Iain Robinson - Modelmaking

The Concrete and the Clay...

2012-01-04T18:37:00.000Z

A different view of my "Tetford Quay" model, styrene stone in evidence.

Apologies for going on yet again about stonework. I covered the subject back in this blog about two years ago, but on reflection, I don't think I described things well enough.

The photo above shows why I don't like proprietary stone plastic sheet. It's pretty bland, although some people get superb results with it, have a look at Geoff Forster's superb Penhydd station building, also featured in MRJ 211. The Wills stuff is nice, but the pattern repeats very obviously and it's easy to spot. However, all this is only my humble opinion, feel very free to disagree with me!

I first tried doing stonework with Polyfilla on card, then later on plastikard. The results were OK, even on plastikard (I used 0.040 sheet), but it was difficult to scribe, resisting the scriber and giving me aching wrists. I then moved on to Pyruma after reading some of Allan Downes's excellent articles. This did mean baking the sides of the structures in the oven for a (very anxious) half hour, but the results were worth it. Only trouble was, the clay had to be scribed wet...it dries so hard that any re-modelling is out of the question.

The wet Pyruma clay is best attacked with a Stanley knife blade, repeatedly in a vertical motion, keeping the flat, sharp base of the blade parallel with the work piece.If the marks are all roughly horizontal, that will be fine. Then stab with the tip of the blade, to make vertical course lines. The barn below was done this way. I was working to a budget; the customer wasn't paying for my spending hours carving each stone, but it works well enough.

My partner, Petra, has spent time carving stonework out of the wet clay and of course it looks excellent- best done with an exacto knife ground down to a square tip. There's a photo on the previous post. You can also use a clay stamp, although the results are a bit hit and miss. This is also described on the previous post.

The Das method...those quoins were added later, and they look pretty clumsy now.

I seem to have settled on the scribed Das method now, for various reasons. It's forgiving, easy to carve, and it doesn't have to be baked. It only really works on something porous, like thick card, and the card does have to be treated with wood glue for it to adhere, and to stop it warping the card. However, if you use a small hand scriber, like a ground down screwdriver, sharpened to a point, scribing is easy, if a little mind-numbing. You can work it wet, and I have achieved passable results with a stamp, but I prefer working with it when it has dried. I scribe carefully and gently, going over the lines two or three times, and taking regular breaks!

I promise not to go on any more now...until I start painting the office model on the bench, anyway!

My original Stonework Post here

The stonework...and a 30 year flight of fancy...

2012-01-03T21:24:00.001Z

I've almost finished scribing the stonework. I did do other things concurrently....five minutes scribing, followed by ten minutes drawing something for an article. I'm still a little cross-eyed, though. The structure sides dried out well, although have still shown a tendency to warp ever so slightly whilst being worked- despite coating both sides with Resin W. I have not had this problem before- probably due to the type of card, as I normally use Daler mounting board.. I'lll brace them well at the assembly stage.

I made a couple of mistakes with the runs on the stonework...this is snecked stone, i.e. big stones with smaller "nib" or "snecks" between...and I inadvertently made a few vertical courses above each other. No matter, I can smooth a touch of Das over the offending line, wait for it to dry and then scribe it again.

Talking about going cross-eyed, I spotted this amazing model, sorry, "kinetic sculpture", by a guy called Scott Weaver. It's called Rolling through the Bay, and apparently he continues to modify and expand on it even today. The elaborate sculpture is comprised of multiple “tours” that move pingpong balls through neighbourhoods, historical locations, and iconic symbols of San Francisco, all recreated with a little glue, some toothpicks, and an incredible amount of ingenuity.

Via his website Weaver estimates he’s spent over 3,000 hours on the project, and the toothpicks have been sourced from around the world:

"I have used different brands of toothpicks depending on what I am building. I also have many friends and family members that collect toothpicks in their travels for me. For example, some of the trees in Golden Gate Park are made from toothpicks from Kenya, Morocco, Spain, West Germany and Italy. The heart inside the Palace of Fine Arts is made out of toothpicks people threw at our wedding."

Very impressive. My old Dad used to make ships from matchsticks, and as a young lad, I thought those were awesome. Until one day when he had done something to annoy my Mum, and she burnt all five of them on a bonfire in the back garden. Something about the look of fiendish delight in my Mum's face stays with me to this day. I scuttled up to my model railway room when Dad came home from work, thinking it wise to leave the scene...

Scott Weaver's web site here.

These Four Walls...

