'A tongue that tastes like tin, a static charge...'

I've been intrigued by static grass planting for a while now and have seen some very nice work. I've also seen some strange green fur growing on layouts. I decided to give it a try but I didn't want to spend a fortune on a posh machine so I got a cheapy one from Evilbay. I already had some appropriate flock which I've been using as part of my ever changing grass mix. I have a Tupperware tub into which I constantly add different shades and thickness of green flock from whatever bag I've bought at an exhibition, this gives a variety of shades even over a small area.

Old technique to the right and new to the left

 

Anyway I tried a couple of different ways of doing the gluing, (poetry) firstly I just smeared some neat PVA onto an area and stuck my pin into it and staticked away. The results were ok but mostly it looked like a blob of glue with a bit of flock sticking in it. version two changed the method slightly to using some Deluxe materials scenic glue which comes in a spray pump dispenser. I suspect it is watered down PVA actually but whatever it is it worked better than the neat PVA. In both cases I was adding the static fluff on top of my ordinary flock mix applied when I built the layout which had always been a bit thin on the ground having been in a hurry at the time.

Shaved cows

Version two worked much better and I will use this technique in the future, I only had a couple of packs of Noch fibres which were a little vivid and a pack of brown so I mixed some brown in to the mix in later batches and it helped tone it down a bit. It is a technique I shall persevere with, having just ordered some darker shades of fibre from the interweb. Watch this space for further experiments.

One thing I learned was the fibre also sticks to cows if you don't move them out of the way. For a while I had hairy green cattle. Makes a change.

Hedging my bets

I've really been concentrating on the L&B layout this last week or so but I'm very conscious that I finished off the new middle bit of Underhill in a great rush and there were quite a lot of things I didn't get round too. The major one is the backscene but that will have to wait for a while until I can borrow a suitable camera and snap the right picture. 

What I have now done is add a fence and a hedge along the middle section of line which was previously open to the cows in the field and the public on the beach.

 

I'm pleased with the fencing as this is a Noch product that I just came across by chance on eBay. It has just the right air of dilapidation and weather beateness that a wooden fence on a beach would have. I was going to use post and wire fencing on the 'inland' side but it occurred to me that a hedge might be nicer and easier to achieve. A variety of clumping foam, left over sea foam tree bits and some bits of twigs and leaves were PVA'd down and there we have it. I might add a bit more greenery and maybe a little floral colour but essentially done.

Nettie on a mixed train threads past 'The Burning Bush'

On the way back at Rocky Beach

Gloria on a similar train

Would you believe it, Oberon in the same place with the same train

 

I added some more greenery here and there and fiddled with the beach colours and seaweed a bit, I'm not really happy with the beach but I have a few ideas to try to improve it. The other major missing element is the telegraph pole route which stops and starts again with a gap on the new board. I trimmed some Airfix/Dapol poles and started their painting yesterday too so they can be installed and painted later.

This extra work and finishing covering up the damage from the great dropping the layout incident has cheered me up about this section, it looks better now and blends in with it's surrounding sections better.

Descisions, descisions

It occurred to me that Underhill has an exhibition booked in August, Borth y Gest show and then in September, Great & Small III and the new station isn't even started yet!

 

First things first thinks I so I took the fiddle yard board to the workshop and added a lip all round so that stray rolling stock doesn't do the lemming dive off the edge, I also tidied up the wiring underneath. I need to test it to make sure it all still works as one of the staples I used to tidy the wiring clipped one of the wires and may have chopped it, hopefully not.

Finished fiddle yard.

 My grand plan for the new station looks a bit cramped so will need to be moderated slightly (as usual). I laid out a couple of variations with odds and sods of track to see what it looks like. I may need to extend the size of the board slightly as I was hoping to fit more town on and a valley side on each side. On the other hand it still needs to be portable and storable.

