PNP's O-16.5 Workbench

[Peterm]

I'd have that on my layout any day.

[PinkNosedPenguin]

As I am approaching the 1000 photo limit on Flickr for (free) hosting, I am trying out Google Photos. It seems a bit tricky to embed a publicly-accessible photo, but the below is hopefully visible?


This is what I did:

• Upload photos
• Click a photo and then click the share icon at the top
• Click 'Create link' and then 'Copy'
• Paste the link into a new browser tab
• Click photo to expand it
• Right click the photo and (in Chrome) 'Copy image address' (mine contains "lh3.googleusercontent.com")
• Paste this link into "img" tabs in this post

Phew!

[TimberSurf]

They don't make it easy do they!
Yes, perfectly visible PnP

P.S. as long as they are not too big, you can attach photo's to the forum post!

[PinkNosedPenguin]

They don't make it easy do they!
Yes, perfectly visible PnP

Good, glad they are visible, thanks for confirming

I think Google Photos is more of a private resource for backup up photos to the cloud (which I am doing = Currently "syncing 4084 of 28081!) but it appears to be free for unlimited photos and it seems silly to have to use something else for hosting and embedding in forums . . .

P.S. as long as they are not too big, you can attach photo's to the forum post!

I like to host once, and post twice (on NGRM too)

[PinkNosedPenguin]

Now I am furloughed, I had to do something with my time didn't I! I decided to build another Smallbrook coach kit that I had in my drawer, but modify this one to be open sided .

Firstly, the sides had to be hacked to remove the upper part - here the bottom one is modified compared to the top one (and the top hinge relocated):


As the inside of this coach will be a lot more visible than the closed ones I built before, I scribed some paneling on the sides and floor, and added some raised detail to represent the doors:


The kit comes with two bench seats and I purchased two seated whitemetal passengers for them, which were carefully painted. The lady is sensibly wearing a head scarf, as it may get windy in there


This shot shows the four sides and floor assembled, with the outside sprayed and the insides picked out in brown. The small holes in the top of the sides are to receive some 1mm wire pillars:


The legroom in the coach is very limited, so some drastic measures were called for! The lady had her toes cut off (!) and the man needed his whole feet cut off


When the roof was glued in place, I realised it has a large solid base protruding down (which is normally for making a good fit with the full-height sides). However here it shows where I did not want it


Hence some small lengths of balsa were added to hide it! This also allowed me to add the 1mm wires:


To finish off, door handles were fitted & transfers were added and sealed in place with a spray of matt varnish:


Just a spot of weathering to go now

[Wakimany]

[PinkNosedPenguin]

It's a tough life this furloughing lark

Whilst I had the Revel "fiery red" spray out, I though I might as well construct the Peco 4 wheel coach I had too - and I need a brake end for my little rake

So this one was built as a brake first, and so I thought the first class compartment needed something to make it a bit posher than the third class wooden seats in the other coaches. Hence part of an old glasses cleaning cloth was used as 'upholstery'. The figures are more of some cheap chinese ones I used before:


It's not very visible from the outside, but this shot shows it before the roof went on:


The completed vehicle (but not yet weathered):






The rake of four coaches is a bit too long for the tiny Bychan halt, but here they are posed for photos:






Thanks for looking . . .

[TimberSurf]

Must be the first time I have seen real upholstery used in model carriages
It's coming along nicely, great to see a decent rake on a narrow gauge model too, is the platform long enough?

[PinkNosedPenguin]

Thanks Timbersurf!

As I am approaching the 1000 photo limit on Flickr for (free) hosting, I am trying out Google Photos.

This is working out really well - no sooner have I uploaded new photos from my camera to the PC then they are automatically sync'd to google photos and available to immediately show here

Not much progress today, just a little attention to wagons loads.

Another slate wagon has been loaded with . . . erm . . . slates - one in the photo below was done previously, and some slate debris has been added to the empty wagon:


The two milk churns that I have placed on my halt platform actually came in a set of five, so I decided to add the other three to an open wagon (i.e. where they can be seen!) which will trundle round all the small rural stations and halts, picking up more milk churns...

[PinkNosedPenguin]

Now the time has come to attempt some trees .