2011-12-31T17:57:00.003Z

I've started the next job, which is a version of Darvill's Yard- I've been asked to make another, in 4mm/ft again. As usual, I made a drawing of the structure to size in Adobe Illustrator, after sketching it out roughly in my doodle pad. It's going to be a little more ornate than the last one. Of course, Corel Draw, or any other drawing package will do. Just make sure to specify the line thickness at something like "hairline" or 0.75, as otherwise I find that I have too much leeway for placing the ruler and knife.

I usually fix the drawing to the styrene to use as an absolute guide to cutting out, but this time the medium for the walls was good quality 2mm display board. My instructions are to make the walls stone finish and I don't like any of the stone embossed material available from the trade. Which means I will be employing the dreaded scribed modelling clay method, my bloodshot eyes gazing mindlessly into the distance as the hours go by and I scribe my finger yet again...

Anyway, the printouts went on, aided by a coating of Pritt Stick. Next was a coating of Resin W on both sides of the card, which was then left to dry for an hour or so.This stops the walls from warping when the clay is introduced. I found that one out the hard way, a long time ago! When set, another coat of the glue was applied to one of the walls, and a thin layer of "Das" modelling clay laid over, smoothing with a wallpaper seam roller. This is very satisfying, as you can trim the surplus off the edges like a cookie cutter. Now I have to be patient, as the clay will take at least two days to dry out.

In the meantime, I've been primer painting the Foden. This is the livery I have chosen...well, a very simplified version!

A new truck for Christmas...

2011-12-28T18:49:00.000Z

Santa, in the form of my father-in-law, brought me a nice Foden kit, seen here under construction. The last time I built a model Foden, it was the Langley version, which is now doing service at Dolgelley (sic) on Geoff Taylor's layout. This one is a Springside model and goes together very well. I haven't painted it yet, although I've remembered to leave the cab roof off so that the interior can be sorted out.

I've also got a couple of new projects in the pipeline. While I get these things moving, here are some views of Tetford Station, a 4mm/ft model I made for a customer a few years ago. It was featured in the Railway Modeller, but their repro imp played a little bit with the photos, making them slightly bland and pastel-looking.

The structure was made from embossed styrene in the time honoured manner and was more-or-less freelance, although owed something, I like to think, to GWR practice. I coloured the bricks by painting them cream, then going over with a conte crayon (Venetian Red and chocolate) and a light drybrush. The keen eye will note extensive use of the excellent Ratio quoins. These photos were made by Petra in available light in our little studio, although I have used Bill's portable backscene in a couple of them.

There was a drawing to go with the article- I have put that up on my new Doodle Blog, called "InkWell", where I will publish my random sketches and illustrations, many of which are to do with modelmaking, plus other rather more odd stuff.

The Completed Garage

2011-12-23T18:51:00.001Z

I finished the garage today. I had a list of last minute things to remember, like a phone insulator on the wall, and the underground holding tanks for fuel at the front. I have a worrying suspicion those should have breather pipes, but hey, it's the fifties. Health and safety was a while off. My last job on the model was distressing the road surface and patching with "tar" in the form of pre-coloured bits of thin paper. Playing back my memories of the garage near where I lived as a boy, I noted a badly cracked concrete forecourt; with tarmac leading up to the (then) newly installed electric pumps, so that had to go in.

The backscene is one that my father-in-law made as a background for photography.

If I can find one in my figures box, I will install a fox in the shrubbery at the rear of the workshop. An old Speckled Hen wouldn't be out of place in the workshop, either.

Finally, have a very Merry Christmas everyone, and thank you for reading my blog. I hope you all have a great year's modelmaking ahead.

Forecourt Fancies- and more stuff from the lost folder!

2011-12-21T18:10:00.000Z

About three times life-size. Now I can see lots of places I need to file and smooth!

I've almost completed the garage project. But when I went to add the three pumps, from an old Gem whitemetal kit, I found that they were more suited to 3mm scale than 4mm. After a bit of headscratching, I decided to carve them out of styrene. You can see from the comparison just how out of scale the pumps were - I found a photograph of the Avery Hardoll pump with someone standing next to it-and these things are taller than I thought. The globes are slightly too big- compared to the GEM one, which is way too small, it looks rather too well-nourished, but when offered up to the forecourt, all looks believable. At least to someone with my tenuous grip on reality anyway.

Carving the globe from styrene.

They need a coat of paint now, and the application of decals. I can't begin to tell you what a fiddle the pipes were. I should have made them out of cored solder, which bends easily; but I didn't have any. So I ended up making the pipes from brass wire. Not recommended!

As promised, I have posted a couple of old drawings from the pages of the Railway Modeller mag of 1980, and one from the ill-fated "Scale Trains" magazine, from '82, I think.