Plan A

Plan B

I think plan B overall is my favourite, siding wise but it has lost the bay platform of A so I might reinstall that. I have numerous railcars and this was for them to use so it doesn't need to be hugely long. If I remove the head shunt from the goods sidings it would allow the station site to be smaller but would leave less parking and shunting space. ????

 

Great & Small III is coming together nicely and will feature some cracking layouts in addition to mine. I'm off to Dinas with my new tape measure tomorrow so it should all fit nicely this time. 9th to 11th September are the dates for your diary.



Making an exhibition of myself...again

In advance of the Bala Lake Railway gala model railway show I was in a great rush of all sorts of things some railway related, some not. I packed the work transit with lots of lovely things to sell and the big TV etc. and came home to collect my layout on the Friday night. There was just room.

Some of the work things occupying my time at the moment.

The exhibition at Bala wasn't at the railway itself but in the school in the town, we had lots of space and were very well looked after but sadly there were very few people coming through the door. It is a shame as it was a nice show with good trade support and some nice layouts and mine.

 

We had loads of space and so made the most of it.

Arnold Lane Wharf behaved very well all weekend and the new point motor proved to be time well spent as it worked as intended without fault. I also took along the office test track which is just an oval of KATO track and a Minitrains controller, the idea being that we could test run any locos we sold. We did do that but mostly I used it to run in the troublesome Hunslets, Gloria and Britomart. Britomart in particular has benefitted immensely from this treatment.

 

Gloria

Nettie

Herman

 

The best thing about the show was finding that the rather splendid pizza layout, Lancey Brook was on sale. If I had had some spare cash I would have bought it for myself, however I spoke to the trader who was selling it and swapped it for some shop stock meaning that the F&WHR now has a rather better test track and display layout.

Britomart and some of my stock on Lancey Brook

 



It is a little tired and dusty and there are a couple of broken bits which will be easy to mend. Once it is restored to it's original glory I will be exhibiting it where ever we have space with the F&WHR marketing stand or either of my two layouts. Just needs a Heljan Manning Wardle now...

Gloria sic point motor

I don't know if I mentioned it but Arnold lane Wharf is going to Bala this weekend coming as part of the Bala Lake Railway gala. Well it is, anyway so I thought some titivation was in order and most importantly I needed to sort out the point motor which supposedly changed the king point to the yard. When I had added point motors and replaced the two sets of points I had never really got this one to throw convincingly in one direction so I set about fixing it. The motor was situated under the board and the actuator rod poked up through a hole. After several hours of buggering about trying to adjust the position of the motor etc etc, I gave up.

 



The obvious plan B was to mount the motor above the board and hide it in the hut which was almost in the right place... so rip up the hut and the surrounding cobbles....

 



Install the new motor on its base, reinstate the hut and the surrounding ground cover etc.

 



Sounds simple and in fact it was pretty much although it took most of a day off.

 

As the exhibition is at Bala where the Hunslet is king I thought it would be good to get my two functional and tarted up. Gloria is my Chivers/Minitrains bash which I hadn't finished - but nearly. With a couple of evenings work on the paint and the detailing here she was, a bit shiny but pretty good looking.

 

The chassis ran beautifully as Minitrains chassis tend to so all it needed was the cylinders painting the same colour as the body. As the body is spray painted I squirted some of the Halfords paint into a lid and brushed it onto the cylinders. Lovely. Only I had managed to get some on one of the slide bars but not notice which locked the mechanism solid. Once the paint was dry I put the loco on the test track: nothing. Prod, prod - curl of smoke from the cab. Much swearing. Knackered motor. More swearing some beer and annoyedness.

 



Pretty but useless

 

Having lain awake beating myself up for being a twat I thought a short term answer would be to use the motor from the chassis waiting for the completion of my NP Hudswell Clarke. After more fiddling about I swapped the motors over and cleaned up the paint from where it didn't ought to be and eventually all was well, she now runs nicely and looks good too. After the show I will weather her and dull her down but for now shiny is fine.

