A bridge, a cottage and some coaches

Once again work and appalling weather have kept me away from the garage but I have been quite busy on the trusty laptray. First thing to show you is the footbridge made from the kit from Fair Price Models. It went together very well and after a squirt of brown primer I started painting it and it looked good.

After some more painting of the coping stones I added some Wills embossed sheet to the outside of the bridge supports.

Final paint, might need a light wash with something dark to pick out the stone courses.

Here it is plonked more or less where it will end up. The wall has some textured printed rock paper on it. I'm not overly convinced by it but maybe some paint and greenery will eventually make it ok. The next stage is to glue the bridge in place and make up the ground with filler etc so that it looks deliberate, rather than the after thought that it was.

 

This is the bare shell of the cottage basically made as intended except I left out one of the internal walls and made a hole in the base so that it would fit over the lifting section handle.

The cottage, which will be the station Masters cottage at Upper Bay got a coating of Tesco's cheapest filler. I applied it with a craft knife and I'm very happy with the result.

Next came Wills sheet roof and guttering from Modelu which is superb and really looks good. The down pipe is brass pipe with 3D printed fittings. Up close it looks great which I'm not sure these phone pictures do justice to.

Here it is all painted up and pretty much finished. I've fitted an LED tail light by the front door which hopefully will work once a battery box arrives.

The other thing I've been working on is my train of Corrisalike vehicles. The bogie coach is nearly done but the roof is still lose as I want to add a few figures.

The van and the 4 wheel coach are pretty much finished, the roof on the 4 wheeler isn't all that brilliant and may get a remake at some stage.

Stormtroopers, locos and mdf

On May the 4th Stoner had a visit from The Empire, a storm trooper had a browse at the brick a brack stall in the market at Rock Beach having parked his AT AT walker in the town square. No one seemed to take much notice.

Meanwhile back in the real world (?) Stoner has acquired yet more locomotives. The first of these came from eBay where it seemed to be largely ignored. Incorrectly listed as a Chilvers (lol) kit it is in fact a Paul Windle special which has a fairly illustrious history having been built for the Gairloch and Westeross Railway. I'm proud to add it to my fleet and have ordered 'Lord Stoner' name plates for it and a crew from Modelu. Other than a replacement front vacuum pipe and a couple of paint touch ups I will leave well alone.

Meanwhile back at Upper Bay the scenery has been making gradual progress with nearly all the filler work in place.

The first part of disguising the join of the lift off bit is in place with sections of stone wall glued down. This needs the addition of some filler and so on to disguise the joins but otherwise it looks promising. 

The goods shed siding and coal drops are all in place now, I just need to make a shoot for the coal.

I finally gave in and bought a GVT Bachmann Baldwin, the livery is so nice and I got it for a good price from work. It has had a subtle amount of weathering and will gain a Modelu crew.

I already had a few GVT PECO coaches so a whole train can be made up. I might make a version of the passenger van to go with it, it is basically a Dundas GVT van with a veranda.

On eBay I found a company called Fair Price Models selling very nice but quite basic laser cut MDF (?) kits and they have a small farm cottage which is ideal for the building to hide the handle which lift the hidden lid.

A pleasant evenings work on the lap tray saw the basic shell constructed. I love making buildings so am looking forward to finishing this off. I have guttering on order from Modelu which looked nice so hopefully that will finish it off nicely. A slate roof and then wiggly tin for the extension I think.

The same place saw a footbridge which will help to disguise the hidden sidings cutting. Very fine laser work. I stuck the kits together with superglue as I don't have the patience for pva, all seems fin so far.

 

Scenic progress

As predicted I didn't get much modelling time this week but when I've slipped out to the garage for the odd half hour I've cracked on with scenery at Upper Bay.

My usual technique has been applied, i.e creating a sub structure out of expanded polystyrene or strips of foam core. All stuck together with pva and hot glue gun.

Next phase is plaster bandage

I've added the last few bits of precast cast rock to the back of the station site, hopefully it will look like the site has been cut into rock.

After the plaster bandage has dried out I smooth out the contours using ready made filler. My theory is that in the real world there are rocks covered with soil. Both of these get eroded largely by water so I use a big wet paint brush to create the final shape of the landscape and to smooth out the surface.

The removable section has to be finished separately to its surrounding so that it will be easily removable. This has resulted in there being a bit of a difference at the joins, I'll sort this out next before the next stage.

All the main scenic areas are now complete so next is the remaining ballasting of the siding with filler and building up the platform area to just above rail level.

All a bit white but I like the road up to the station and the coal drop and yard are looking quite promising. I've ordered a kit for a small cottage to cover the removable section handle so hopefully that will arrive this week.

The cottage is from Fair Price Models and is laser cut from MDF I think. I'm looking forward to making this. I also bought a footbridge while I was at it.

Not sure where it will go but I liked the look of it.