolds. Perhaps also a good illustration that the most experienced people do not always get things right first time. :)

Terry Bendall

martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Fri Oct 21, 2022 4:31 pm

Thanks, Terry.

I frequently make mistakes in my model-making! Usually, I just shrug my shoulders and decide to ignore the mistake. If I don’t think I can get away with that, I try to ‘fudge’ it in an effort to cover it up. It is only rarely, as a last resort, that I will do it again. (I am definitely not a perfectionist.) In this case, I was able to take apart the original assembly, and re-use both the barrels and the supporting beam, devising a better way of suspending the barrels from the beam.

Most of the buildings on my layout (with just a couple of exceptions) are based on actual buildings from various locations in the Cotswolds, although somewhat loosely copied in some cases. I am only aiming to produce “an artist’s impression”, so I didn’t attempt to measure up the buildings, simply guesstimating approximate dimensions from photos (sometimes my own, sometimes published views). I know there are scientific methods, and also available software, for sorting out the correct proportions of a building, but I am lazy and can’t be bothered to use those techniques. I simply mess about with the design on paper until it looks OK, checking that floor-to-ceiling heights and door and window openings are within realistic limits. So what I am aiming for is “artistic realism”, which is not at all the same thing as dimensional accuracy.

As I explained in a two-part article I wrote in MRJ 208 and 210, I have tried to ensure that the scene as a whole forms an attractive composition. Quite a few of the buildings were quickly mocked up in corrugated card first, to check that their bulk and massing made a satisfactory composition. In some cases, it was clear that things didn’t quite fit together as I had hoped, so a different design was tried out. (That part of the project was a lot quicker than it sounds; it is the construction of the actual models that takes the time.)

I do enjoy this kind of model-making. It is not too demanding, and so it suits my rather casual approach to the hobby.

Terry Bendall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Terry Bendall » Sat Oct 22, 2022 7:22 am

martin goodall wrote:I do enjoy this kind of model-making. It is not too demanding, and so it suits my rather casual approach to the hobby.


What it shows Martin is that there is more than one way of railway modelling and all approaches are equally valid. The way you do things works for you and the end result certainly gives the "right" atmosphere of the area. There is a place for exact dimensional accuracy and a place for a less demanding approach (in terms of accuarte dimensions). :)

Terry Bendall

martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Sat Nov 26, 2022 7:32 pm

In the past month, I have been working on various details for the group of three buildings in ‘Station Road’. To start with, I reprinted the waterslide decals that had originally been printed to the wrong size.

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So at last I could apply these transfers to the wall of The Three Tuns.

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Several friends have asked me how I made and applied these home-made decals. The method is to find a suitable font in ‘MS Word’. (There is a wide choice, but I try to avoid ‘modern-looking’ typefaces.) I adjust size and density as required; somewhere on the ‘Grayscale’ is best. Then I do a test print on plain paper, and check that the size and density is suitable. If all is well, I print the design on a decal sheet, using a laser printer (not inkjet). [This is where I went wrong on my first attempt with this particular lettering, as the margins seem to have got changed without my noticing, resulting in oversize transfers at the first attempt.]

It is essential that the printer has a fairly easy route for the paper transport through the machine, and it must be set to print ‘cardstock’. (I possess no fewer than three laser printers, only one of which will actually print decal sheet.) It is advisable to print decals in duplicate (sometimes even in triplicate) to allow for mishaps when applying them, which do happen.

Before using the decal sheet, I paint over the lettering with ‘Microscale Liquid Decal’ (one thin coat, then when dry a thicker coat) and allow it to dry thoroughly. This strengthens the decal sheet, which can then be used as a standard waterslide transfer. It is best to cut up the decals into sections and to lay these separately, rather than attempting to lay the entire transfer in one piece. The surface to which the transfer is applied should be gloss, not matt; so I either paint the wall with gloss paint, or brush or spray over it with gloss varnish, and apply the transfers to this gloss surface.

The transfer is best pulled off the backing sheet lengthwise onto the surface to which it is being applied. When the transfer is in place and is beginning to dry out, I gently brushed over it with Microsol [not Microset, which is for removing transfers]. The Microsol will make the decals sit down very closely on the surface and any surface detail, and the carrier film will entirely disappear.

Finally, when the transfers are thoroughly dry, I lightly spray Dulcote lacquer over the whole area to ‘kill’ the gloss of the paint or varnish and restore a dead matt surface, as well as protecting the transfers.

The building next to The Three Tuns is Bond’s Bell Foundry. Bond’s had been established in Sheep Street, Burford in the 19th century, but moved to the North side of Witney Street in 1922. I have only one old postcard view of this building, which collapsed in 1955, leaving only the gothic doorway (architectural salvage in the 16th century!) and an adjoining window still standing.