 



Functional at last

 

Also looking better for a tart up is my Brian Madge Britomart. I still think I can get it to run better having seen lots of his other locos running smooth as you like. watch this space.

 

The terrible twins (not identical)

 

Oberon's name plates arrived too. Nice loco.

 

If you are at all curious as to the origins of the name Gloria I would point you towards the movie, Brassed Off. An excellent film and still in my top ten movies.

 

The whole thing



 



Comings and goings

Hello again. It has been a while since I've posted on here as I've been very busy in the 'real' world. Some of this busyness has been unpleasant and upsetting but on the other hand some has been just busy doing not railway modelling things... oh, and work too.

I've recently made a few decisions about my layouts, firstly that there are too many. This and a lack of storage space for the expanding 'Underhill', have sadly made me decide that the stalled and unsatisfactory and unfinished layout in the garage must go.

Track which had been laid but not ballasted was removed for future use.

Timber which could be salvaged was stored but these bits were beyond hope.

Suddenly there was a big space at one end of the garage.

A bonfire was the answer.

 

I still have a large amount of demolition to do but have made a start removing buildings and anything else which can find a home on future layouts. It did make me a little sad but in all honesty I had lost interest in this layout as I had made several errors which were going to bug me even if I did finish it so being able to concentrate my time and efforts on 'Underhill' can only be good.

 

Talking of 'Underhill', I have finally found time to finish off the trackwork and wiring of the luxury fiddle yard.

 

I started work during the day on last Thursday which was election day in sunny wales so I then worked on into the evening/night while keeping half an ear and eye on the tv coverage.

 

Each siding is split into sections.

 



The sections are simply isolated with a switch mounted next to the rail break.

The electrics a simply chained over from the scenic board with a short multiway cable.

Having finished work at about 3.30am I did a quick text with a couple of locos.

 

However, it seemed sensible to see how the new facility worked with a running session.

 

The good news is that after some extensive testing (playing trains) everything was found to work very well. Points are manually operated and no extra wiring has been installed as I wanted to keep everything a simple as possible. Maybe this will need to be thought about after a weekend of exhibition running.

 

The next development is the reconstruction of the Underhill end of the line. Plan A is to add another board at right angles to the current final one and have the line curve round into a larger station facility snuggled in amongst the town with the valley rising on either side of the station. The idea being that it is viewed from the short end of the baseboard as if you were standing on a hill above the town and so getting an end on view of the station rather than the usual sideways on one. It will be made so that you can go round the corner and look at the station that way too but if the layout fits into an exhibition without space for that it wouldn't matter.

 

In other news I've been up to the usual building more locos malarkey and have finished another CWR/Minitrains Fletcher Jennings loco but this time with a full cab, I think it looks great and is just awaiting plates to arrive to complete it.

 

Titania on the Left joined by Oberon without plates as yet.

 

In addition to Oberon I am in the process of completing a Narrow Planet Hudswell Clarke which looks very nice and is destined to be the loco of choice for my SR set of PECO L&B coaches. I may even go the whole hog and plaster SOUTHERN down the tanks.

 

Again I've gone for the full cab variation and added a brass dome and safety valves.

 



 

Most recent on the lap tray is a blatant rip off of the Chivers Cackler with Minitrains F&C chassis idea. I think this is going to be a favourite loco once it's finished.

 

Evening shadows fall across the Cheese factory.



Fiddling while something something

Today I tackled laying the track on the new fiddle yard. I don't especially enjoy track laying but it seemed to go well and as it doesn't have to look great it came out quite well.

The old fiddle cupboard with track removed.

PCB sleepers Araldited for the baseboard join.

Progress being made

Track laying complete

I finished the track laying and now all that remains is to wire it up. The points will be manually controlled at least at first. I may add motors later but I suspect it won't be necessary. The isolating sections will have a switch mounted alongside them to keep wiring to a minimum and make it simple to understand. The only slightly tricky bit is the join between the baseboards, I think I have a locking 4 pin XLR connector which should do the trick.

I revamped the lighthouse too