Have been very lax in posting updates due to starting a new job as a Mechanical Engineering Technician at my local Heritage Railway earlier this year, concentrating on Uni and also working on my layout "Stourford" but here goes.
I have done a fair bit of work on the coaling stage and gotten the main structure built up. As mentoned before, this is based on the dimensions from the Scalescenes kit but made from styrene sheets rather than cardboard. Here is what it looks like so far in situ on my layout:
As seen, the walls are 4 layers thick with 2 sheets of 1mm thick sandwiched between an outer and inner layer of brick sheets. Windows and archways are from the Will's Industrial Windows kit but looking at it again, they're larger than the ideal size and would ahve been better off getting some smaller ones.
The floor is made up of 2 lots of 1mm thick sheet stuck together with the top one shorter than the bottom to provide a platform. Having walked inside Didcot's coaling stage, the platform could do with being a bit deeper to bring it a bit higher to the coal wagon bottoms so I guess thats highlighted an prototypical dimension issue with Scalescenes kit. However this means that I won't have too much to cut through to put a slot in for the automaton pin in due course.
Looking underneath, the floor is currently supported on the walls by some spare I Beam styrene I had left over from making a bridge for a Warhammer 40,000 display board I did years ago for Armies on Parade at my local store (got a gold medal for my efforts so well chuffed with that). The floor isn't glued in place yet as I need to cut out the previously mentioned slot and fit the yet to built automaton mechanism. Also need to trim back the outer platform to the correct length as it currently hits the cab roof on some of my models whilst testing the layout. Looking at fitting an internal brick wall on the inside to hide the mechanism from view, especially if I start exhibiting it and have viewers taking a closer look.
So next jobs will be building the automaton mechanism and the coaling figure, fitting and testing them, redress the platform and fit the outer canopy.
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