The photo is of a western-inspired model for a customer's layout, again from the time capsule folder. This was made almost exclusively from wood veneer and is to HO scale, inspired by a model I'd seen in "Model Railroad Craftsman" magazine. It was by E.L. Moore, an elderly modeller who made amazing structures from a tiny and very cluttered corner of his home. Thanks to J D Lowe on his blog here for reminding me of this gentleman. I think the original was called "The 8 Ball Loco Works".

Not long to go now and I'll be able to post the completed garage photos, but I'll need to clean up all those snipped off bits of brass wire!

The drawing from "Darvill's Yard"

Progress on the garage...

2011-12-15T20:14:00.003Z

Don't forget the roof lights... Lots more finishing and detailing to be done yet. And I need to get those pumps level!

The walls are together and the roof is on now. Soon it will be time for the external detailing, one of my favourite parts of model building. However, first, I had to install a car inside the workshop, preferably being "worked on", so that the place wouldn't look lifeless.

I dug out an old Malvern Models Ford from my scrapbox... I had made some masters for the firm, back in the hazy summers of youth and therein lies a specially nice thing. I worked on a series of masters for castings like vegetable crates and pallets, the sort of things that Harburn Hobbies do so well nowadays. Well, one of my jobs was modelling a pile of bricks...boy, that took me forever and I made very little out of it. However, I was rather blown away to notice one of my old brick castings on the Pendon layout a while ago...(glows with pride)!

Anyway, the van was excavated from the scrapbox and the bonnet area hacked off with the Dremel. An "engine" was installed, made up of offcuts of styrene and painted rust, like the Fiat Panda I once owned. The bonnet itself was made from a bit of header card. The figure is a familiar one, a Monty's Models stalwart, with just the right degree of disdain for this job, I think.

The roofs were installed next, from the Finecast galvo, which behaved itself this time. Now I have to install a variety of pumps, as my customer wants two old Bowser types by the doors and a couple of Avery Hardoll 1950's jobs on the forecourt. I never thought they would be so much work! Two are from the Scale Link range, and are excellent. The others are Gem examples, and require a fair bit of fiddling to look the part. I'm getting there, though, and all will be revealed soon.

Relics from the dim and distant...

2011-12-12T18:09:00.000Z

We had a big tidy-out in the studio yesterday. Files of very old tax records, invoices and copies of work. Six black bags full, shredded and ready to go to recycling. What a lot of room we now have! The best thing, however, was that Petra found an old folder that I thought had been lost, full of old photos and articles by yours truly.
I thought I'd put a couple on here. They date from the late seventies...gulp...when I was starting out modelmaking professionally, making mock-ups of stereo units, set designs and working for a group of wonderful guys who paid me to come up with stuff for them.

The first two 4mm structures were made for a gentleman who was no slouch at modelling himself, but lacked time to develop the scenic side of his layout. They look a little clumsy now, but I remember being pleased with them at the time. The roofs were made from individual chads, salvaged by my customer from a printer who made calendars...these were the holes where the wires went through! I don't know what happened to these models, but I hope they are still about somewhere.

The next photo is from Wallingford, a 4mm scale model for a customer in Sweden. Quite a job, sending that through the post! It took a while to build, as the period was just after the great war, entailing a little research. Paul Karau's seminal book, " Great Western Branch Termini" had just come out, which was a great help and an inspiration. Construction here was mostly styrene, and the model was featured in the Railway Modeller magazine.

The signal box was another 4mm model, a tiny thing, fully internally detailed and illuminated. I don't remember where it went, but do remember carving that ventilator from obechi wood. It was based on a NE prototype...don't ask me where, though! The whole model took a week to make...the law of diminishing returns came into play- the more detail I added, the longer things took and the less anyone noticed the work I'd put in. But I enjoyed it.

There have been a few other discoveries in the lost folder- some constructional drawings that have never seen the light of blog and more photos- I will post them soon, if you are not already bored looking at this old stuff!

Cutting Styrene again...

2011-12-11T20:19:00.001Z

Yes, for the first time in 12 months, I'm making a model. I was asked to build another 4mm garage, similar to one I built a couple of years ago- although this one is going to be different in several respects.

The basic construction is .030" styrene, covered with Wills corrugated sheet. I'm not a fan of this stuff, it's so hard to cut and goes "off" in storage, but...I did build a side of the structure using the South Eastern Finecast sheet. It's much thinner, so it was possible to cut scale length sections and join them as on the prototype. Except that it looked too thick and clumsy; not very believable. I shouldn't have overlapped them side by side...that was a mistake. I'll maybe try the Finecast again for the roof, where the relief is extra-important.