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I had made the shell of this model and of the adjoining buildings many years ago (as explained in an earlier post), and so the next job was to make and paint the doors and door frames and some of the interior details, comprising the bell founder Tom Bond himself leaning on the door talking to a friend who has stopped by for a chat. These whitemetal figures were produced by Alan Gibson. I also found some small plastic bells that had been sold as Christmas decorations. These were a shiny brass colour, so they were repainted with a mixture of Humbrol #53 Gunmetal and Precision #M401 Brass.

A photo of the inside of the foundry showed that the equipment included a pillar drill. Wills produce a Workshop Set (SSA M102), comprising a lathe, pillar drill and various other items.

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I tried to reproduce the effect of badly faded and distressed green paint, like these doors which I photographed several years ago

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The other interior detail I decided to model was the furnace front, although this may not really be visible once the roof goes on. The furnace front should really comprise fireclay, but the inside of the stone wall at the back of the foundry was already in place, and so I simply added the firing hole to this, and built up the remainder of the structure in front. (The pillar drill had not been placed in its proper position when this photo was taken.)

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A chimney was also required behind the foundry, for which I used a Dornaplas kit (B11). The basis of the brick colouring was Precision #B14 GWR lining orange, into which areas of Humbrol #61 Flesh and #24 Trainer Yellow were added to give a variegated brick colour. When this was dry, I lightly dry-brushed my favourite weathering colour, Humbrol #72 Khaki Drill, over some of the bricks to suggest soot weathering

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The effect appeared to me to be too bland, so I brushed soot over the surface to emphasise the soot weathering

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Careful study of photographs of The Mason’s Arms / The Angel [the prototype for The Three Tuns] and of Bond’s Bell Foundry indicated that the stonework on these buildings was quite extensively sooted, so I thought that an attempt should be made to reproduce this. I confess that I rather overdid the weathering, which could not then be undone (although I did then attempt to tone this down).

The method was to apply soot with a stiff stencilling brush to the front of The Three Tuns, which I attempted to tone down by subsequently brushing a bright yellow pigment over it to warm up the colour of the wall.

On the Bell Foundry, I started by dry-brushing Humbrol #72 Khaki Drill on those areas that were to be sooted, and when this was dry I applied soot over these areas with the stencilling brush. Having decided that the effect was far too stark, I attempted to tone it down by brushing a light grey mix of poster powder over it to produce a lighter grey effect.

The photos below show the original effect and then the slightly toned down version.

BEFORE :

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AFTER :

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Various other details remain to be added, before moving on to The Bell Inn, and then building the roofs for these three buildings.
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Suffolk Dave
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Suffolk Dave » Sun Nov 27, 2022 8:22 am

Nice work - inspirational, in fact.
Check out my modelling activity here: https://www.instagram.com/4mm_dave/

martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Sun Nov 27, 2022 9:49 am

Thanks, Dave. But I'm still not happy about the appearance of these buildings. The colouring is not unrealistic, but it is (in my view) unattractive.

I don't rule out the possibility of modifying the colours in some way, although I haven't yet decided how and to what extent I might do this.

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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby ralphrobertson » Sun Nov 27, 2022 10:42 am

Hi Martin,

Love the atmosphere the buildings impart. You might have mentioned this elsewhere but can you please share the source of your decal sheets? I used to get them from Crafty but that seems to have stopped. Our late member Adrian Prescott used to source his from USA. His notes are on here: https://www.mmrs.co.uk/technical-articles/painting-lining/ but this is what he said on the subject:

When you were spraying your body colour on the engine it is a good idea to spray some plain transfer sheet with the same colour. You need to spray a fairly thick coat as the transfer itself is only a very thin layer of varnish and has virtually no strength. The transfer paper I use is called APT and I buy it direct from America from a firm called Aircraft Hobby. It is also available from Hannants, but be aware that they also sell some ‘Plain Decal Sheet’ that is made in Poland and is absolute rubbish.


Is there a UK source of decent film?

Thanks,

Ralph

martin goodall
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Sun Nov 27, 2022 11:42 am

I realised after I posted the most recent account of work on the layout that I had omitted to mention the source of the decal sheet. So Ralph’s question gives me the opportunity of repairing that omission.

The decal sheet I used was EXPERTS CHOICE Decal from the Bare Metal Foil Co in the USA (their Item No.126 for Laser printers). I bought it at Scaleforum from Hobby Holidays, who also trade online. On their website ( https://www.hobbyholidays.co.uk/product ... t=176&pg=4 ) they currently list it simply as “Clear Decal Sheet”.

