Wordsworth - 00 Loft Layout

[Dad-1]

Clear and enjoyable.
Sorry to see you've lost all that history, not at all practical to try and re-insert from another source.
I had that problem when I left Photobucket for Imageshack, who then decided on going subscription
only. I wouldn't and fair enough after a few months the links were broken. Imageshack are still there
and still only subscription, but starting at a low cost for a light capacity, and rising as one may want
more space.
I fear that in the long run that may be the only semi-reliable way. Nothing better than semi-reliable
as any company can go to the wall and with it all it's services.

Geoff T.

[mikem64]

Hi Gents,

Well here are some photo's from my second visit into Flickr, hopefully I've ironed out a few issues like the linking photo ID & authors name.

So after a few hours in the loft over the last two days I've been busy beavering away at the back of the baseboards towards the backscenes, not the easiest of places to work as it's right on arm length & saying that you need to be leaning on the front section os the boards, hence why work stopped to allow this process.

I've just got the finisging touches to do now like the static grass in a few areas & the mixture of flock & bushes. I can then move to the front section of the board do this west side & finally get it finished.

I've also been trying out a new technique for making hedgerows which I've picked up from our War Gaming collegues, this involves using rubberised horse hair as the sub structure which is then coated in flock scatter.

I've also been testing out the new Peco layering spray (Believe it's WWS rebranded) & I'm very impressed with how it works, a fully 10 out of 10 from me.

I've a few more to make to finish the scene but they are so cheap & quick to make I'm sure a few more will be dotting up on the layout.

So here a few snaps.


Some rubberised horse hair matting purchased from you know where.....LOL


Cut out some strips approx 10mm wide


Apply the Peco Layering spray, then sprinkle on your scatter building up two to three coats.


Two sections together form a nice boundary between the railway & the factory site, gate house access bewteen the head office block & the boiler / furnace building.

With one secction of the layout nearly complete, it will soon be time to move onto board 2, will this be the Station area, or will it be the diesel shed area ? We will have to wait & see.

Hope you enjoy this like update, & please join me again in my next post.

P.S Still having linking issues, had to strip out manually the photo ID & Authors name, must be doing something wrong as I've folowed the suggestions, go the the photostream in Flickr, click the photo, then click the share icon, go to BBCode, set image size & copy the link back into the thread on the forum page....ummm

Will have another bash in my next post

Cheers Mike.

[TimberSurf]

Mike
The hedges look really good, very impressed.
But they do look a little straight and angular on the layout. If you don't want to glue them in a curve, drill holes in the baseboard in a curved centre line, stick matchsticks or toothpicks in them, then skewer the hedge onto the row of wooden spikes! If you also paint the toothpicks brown, you can "raise" the hedge to be more realistic, so it doesn't touch the floor. (then use scatter and grass as undergrowth)

[Bufferstop]

stick matchsticks or toothpicks in them, then skewer the hedge onto the row of wooden spikes!

I wish people would stop pinching my methods
Just shows, give any problem to a group of "bashers" and they'll all come up with the same solution.
The change of rules at Photobucket seems to be down to a group of new owners, who would seem to be milking it for every dollar they can, probably before deciding it's not profitable and shutting it down.

[mikem64]

Hi Gents,

Well back with another small update, had to break off from the scenery as I've reached where this corner section meets with Wordsworth station, so I need to know the meeting point.

As I said the old Grand station just didn't feel right for my new venture, hence the new build which I've just completed. I feel this time I've got it right with the size of building / platform ratio.

All the old platform sections I've ripped up, stripped off the top covering paperwork & I've started to recover the card sub bases in newly printed paper.

I've nearly got platform 1 completed just the two end ramps to go in, section of platform walling & I can then finish my corner scenic work. As for that new hedgerow it's not finished yet, just placed onto the layout for those sections to dry plus more sections required to reach the land owned by the Railway company. It can then all be glued into shape ready for the static grass applying either side.

I've been looking at what's left to do on the baseboards & when you add it up it's really not that much, which means I can then start phase 2 of the build which is adding the east & west side extension boards. These should be simple projects as they'll be no more than 30cm wide. Then it's phase 3 at the opposite end of the loft, this is the section I'm still confused about.

I want to create two layouts in one on this section, basically the two dcc lines from the main layout completing the long loop, then I want an independent 12v DC twin track layout in a loop so I can run my DC fleet. The trick here is do I have both layouts using one station, or do I have one layout crossing over the other purely in a scenic world using bridges & field / hills / embankments ?

Still plenty of time to iron these little ideas out ass phase 3 is still a few steps away....LOL

So lets look at the new large Wordsworth Station.