So I rolled out the Wills again, and it does make a very tight looking job, even if I blunted several stanley blades to get there. I cut out a counterpart interior wall from Slater's embossed planking, attended to some essential doo-dad's like skirting boards and eaves boards, then painted everything before assembling the windows. This was an initial weathering job, as once the model is together, there will be more touching up of paintwork and a final weathering coat to allow for drips and rust from gutters and windows...that's the plan, anyway. The windows, by the way, are from Geoff Taylor's excellent range of etchings.

Mucky lot, these mechanics! The interior walls.

I mixed up a special batch of acrylic paint for the job and added darker hues here and there. Weathering powders were sprinkled on while the walls were wet, then areas of rust added with a fine brush. I must be one of the only people using acrylics, but they suit me, and with a little care can give a lovely finish. Not the thing for a brass loco, of course, but perfect for this job.

I've got some nice bits from the scrapbox to put on the finished model, including a lathe from the old "Allied Marine" layout, a favourite rocker from the locker as far as I'm concerned! It's interesting, what spurs us on to finish something. On this job, I'm thinking about the corrugated iron weathering, how I can do it as well as I possibly can...and the little details I'm going to put on. I'd forgotten how much fun this hobby is!

That lathe....a try-for-size shot. Note the girlie calendars...not PC, but this is the fifties!

GWR Nocturne

2011-12-06T20:10:00.001Z

I was browsing Chris Nevard's excellent blog today and came across this post. He'd reworked a photo to give a moonlit feel- and very effective it is, too. It reminded me of something I'd done a while back with a photo of my Tetford model, where the lighting was too dark to be useable- and it was a bit out of focus, too, except in the middle field. It took a good deal of fiddling in Photoshop, but the result is a bit of fun.

Back on the Rails...

2011-12-03T21:40:00.001Z

Yes, I'm making models again. I've been tempted out of my early retirement by a very nice gentleman who wants a slightly different version of one of my previous projects. It's for a 4mm layout, and I made a start on it last week. I'll not say too much at the moment, as it's early days, but I will post some photos when things are beginning to gel into something recognisable.

In the meantime, here are a couple of photos taken on my father-in-law's Watlington layout. The old warhorse is 83 now and shows little sign of slowing down. Recently he's been making some 2mm sailing ships and a 4mm scale model of Stokesay castle, which I will feature here soon.

Smoke and skies courtesy of Photoshop.

A New Title from Wild Swan

2010-12-04T22:34:00.000Z

It will come as no surprise to the long-suffering readers of this blog that Geoff Taylor is a modelmaker whom I respect and admire. While his work ticks all the relevant boxes such as accuracy, fidelity to prototype and craftsmanship, models from his bench also possess an uncanny quality of place and atmosphere. With the release of this book by Wild Swan, those of us who want to learn from the master only need to make a careful study of the pages of this book. It's not a chore either, as almost all the photos are in full colour and are sharply photographed. Enough to bring on a bout of structure modelling, I reckon.

The book is available from all good booksellers and from Geoff direct at his web site, where there are more details.

GT Models web site

Featured Modelmaker: Michael Paul Smith

2010-04-17T15:02:00.004+01:00

'55 Oldsmobile with Bungalow.

One of the joys of the internet is that if, like me, you are an inquisitive and nosy sort, your cyber wanderings turn up the most wonderful things. I noticed a photograph on Flickr that looked like an American suburban street, with some gorgeous cars parked up. “I’ll have a look at that” I thought. Of course when I opened it up, I discovered to my great surprise that it was a 1/24th scale model. The next hour (a nominal estimate!) was spent very enjoyably trawling Michael Paul Smith’s fascinating photostream...

Michael has recently had several accolades about his models. He was featured on the very highbrow and wonderful “Lines and Colours” art blog. “Classic and Sports Car”magazine wrote a piece about his models, then in February this year, the Times newspaper called him “America’s Top Modeller”.

So let’s have a look at Michael and his work and find out why the “Thunderer” waxed so lyrical about him. Well, he’s one of those all-round talented chaps, an accomplished illustrator and artist who has done time in architectural modelling workshops. He’s also a very friendly, modest and helpful sort, as most really talented people are.

Sunday in March 1953

Michael started out making model cars. For his 12th birthday, he was given an AMT Chevy Impala kit. He says it “Started me on the slippery slope of model building and collecting”...I’m sure I know what he means there! He’d been playing around with model structures made from card, and after a while, the inevitable happened, and Michael started building scenes for the cars to inhabit. The whole thing seems to have taken on a life of it’s own now, as many projects do.

