Thorburn's - dipping my toes in the water...

[themagicspanner]

Started work on the old granary building today.

Decided to ditch the DAS clay on card and just scribe directly into the card.

Progress so far looks like this:



Not sure where the building's going to sit exactly but this gives an idea of the size.

[themagicspanner]

After a bit of a break I'm back into working on Thorburn's and plan to do a fair bit this week.

The card scribing was fairly successful but I wasn't that happy with how flat it ended up looking.



After a bit of though I decided that a may well just be able to roll out a 10mm thick slab of DAS and scribe that to my hearts content, so a test piece was made.



The result was perhaps a little exaggerated but it had potential so I soon rolled out a large slab and got cutting and scribing. This is what it look like so far.

[Colin Parks]

Hi magicspanner,

The work on the walls looks very good with a nice texture.

Colin

[themagicspanner]

Cheers Colin,

I made a bit more progress at the weekend and managed to get a first coat of colour onto the model.







Not totally happy with it yet but it's a step in the right direction.

[Colin Parks]

Your endeavours are looking good magicspanner.

Is the granary building based on a prototype example?

Colin

[themagicspanner]

Yes,

The building is on the site of the 'real' Thorburns in Duns.



Mike

[Colin Parks]

Ah yes, Mike.

I had forgotten about that picture! I like the white-washed section of wall and the broken windows.

Colin

[themagicspanner]

Just looking at that photo again. I need to remember that the lintels of the windows are slightly arched.


Mike

[themagicspanner]

I haven't posted anything on here for ages but rest assured that things are progressing well (if somewhat slowly).

Fist up, the granary is progressing with two of the three walls and an area of cobbles scribed. I've also started creating the windows with microstrip.










I also turned the layout round to make it easier to work on the back edge. It let me get a few shots that are normally impossible.

I've added quite a bit of clutter around the sheds.








Mike

[jim s-w]

Good work Mike

This really appeals to my 'not pretty railway' tastes. If you know what I mean

Jim

[themagicspanner]

Thanks Jim.

Glad to know others have an attraction to the grime of the real railways. I'm particularly into industrial scenes and some of the strange locos that seem to have worked there over the years, which reminds me that I really must start building my Yorkshire DE2...


Mike

[jim s-w]

I want one of those for Brettell road, round oak steelworks had a fleet of them. I assume it's the judith edge kit you will be building?

Cheers

Jim

[themagicspanner]

Yes it's the Judith Edge kit. It's sitting on my desk right now looking at me...

[jim s-w]

Neat, are you doing the chevron livery like this one?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/28083135@N06/5128237766/

[themagicspanner]

I really like that photo. I think that was one that really sold me on the look of the DE2 when I was hunting for the ideal loco for this project. My other option was a Janus, but I thought that was a bit on the big side for what is a very small yard. Mind you, who knows what's through that shed!

The chevrons make it for me. Not an easy job though so we'll have to see how it goes. Maybe I could enlist some local help...

Oh, and I think I'll copy that fuel tank and have it tucked in behind the granary.


Mike

[themagicspanner]

A bit of a delay with this update...

I've managed to get the cobbles painted so here are a couple of close-ups:





Here's one with the granary plonked on top:



And a couple in context:






In other news, I've now got some wheels for the DE2 so construction can start some time soon. If only I could get round to ordering a Loadhauler gearbox and a motor...


Mike

[Lindsay G]

That's a coincidence, Burntisland 1883 needs some cobbles laid on one of the new West Dock boards!

Lindsay

[DougN]

Mike,

just a little one. The "white washed" wall looks like there was once an added lean too. This probably would have affected the ground finish in that area. Along with some type of footings/ posts which would have held up the other side. So maybe a little more distressing is possible to show the history of the building and the ground surface. It is unlikely that any builder would have pulled it out when they changed the lean too.

Just suggestions

[themagicspanner]

Doug,

I had exactly that though a few days ago. Shouldn't be too hard to put some post into the mud and perhaps extend the cobbles out to cover the area. Maybe a wee bit of wall too.