20170723_105924 by Michael Martin, on Flickr
The station newly completed still on the work bench.

20170723_142511 by Michael Martin, on Flickr
Wordsworth Station sitting on the layout as a DMU arrives at platform 1.

20170723_140729 by Michael Martin, on Flickr
Main building & platform sections now in place, subway access to platforms 2 to 4 is on the left side while small covered seated section on platform to the right.

20170723_142459a by Michael Martin, on Flickr
A closer inspection of the four canopy supports & the main access to / from the station on platform 1.

It's taken sometime but I'm very happy how this new station has worked out, really gives me the feel I wanted. So it's back to the scenery which means I can now finish the work on the east baseboard meaning work can start in the west corner next to the station or I carry on with work onto the north boards which has the engine sheds. Which way will I go find out in my next update.

Cheers Mike.

[Bufferstop]

Hi Mike nice progress, on flickr from photostream select the image, choose BB code and the image size you want, copy the highlighted code to the clipboard and when inserted into your post, as you say, strip out from [url= to before [img and after /img] to the end, if you want to restrict the viewers ability to browse. Photobucket have scored a real home goal, they are now being quoted by business commentators as the classic example of how not to do it, having taken over the top spot from Gerald Ratner. Real smart move *iss off the owners of your future source material.
B308 has taken a simple route, just posted a single block of links to the thread the images should be in. It's then a simpler task to move a link to the correct place in the thread when you spot it.

[Dad-1]

Mike,

Are you going to try to replace some of you photographs ? I've managed to find a way to reinsert via
a different host. Yes it's work and takes time, but to loose all you've done before is such a shame.
I never re-named my photographs and the image number included in the PB embedded link shows
it. As a result I delete the PB cat image you have when you close your PB account, keeping just the
photo number which I can then find in my files and insert via that new hosting setup.

Geoff T.

[mikem64]

Hi Geoff

I keep looking at the task, then it dawns on me how many images I've posted over the years then makes me think how long will it take.

I've deleted my pb account as they were only copies from originals I store on my WDcloud drive, I then have a backup copy stored on my WD book drive, finally to complete my paranoia I have that backed up onto my BT cloud account.

I think best course rather than trying a one hit mass reload would be plan to do x amount at a time. As you say the link info is intact so jot down the photo id's, find the originals then resize before uploading to my Flickr account.

I've been playing around creating my own web gallery on my own web site, plus I've been looking a posting the photos within my web site server, then copy the links from my site into the forum.

Promise I will make a start once I figure out whats best & easiest.

Cheers Mike.

[Dad-1]

Hi Mike,

Not an easy job, I've done my HS II layout build as it's still under construction and wasn't too photo heavy.
Currently I'm plodding through my Workbench, 42 pages long. The most recent couple have pictures in and
I've just finished page 6 ...... 38 pages to go !!
I'm in the mind of "I WILL DO IT" just as a two fingered gesture to PB.

Not that we're cussed awkward ........

Anyway, I'll be pleased to see yours creep back a page at a time, helps me to realise I'm not the only one.

Geoff T.

[mikem64]

Hi Gent's

Nothing new I'm afraid I'm just testing out another image hosting server, this one is imgbb.com. I like Flickr but having to strip out some of the bbcoding so it doesn't show the image number & author is a pain & I want to make it quick & simple so I can hopefully upload all my photo's back into both threads.

I know it's going to be slow but if I just keep doing a little at a time within a year I should have it completed.....LOL

So here goes.


New Wordsworth Station with some test figures on the platform.

Geoff I believe you use imgbb.com, from your experience how have you got on with this site, hope it's a got thumbs up as my first test photo seems to have loaded OK, no wording from the server site brought through with the image & uploading to the server nice & simple, so too is grabbing the posting bbcoding for the forum thread.

Cheers.
Mike.

[mikem64]

Hi Gents,

Well I've just uploaded all the images for page 56 within this thread, if anyone is interested in doing something similar with their own, here is how I did mine.

