Getting ready to make an exhibition of myself

Underhill and I have been invited to attend the NGSW exhibition this year so I've set up the layout and started some renovations... and spent some time playing trains.

Loads of layouts and traders so come and say hello if you are in the area.

The first change I've made is getting rid of the shop which I made out of a Skaledale station building and was never really happy with. I used what I has available at the time but subsequently I've acquired a more suitable cottage. 

The offending building is on the left in this picture.

It was quite hard to prise the building off the layout and I ended up having to remove the shop in front of it so that I could get a better purchase on it. In the process I made a hole in the sky with the roof of the shop which was annoying.

Post demolition

Once the site was free I decided that the cottage that was going to replace the shop needed to be raised up to the same level as the road, the old shop was sunken on a lower level; I'd never been happy about that either. I found a sheet of expanded polystyrene which was just the correct thickness and cut it to size and glued it in place with PVA. To cover the exposed polystyrene and bed the cottage in I used some scenic gunk made by Noch (or Faller, I can't remember off hand and can't be bothered to go and look.) It is basically fine sand in glue but it sets hard and looks OK without painting so is good for quick scenery fixes.

With the addition of some trees to disguise the damage to the sky and Blacketts the dairy re-fixed in front I think it looks much better.

I've also used some of the afore mentioned gunk, but in black, to fill between the sleepers of the points which lead to the cheese factory sidings. Having used plaster type filler instead of ballast I had been frightened to gum up the points so there was no ballast under the point blades. It looks much better for this.

There are a few other things which need tarting up, the rock face above the cheese factory is a bit lurid so I might have a go at toning it down and maybe add a bit more greenery. The main thing which needs doing is to work out how to attach some material to disguise the legs etc. I also need to replace the light fitting I nicked to add to Arnold Lane Wharf, easy enough.