Lindsay,

I didn't want to mention that!


Mike

[themagicspanner]

The Class 26 now has P4 wheels courtesy of the Alan Gibson conversion kit. Very straightforward. The only real challenge was getting the pickups to touch the backs of the flanges.

Has anyone got experience of mounting AJ to diesels with snow ploughs mounted to the body? Just wondering what to do as I'm imagining the ploughs will foul the coupling as it swings with the bogie and body mounting the coupling would lead to problems on corners (not that I've got anything tight).

[Mark Tatlow]

Has anyone got experience of mounting AJ to diesels with snow ploughs mounted to the body? Just wondering what to do as I'm imagining the ploughs will foul the coupling as it swings with the bogie and body mounting the coupling would lead to problems on corners (not that I've got anything tight).

Yes and you are correct to have concerns, at least if you have moderately sharp corners.

On my class 24's that have ploughs, the ploughs are attached to the body and are thus fixed. I fitted the AJ in a small hole to the centre portion of the plough. It can be a bit tricky to couple up on a curve but we don't have problems with trains that are already connected going around the curves.

The bogies are a little closer to the ends of the body on the class 26's/27's and therefore I cheated with these. The plough is in fact attached to the bogie so obviously swivels with it. This overcomes the problems with curves and these will couple up successfully on all my curves (my sharpest is 4 foot).

Hope this helps.

[themagicspanner]

Thanks Mark.

I think I'm going to try mounting to the chassis first and see how that goes.


Mike

[themagicspanner]

A rainy day in Edinburgh so it was a productive one from a modelling point of view.

Fist up was the chassis of the DE2 which I didn't think was too hard even with the compensation. My soldering is a bit rough but at least this is somewhere that isn't going to be seen.






Secondly, I fitted an AJ to the chassis of the Heljan Class 26. I think this should work for my use. I passed it through between the struts that support the snow ploughs and offset it to one side so that the 3-link can hang as it should. The coupling is bent back towards to central position to maintain reliable coupling.








Mike

[themagicspanner]

So, it's been a while since I've posted anything on here, and in honesty, it's been a while since I've done any modelling.

Tha last couple of weeks has been a different story with a bit of time off work to get things going and a re-kindling of my modelling mojo...

Not sure as to what order these things have happened but here goes:

For a while I wasn't sure whether I was going to bother with a true scenic break at the 'headshunt' end of the layout but after a bit of deliberation I decided that I may want to run the layout wiuth somew sort of cassette system which would allow me to run the completed trains off the scene (and have an excuse for some larger locos.

The scenic break takes the form of a masonry overbridge build from Foamex. I'm happy enough with the result and plan to glue it in this week. I've added arch barrel strapping since the photos were taken. Naturally, when I checked back to see what type of bridge was at Duns station, it turned out the be metallic! Oh well - maybe for a future project.




Next up was the Mark III version of the granary. The first attempt in card looked too flat and didn't take paint well. The second in DAS clay looked fairly good although the detail was a little on the large side and making the windows from microstrip was a nightmare.

After ready up about Ian Robinson's use of Foamex as a building material I decided to give it a go (firstly for the bridge). Not wanting to make the same mistake with the windows or a second time, I decided to base the model around some commercially available etches from Scalelink. The 16mm x 16mm and 16mm x 24mm wasn't quite right but I felt it was close enough to get the feeling of the building. In the future I would get my own etches made up.

The Foamex is very easy to scribe and sculpt and I wouldn't hesitate to use it in the future. It also takes acrylic paint very well.

It's not quite done, but you get the idea in the photos below.




The other are that was really needing some attention was between the now glued down sheds and the granary.

I love using natural materials whenever possible an here is no exception. Not sure what plant this is but it makes fer a reasonably convincing scrubby bush. I've also chopped up some fallen leaves and used them as, well, fallen leaves,




Not much else to report so here a a couple of my favourite photos from the last few weeks.








Mike

[mickeym]

Crikey!
There is something about the bottom picture in the above post that genuinely made me think it was "real" !
It gives the impression of a damp grey sort of day so well.