Using various tips gleaned from various forums, I made my first armature using brown 0.35mm florist's wire purchased cheaply online. This was 50 (yes 50!) lengths twisted together then gradually opening out from the trunk into branches into twigs:


I tried a slightly different technique for the next one - much thicker wire (that I found in the shed!) for the trunk and main branches, with the florist's wire added for the smaller branches and twigs. This was a fair bit faster than #1. I'm saying its a different variety of tree


The trunk and main branches of this second one were wrapped in masking tape to cover the twists of wire. Then both trees were given a brushed on coat of PVA glue to seal the wires in place and provide a key for the next step:


I then mixed up some polyfilla with various colours of watercolour paint to try to achieve a grey/brown "bark" sort of colour, and applied this with a brush:


Once dry, some browns were washed on, some green weathering powder applied with matt varnish, and some green flock to represent moss/lichen was added in a couple of strategic places:


So this is where I'm at so far. And it has not been fast

I am now awaiting some postiche in the post, so that I can apply the foliage . . .

[Bufferstop]

Making excellent use of your furloughed time there PNP!

[PinkNosedPenguin]

Thanks Bufferstop

Some more progress on trees. First a couple more armatures made, experimenting with slightly different techniques each time. This gives me variety of tree shapes, and also informs which methods I will never use again


The latest one below was created using the method shown in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FNQTxX_jT4

As my postiche has still not arrived, I used Woodland Scenics underbrush (that I happened to have) as foliage. Unfortunately PVA glue, either blobbed on with a brush or sprayed on diluted, does not seem to have the quick sticking power needed for this so the foliage took a long time. Maybe I'll purchase another type of spray glue for future trees . . . ?


BTW it's slanting because it will be planted on a slope

[PinkNosedPenguin]

Hooray, my postiche arrived yesterday so I could progress the foliage


I didn't really know how this would turn out, but anyhow I cut off small pieces of the postiche from the hank, teased them out and tangled them up to make loose little bundles, which could then be attached to the branches using PVA:




These were then left overnight, after a spraying of dilute PVA, for the glue to set. This morning saw the excitement of actually applying the foliage . This was done by more spraying with PVA and then sprinkling on the (Green Scene) coarse foliage over a couple of plastic boxes (2 colours of foliage). Note the trunks were wrapped loosely in paper to protect from glue (and hence foliage) from sticking to them:


This was again left to fully dry. The foliage seemed to have stuck really well, so after a bit of trimming of postiche with some scissors, I stood back to admire my trees






I'm actually very pleased with how they turned out! The coverage of foliage is good, but allows the branches to be glimpsed inbetween. Each tree is very individual. I think the colours work pretty well too. The only problem that then happened is that a big gust of wind came along (I was working out in the back garden) and blew one of the boxes off the table onto the ground! Luckily no trees were in it at the time, but a lot of foliage that I was about to reclaim was distributed across my lawn . I did not allow the same to happen with the other box!!!

[PinkNosedPenguin]

I needed some bushes to go inbetween my trees, and wasn't really that happy with my attempts using a very coarse fibre (for brambles) or teased out scouring pad - they just didn't look right. But I am quite happy with my trees. Then I had a realisation - what are bushes, but miniature trees without trunks

Queue a little batch of small trees that can be easily 'planted' by pushing the 'trunk' into the scenery thus hiding it:

[PinkNosedPenguin]

Time now for some more rolling stock

I purchased a set of coach kits from 422 Modelmaking - each comes as a basic set of 5 parts (five sides and a roof) leaving the modeler to supply floor, glazing, chassis & wheels, couplings and detailing. They were very reasonably priced and I also purchased from them a Hornby 4-wheel coach chassis for each, to which I have added some Dapol wheels I had.

As is my usual method, I painted first and then assembled the sides and ends. I wanted a different colour this time, so chose Humbrol 'Midnight Blue' sprayed on, Door handles were from Slaters, with handrails etc made from 0.7mm wire. This time I picked out the hinges in brass paint too, to break up the large expanse of dark colour.


I had purchased three different models, a third, parcels and brake coach. Here are them all with the chassis and some Dapol couplings:


To fit the couplings I glued shims of plasticard under the chassis to position at the correct height:


And then used M2 bolts & nuts to both secure the body to the chassis (so easily dismantled if required) and attach the coupling housing. This method of attaching the couplings gives a little lateral movement round my tight curves and allows me to make them as short as possible:


The bolt head was glued into the inside of the body so the nut can be screwed/unscrewed from underneath without requiring access to the interior (the red brake handle is an old N gauge tractor wheel! which will only be just visible through the windows once the roof goes on):


The coaches were then coupled together and run round the layout to check everything seems fine at this point (it does ):


Next is some people on seats, and the roofs . . .