1. Open up Notepad on PC, pull window to far right of screen.
2. Open browser & go to the forum page being worked on.
3. Move cursor over the image (I started at the top of the page working down) Click copy URL
4. Paste URL into Notepad
5. Once all URL's saved, strip out all wording leaving only the photo ID number, save file again.
6. Repeat above process from step 3 to 4 with every image on the thread page
7. Save Notepad file (Just as backup)
8. Locate original images on your PC (If like me you have them in yearly folders in makes next step easier)
9. Create a new folder on desktop of PC
10. From Notepad copy the first photo ID into search window (Top right of window showing your original images)
11. This will bring up the photo
12. Copy the photo into the folder created on your desktop at stage 9
13. Do this for every photo using steps 10 to 12
14. Once all the photos are copied I used InfanView to do a batch size conversion to 700 x 394
15. Upload all resized images to your new photo server.
16. Go to the page within the thread on the forum, find your first image & click edit for that section
17. Highlight the old photo link, note the photo ID number
18. Find photo ID number on your new server & click BBcode & copy link
19. Past this new link over the old PB link.
20. Do this all the way through the page steps 17 to 19 for every photo
21. Click submit & your photo's will now show.

Only 55 pages to go in this thread, then onto my Kit thread.......

Hope this helps as it made the process for me pretty quick & straight forward.

Cheers Mike.

[Doghouse]

My alternative method and no reflection on Mike's choice to use imgbb.com

I found the upload to and subsequent transfer from Flickr extremely simple, and once the resulting BBCode
was reduced in size to https:// . . . . . . . . . . . .jpg it was a relatively easy task to replace the old PB code
with the new Flickr one. Nothing extra gets added to the post such as personal information
or additional unwanted wording.

Three simple stages.
Once logged in to Flickr only three sections are required.

1. Cloud icon at the top of the screen to upload your photos
2. Camera Roll as a storage facility for the photos
3. Photostream to choose the image file size and copy the necessary BBCode

Once the Codes are copied to a text document of your choice along with some personal reference
information for each, (I used the original camera file ID and Forum page number) it then becomes
a time consuming but reasonably simple matter of editing all of your relevant forum posts.

All my photos on the Wordworth Card Kits thread have now been updated.

Brian.

[Bufferstop]

It's great to see you guys working out how to streamline the process. It does show the benefit of retaining the cameras allocated numerical file name. In the bad old days of DOS it would have been simple at this stage to write a .BAT file with the addition of the odd BAT file enhancer, to write a script to do it for you. Unfortunately the scripting languages available now are so much more powerful that it takes longer to master the latest version than it does to do the job yourself. Such is progress.

[mikem64]

Hi Gents,

It's been a while again since any news from myself, not much has happened but that's not to say nothing has happened as some work hass been done here & there, just not as much as I certainly would like. My old wordsworth layout was pretty much completed in the same time scale, still just shows how life can force you down different roads.

So what do I have to report, well I do have some great new rolling stock which my lovely wife bought for my birthday months ago, I also got some more rolling stock from my son, daughter & son-in-law. I'm not going to tell you what these are but they look stunning & I will so you later once I get them from there boxes.

First I had to complete the ballast work, the final section of track on the east side curves from Wordsworth station, this I'm happy to say is done & yesterday I spent an hour with the airbrush weathering the track & ballast work down, just needs a few more tweaks here & there & it's done, finally movement can go ahead with scatter to green the whole place up.

I've also purchase a second hand Bachmann A2 North British, picked it up for a snip at £56 from eBay, didn't come in it's original box but for the price a nice little steam loco which will enhance my fleet. Did come with tow surprises, first the hand rail on the front left smoke deflector was missing which was not mentioned in the description & the photo didn't show that side of the model, but when I stripped the model down to fit a decoder I found an 8 pin decoder was already installed, so a compensating bonus shall we say.

I bought the loco as I've been wanting to have a second attempt at a loco rename / number & this one has it all over, so with some Model Master etched brass plates & new numbers it's become Scottish Union & will operate with my other Bachmann A2 Bonnie Dundee.

The conversion went nice and easy, first stripped off the smoke deflectors, bought some 0.45mm brass hand rail wire & new knobs so I could fix that left hand smoke deflector, fiddly but well worth the effort, a quick spray using the airbrush made it look like new.

Removed the old name plate & old loco numbers using some stuff I've had in my kit box for years & with the aid of a **** tail stick gently removed the items.

The brass name plates I glued onto the smoke deflectors using Uhu & the numbers are water slide transfers, not down this type of thing for years but the finished results are impressive.

Here are a few photo's.


Here's my starting point, donor loco & new plates.


First to go were those cab side numbers.


Next up were the smoke deflector names


Next job to tackle that missing hand rail


Hand rail constructed & a nice coat of black acrylic paint applied.


Next we fix the brass name plates.


Then go on the cab side water slide numbers.

I've run out of pictures at this stage but I'll show you my finished work with the loco sat on my layout.

I do have a few other things to report but I feel I've waffled on for far too long as it is, maybe this evening I'll have another bash at finishing the update.

Until that point happy building
Mike

[m.levin]

A nice little project, looking forward to seeing the end result.