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Swanage (again)

Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2018 2:02 pm
by nberrington
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 Swanage.

I know it’s been done to death, but many of my vacations in the UK have been spent in Dorset - so why not? Other that being ambitious and potentially boring due to the lack of scenic landscape, there is not a lot of potential in a space 20’ x2’.

The Christmas holidays brought some spare time, so good progress was made.

The turntable was temporarily installed to help establish roadbed height, and cork underlay glued down. The roadbed is glued with “No More Nails” - a water soluble very tacky glue available in North America. It remains somewhat flexible, but takes a day or two to really set up.

This time weight provided by books in the library - whatever looks heavy and on hand.

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Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2018 5:15 pm
by nberrington
Some further tweaking around the MPD. I think some improvements can be made. I’ll recut the profile when I get a chance....

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The roadbed has been glued done now - curves look right when I lay the template over it.
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Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2018 3:19 pm
by steve howe
Nice work :thumb
What make of turntable is that Neil?

Steve

Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2018 4:33 pm
by nberrington
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 limited in this respect, and I did want to run locos on the layout and turn them. I compromised for operational reasons.

Mark Stapleton did a nice piece on construction on this forum. It has some tricky problems you need to work around.

Here are some pictures from earlier this year :

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Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2018 4:40 pm
by nberrington
Here is the link the Mark’s description:

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

Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2019 8:50 am
by Le Corbusier
Can I ask what the road bed is? .... you say cork but it looks to have some sort of additive - or perhaps the type is unfamiliar? It has a lot of black in it similar to a cork/rubber combo gaskets I sometimes get for my 70s VW Camper rocker heads.

Have you used 'no more nails' for the foam as well?

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Tim

Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2019 3:17 pm
by nberrington
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 to cork as I have had enormous difficulty sourcing C&L or Exactoscale track from this side of the pond.

In the cork line, I initially tried gasket cork. This is high quality, dense stuff. I bought a 2mm thickness, which in hindsight isn’t quite right.
I’ve now settled on Midwest Products cork. The advantages are that the stuff is 45mm wide. Perfect. You can use them “solid”, or split in two which will give you two bevelled pieces. The disadvantage is that the bevels don’t separate cleanly and one needs to sand the edge a bit. One needs to do this anyway, as the angle of repose is 45 degrees.
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I made a small sanding jig to allow me to thin it down to 3mm for the turntable-MPD area. It tolerates sanding quite well.

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The “No More Nails” is great for gluing this down. It has a slight flex, but importantly is immediately tacky and will hold things in place while you tweak the alignment. Great to work with! I made an error or two and could remove it with a sharp chisel even after it had cured.

Gluing Foam

My previous experiments included PVA glue, Gorilla glue, expanding foam sealer and high quality wood glue. The PVA is inconsistent in quality, and I would encourage you to buy the good stuff. I had a batch that didn’t really set up for several weeks. The expanding foam sealer makes a bond that can be compromised if you don’t weight it down well – because it expands like crazy.

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The Aussie product - Gorilla glue is excellent. You also need to compress it evenly and dampen the surface before. It makes fierce bond that is a bit tough on foam cutters. Unfortunately, much like Aussie cricketers though, Gorilla glue can be extremely irritating. My delicate hands don’t like blistering redness….. So wear gloves. I chose not to use it beyond the first few baseboards I assembled. Even with gloves I found it foul stuff.

So I finally settled on high quality LePage wood glue. The stuff is activated by pressure, and won’t set without it. It is fantastic for gluing wood under a clamp. It was used throughout the layout and it made a great bond. It will sort of cut with a wire foam cutter, but I did break a couple of wires doing it.

Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2019 12:25 am
by David Knight
I've been using the same roadbed as Neil and it is very much like gasket material. As a plus, if you have any gaps to fill, the strips can be filed with a rasp and the dust left behind mixed with PVA blends in very nicely. I used water based contact cement from the local hardware to fix my strips down. Instant grab, low odour the only inconvenience is waiting for the stuff to go off before placing. If you are unsure of positioning some waxed paper between baseboard and track base lets you get things lined up.

