Thomas At Silver Fox Island - one for kids to drive

[Dad-1]

A couple of days head scratching ......
The complications of a skew bridge



Then trying to work out in my head exactly how the tunnel will be made and exactly where I'll place it. Tunnel entrances cut from the last useable ply.
This will have to be tough being a removable part, but no I'm not using the 70 x 20 timber !!





At least the controller desks are looking better now the track power plug and socket's fixed



Seem to be slowing down, need more wheatabix me thinks .......

Geoff T.

[auricom]

Seem to be slowing down, need more wheatabix me thinks .......

Looking great Geoff, and as your from south Northans you're not to far away from the Weetabix factory if you need some more

[NEvans]

Think it looks great. Sure the kids will love it, and a few adults as well...

[Dad-1]

Thanks for the comments auricom & NEvans,

Currently I have nothing new to show, but have reached my least favourite stage of a layout - Painting the bleepin track !! I hate this job, but as I also hate layouts with bright shiny rails even more it's a task I must do. Laying on my side along the garage floor, shuffling along as I very slowly creep around. Because I hate painting track I tend to 'forget' and this time ballasted around 10" before my eyes told me I was stupid !!
How long ? - fitting it in with 'life' will probably take me at least 3 days, then the ballasting will probably take another week. Only then can I return to serious landscaping. At least I have the tunnel and bridge that need embossed plasticard skins adding so I don't care if it gets cold and rains for the next 10 days !!

Geoff T.

[Dad-1]

Painting done at last !!
So now into ballasting mode
I've been thinking about ballast and feel that in all probability we get it wrong, particularly for the post war steam period.
Most stations, goods yards, branch and slow lines didn't have nice clean ballast. They had black-grey contaminated ash, clinker
with occasional stones in it !!
Still get things into perspective, this is a kids 'Thomas' layout so exact prototypical scenery not an essential.

Here is ballast laid along both lines, before glue dribbled on it. I hate ballast over sleepers so great care is taken at this stage.



On this layout the 6 foot is not 6', but somewhat wider with 30 mm giving 7 foot 6 inches between sleeper ends.
I decided that I'll have greenery in the form of weeds taking over the 'cess' although in fact this should be just cleared dirt !!



I did leave one part with nothing, but the painted ply just dosen't look 'right', very fine garden soil may be the thing to use ?



Anyway you just Have to have a little play, so here is a GWR milk train

Several days ballasting to do as I prefer to just put a foot or so down at a time..

Geoff T.

[Dad-1]

While the ballast creeps along slowly it gives time to think about the small station.
Here the proposed platforms have Annie & Clarabel discussing what clearence is needed !!



Try to do just a little each day - August still seems dangerously near !!

Geoff T.

[auricom]

Try to do just a little each day - August still seems dangerously near !!

Geoff T.

Ah well maybe thats because it's my birthday in August

What do you use to paint the rails? And how do you go about it? As this is something I may look at in the future.

[Dad-1]

Hi Auricom,

It's an awful job ....... particularly when the layout as yet has no trestles and I had to lay on the garage floor !!
What I do is use Humbrol 'rust' No.113 - yes it looks a little unrealistic, but it's easily available and I couldn't be bothered to mix some dark grey into it.
I paint with an oldish brush as bristles get damaged as you work around the rail chairs, trying to keep off the sleepers. First one side, then after that's completed I do the other side. At this point I don't clean the rail head because I follow painting with ballasting and have noted that the water PVA mix seems to discolour rails with what must be a low level of corrosion. Also when droppering the water/PVA mix onto ballast you always get some spill onto the rails, which when fully dried becomes almost invisible. Then After both painting and ballasting I thoroughly clean and polish up the rail head, another slow job where I use a coarse fabric with a drop of thinners and sort of scratch all the rail head deposits away (tough on fingernails). This usually leaves a very bright clean running surface.

Others use air brushes (I'm too lazy to clean one up afterwards), Spray cans of railmatch or similar (much more expensive). Like every model making process there are several ways of doing it. I'm a cheap skate and take the easily available and cheap options !!

Geoff T.

[Dad-1]

There are times when you wish you'd done it a different way .........

I'd decided that timber piles driven into the lake bed would be good for supporting the lakeside platform and making the safety fence.
The idea was for something different, but I didn't realise just how many timber piles I would need to cut from kebab sticks. This is roughly
half of my requirements ....... I still like the idea, but cutting these is driving me crazy ....... no way will a similar fence be placed behind
the outside platform, just curved MDF !!



Slow progress ....... and a visit out to another MRC today also retarded work, but a thanks to John. Phew what a large indoor '0' layout,
tempting, but getting too near model engineering for me !!.

Geoff T.

[tom_tom_go]

Great effort Geoff!

I am building a small layout for my kids and they get on with the Hornby Select with ease even when using DCC sound loco functions.

Look forward to seeing the scenic development.

Cheers,

Tom

[Dad-1]

Hi Tom,

Ahh yes, your simple branch line - love the simplicity and (Very) compact track. As you say my Grandson when about 7 years old picked up the use of a Select in a matter of minutes and could switch from loco to loco without problems. There are so many 'knockers' of the Select and yes it's not particularly sophisticated, but mine have been reliable, robust (dropped a few times) and do just about everything I want.
Have you worked out how to make your hill, or are you going to make the tunnel 'open top' ?

My removable tunnel & hill are still taxing my imagination - how to make it tough, easily removable, well hidden joins .......
Think I'll just get on with watching the GP and sorting out the station platforms.

Geoff T.

[mikem64]

Hi Geoff,

The layouts coming along just nicely, super work with the ballast & the weeds creeping in.

Just stick with it & you'll get there I'm sure.

Mike.

[Dad-1]

First comment - Those darned Red Bull cars are just too good !!

But before that and visitors arriving (Son & family) I started work on the stations second platform.
Having given up on timber piles I curved a piece of 4 mm MDF, but didn't wet it enough before bending and cracked it.
A good soaking later it took shape and is now waiting for the PVA to thoroughly dry. Elastic bands have so many uses !!





Yep mikem64 I'll keep plodding away, In fact with the tray base, track, and now station well on the way to being
finished it's just that hill and tunnel. Having a good pile of 2" styrene blocks it shouldn't be too difficult. Just the mess
cutting styrene creates.

Geoff T.

[tom_tom_go]

The 'snobs' of the modelling world can knock the Hornby controllers, however, I have had both my Selects updated with the latest firmware from Hornby at the extra cost other than postage and they work fine. They are also very hardy and can survive drinks spills while also being dropped.

Without catering for the the younger generation this hobby will die so the Hornby controllers give the kids a chance to experience it with ease.

I'm working on track laying and automation of the points at the moment (DC or DCC!?) so have not given much thought to my tunnels/bridges although I am sure MDF will play a big part.

I shall keep going though and I am sure you will get this done before the show

Cheers,

Tom

[Dad-1]

This has been a slow stage of construction, making up two small platforms, but at last they are both stuck down.
I used some Scalescenes red tile paper to cover a wall - looks quite like bricks to me.





Now to start fitting in the Kebab stick timber pile fence and platform support - OK no need for any support on
the model, but anything similar in 1 : 1 construction would use these.



Also handy to have bus wiring stuffed behind it. Stuck in one at a time though ...... gonna be slow !!

Geoff T.