I also have some sheets (again bought some years ago at Scaleforum) of X-TRADECAL clear decal sheet (identified as “XCD”). The supplier was Hannants, who seems to have had addresses at Lowestoft and also London NW9.

So I suggest you try Holiday Hobbies to start with.

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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Sun Nov 27, 2022 11:50 am

Sorry. I seem to have quoted the number for Experts-Choice WHITE decal film (which I also bought). The clear decal film I used was Item No.124

X-TRADECAL also do White decal sheet - reference "XDW".

Sorry for any confusion I may have caused.

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Suffolk Dave
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Suffolk Dave » Sun Nov 27, 2022 4:53 pm

martin goodall wrote:But I'm still not happy about the appearance of these buildings. The colouring is not unrealistic, but it is (in my view) unattractive.

I don't rule out the possibility of modifying the colours in some way, although I haven't yet decided how and to what extent I might do this.


I understand lighting and camera settings can have an appreciable impact on photos and while I'm not familiar with the original buildings they struck me as being build from a warm buff coloured stone. Is that not accurate?
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Sun Nov 27, 2022 5:36 pm

Yes, the buildings represent 'Cotswold' stone (oolitic limestone), which is a light creamy buff shading into a golden yellow in some cases (notably Taynton stone used as ashlar facing).

The problem with the colouring of these models, so far as I was concerned, was that the soot weathering, and resulting blackening of the stone was far too intense. The scene struck me as being gloomy and depressing, which was not the effect I wanted to create.

I have already made a start on remedying this, by vigorously scrubbing the front wall of both The Three Tuns and Bond's Bell Foundry with cotton buds soaked in water. This has taken off the worst of the soot colouring, but has also partly removed the yellow colouring of the wall of the pub. But it's a start, and I may now apply fresh colour to these walls, which will have the additional effect of further reducing the sooting.

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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby John Palmer » Sun Nov 27, 2022 7:48 pm

Martin, your Cotswold buildings are a visual delight, but I find myself wondering whether your conclusion that the soot weathering was far too stark might have been influenced by 21st century perceptions of how these buildings should appear.

Taking the city of Bath as an example, there has been a tremendous amount of cleaning and rehabilitation of its buildings' stonework in the years that have passed since I was a young man and, of course, the extent to which those buildings have suffered the polluting effects of domestic and industrial coal fires has been correspondingly diminished.
Bath terrace.jpg
Courtesy of Streetview, the left hand end of the terrace illustrated here is an example of the heavily soot stained appearance of Bath's buildings that I recall, side by side with a part of the terrace whose stonework has been cleaned and restored. So extensive has been this process of cleaning and restoration from the last quarter of the 20th century onwards that it proved suprisingly difficult to find this example of how, according to my recollections, the majority of Bath's buildings used to appear.

My point is that since these changes have been taking place over a period of years it becomes quite easy to overlook them and to be lured into the belief that the present day appearance of buildings does not differ substantially, so far as weathering is concerned, from how they appeared between 50 and 100 years ago. Stark and unattractive though it may be, the soot staining to be seen on the attached picture is probably representative of most of Bath's stonework when I was young, so I wonder to what extent the appearance of Cotswold buildings may have been been similarly affected.
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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby Tim Dubya » Sun Nov 27, 2022 8:16 pm

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Re: The Burford Branch

Postby martin goodall » Sun Nov 27, 2022 8:28 pm

I entirely agree with John and Tim about the extent of sooting of buildings (especially Bath stone and similar oolitic limestones, which seem to be particularly susceptible to soot weathering). I have taken numerous photos around the Cotswolds, also in Bristol and Bath, showing stone buildings that have still not been scrubbed clean, and display quite heavy sooting, as shown in the photo to which John has drawn attention.

Until the Clean Air Act 1956 took effect, millions of coal fires poured soot into the atmosphere (especially in large cities such as London), not to mention coal-fired power stations and other industries and thousands of steam locomotives. It was not until around 1970 that scrubbing buildings clean with high pressure water jets really got going in London. So we should bear this in mind in our period model-making.

However, having acknowledged this point, 'modeller's licence' comes into play, and I have decided that I would prefer the sooting of buildings on my layout to be under-stated. I acknowledged earlier that my original treatment of the buildings in 'Station Road' was realistic, but I found it unattractive. It was inconsistent with the comparatively light weathering on other buildings on the layout. So I decided to tone down the sooting on the buildings on which I have recently been working. I haven't quite finished toning this down to my satisfaction, but I think it is now somewhat nearer the appearance that I would prefer.
Last edited by martin goodall on Tue Nov 29, 2022 12:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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