Cheers,

David

Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2019 7:04 pm
by nberrington
Revisited the turntable coping and approach
Epilog laser makes quick work of things....
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Did a mock up of the goods shed while I was at it;
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Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2019 1:27 am
by nberrington
Moving to the turntable pit - some Chooch Industries flexible wall placed- coping glued in place:

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Feline Inspector of Works, Kato, seems to approve:

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Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2019 3:16 pm
by David Knight
Great progress Neil :thumb :thumb . The goods shed looks particularly interesting, will you be cladding the outside with the same material you used on the turntable wall?

Kato puts me in mind of our late Maggie who used to supervise my efforts for many years :cry:

Cheers,

David

Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2019 2:03 am
by nberrington
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 flexible vinyl, and is barely OK - it's "wiggly" - not easy to cut and glue - wouldn't like it for a building (I think).

Historically I have used Wills plastic card, but I think the stones are too large for dressed Purbeck stone seen around Swanage - and it isn't the easiest stuff to use.. I might have to scribe them (not a job I would relish considering the size of the shed). I'm currently trying to learn the finer points of Corel, so that possibly laser cutting the cladding is an option.

I ran some experiments today on the laser. Romark didn't engrave well and curled up - obviously a learning curve..... Styrene is dodgy and gets the melts if the setting are wrong, but I did get some nice hairlines going with repeat cuts on low power fast speed and frequency.

More to follow when I figure it out. Unfortunately vinyl is a no-no - due to toxic gas and wrecking of machines. Considering I access the laser at a "maker space" with a a co-operative of users, I won't even try.

Long explanation for the short answer - "not there yet".

Sadly I have to get back to the real world this week, and the gigantic project of re-inventing neuro for the Province. Some smart aleck has decided to "un-regionalize" our Health System.

Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 11:33 am
by nberrington
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.....

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Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2019 12:20 am
by nberrington
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.....

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Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2019 10:49 pm
by nberrington
Some idle doodling done last week:

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

Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Sat Apr 06, 2019 10:30 am
by Paul Willis
nberrington wrote:Some idle doodling done last week:

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


Lovely painting. A real depth and impression of the folds in the cloth. I clicked on the picture and zoomed out in to have a closer look, and the figures just got better and better :-)

Very realistic range of colouring for the clothes as well. Workaday, but subtly different from figure to figure.

More inspiration please!

Cheers,
Flymo

Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Sun Apr 07, 2019 8:48 am
by Julian Roberts
Neil I've just caught up with this amazing thread. Are those figures brush painted?

This link is the only one I can find on a Google search that refers to Mike Walshaw's 00 layout "Westport". It is based on Swanage and he now lives there. He has written extensively about it in various magazine articles over the years. He and his modelling I found a terrific inspiration when I started in this hobby about 20 years ago, when he lived near Glasgow. I'm saying this just in case you're interested and I expect he'll be very interested too in your project.

http://www.brmodelling.com/story2.htm

Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Sun Apr 07, 2019 12:15 pm
by nberrington
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.

The figures are brush painted in acrylics - Vallejo, Reaper and P3 paints. The technique is a layering technique trying to keep to reasonable rules of clolour theory. The highlights are mostly an overhead (zenithal lghts technique). This is hard to pull off in 1:72. Both of us are more used to 54mm figures in the figure painting world.

The faces are still blank as I prefer oil for faces. Will start on them in due course.....

Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Sun Nov 10, 2019 2:32 am
by nberrington
Progress has been slow over the last few months. Work can be annoying sometimes....

Anyway- a shell of smoothon two part resin now covers the foam. The stuff is light and solid as a rock.

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Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2019 8:52 pm
by nberrington
Some progress since last update
Most of the messy work is now done- time to start actually laying track!

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Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2019 9:37 pm
by Le Corbusier
I am really enjoying watching this come together :thumb - Track next .... shame there isn't a clapping emoji for that :D

Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 11:44 am
by nberrington
Last of 2019 - rural lane - stages of construction..

A vertical strut of foam core buried in styrofoam and secured with gorilla glue
Split pieces of chooch industries stone wall secured to the support
Coping made from hydrocal bits
Needs a bit more work, but getting there!

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Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 11:53 am
by nberrington
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Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 3:01 pm
by Noel

Re: Dorset 1937

Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2020 3:29 pm
by nberrington
Wow - thanks Noel. I am going for the overgrown look of the walls I saw near Norden.

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The vertical copestones are going to be interesting, as I have about 6 ft of it to do on the retaining wall across from the passenger platform. I started out, but it's a very slow process, as one needs tiny stones to simulate them!