The actual modelmaking is precise, sharp and clean, as you would expect from such a competent worker. The basic construction of the model buildings is nothing unusual. Gator board, (two sheets of resin coated paper with a thin foam centre, also known here as Kappa), styrene, paper, basswood and the usual found objects and scrapbox trawlings. At the scale of 1/24th, any mistakes or compromises become all-too evident. But for me, what makes the scenes stand out is the attention to atmosphere.
There’s a lot of clean, precise and believable detail, but not too much. I’ll let Michael tell his own story here:
“...the brain / eye / emotions will fill in the details, even when there is the most minimum amount of information available. You can also have too much information; when that happens, you end up with a literal representation of something and very little room for personal interpretation.
The more the viewer can project themselves into something, the more powerful it becomes. For myself, it’s all about focussing on the mood and the emotional gesture.”

As with a model railway layout, homogeneity is important. Michael says that he takes great care not to let the “cars become the stars”, rather he builds a story around the whole scene, leaving space for the viewer to invest into the whole picture. I should say, of course, that the photography is of a very high standard- the more incredible, then, that Michaels' camera is a cheap $75 point and shoot number.

There are no people in the photos. I do often feel that clumsy figures in a photograph completely destroy the suspension of disbelief...we want to disappear into this little model world, without having to make allowances for misshapen lumps of whitemetal or plastic purporting to be people, even at 1/24th scale. But there is another reason. Michael feels they are a distraction from the hope that the viewer will place him or herself in the frame. “When this happens, you start to place your own thoughts into the picture and it becomes more personal. Memories or stories you've heard over the years, begin to fill in the blanks. It all becomes dreamlike. And that's when the fun begins.”

Yes indeed.

The Family's New '55

Link to Michaels' Flickr stream

Pug Ugly

2010-03-30T08:57:00.003+01:00

I was reading Neil Rushby's excellent blog (here) and enjoyed his post about pug bashing, and the super model he has made.

Back in the seventies it seemed like hardly a month went by without an article by dear old Michael Andress about converting a pug into a crane tank, a narrow gauge loco or an A3 Pacific. (I made that last one up).

I am guilty of a bit of Pug abuse myself, as witnessed by these alarming photographs. What started out innocently enough as an Airfix Pug was joined by a smokebox from an old Mainline J72 and a Dome from a Sutherland Small Ben. I wasn't audacious enough to motorise it (anyone remember the "Anita" motorising kits? ) so I pretended it was being worked on at the shed. Reading Neil's blog, maybe I will have a go...

Don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello...

2010-03-09T12:51:00.001Z

That’s it. My professional modelmaking days are over. After building countless models of oil rigs, offshore platforms, houses, offices, stations, signal boxes, landscapes, mock-ups of hi-fi systems, children’s games, advertising stage sets and theatre sets, I have finished.

Perhaps now I will get on with my own pet modelmaking projects. The writing and graphics part of my work has been taking over for some time, so last month I bowed to the inevitable.

I’d like to say a heartfelt “thankyou” to the many (mostly) wonderful customers who, over the years, made it possible for me to make a great hobby into my everyday, bread and butter work. I’ve been incredibly lucky and privileged to meet some super folk along the way.

I will, of course, be continuing the blog. I will be showcasing modellers that I admire and coming up with some of my own stuff, likely to be industrial and Hunslet based....watch this space, as they say!

Footbridge Finish

2010-02-26T17:01:00.004Z

I finally managed to assemble the footbridge this week. The supports were tricky, being made from two angled H section girders, strengthened by lattice. A jig was called for. I eventually made the lattice from card, glueing with resin W. This assembly was then joined to the girders with Evo-Stik impact. The supports will be attached to the bridge when on my customer's layout.

Another little thing which took a great deal of time ...the lights for the platform canopies. I tried purchasing Dart Castings' lamps, but although they were very nice, they weren't right. My partner, Petra, came up with the answer. She even spent the next day and a half making them for me! Press-studs were drilled with a hole in the centre to accept a length of brass wire- this would be the bit that the lamp hangs from. Milliput was then fashioned into a rather fetching dome shape for the actual glass cover. Top marks for consistency there. This was painted silver, everything else being GWR stone.

Finally, the whole project was packed up. This took another day, as special boxes had to be fashioned and braced with much cursing and use of the trusty glue-gun. Now I am on tenterhooks, waiting to hear that everything arrived safely!

Footbridge Fancies

2010-02-21T21:08:00.003Z

I finished the footbridge for the 4mm scale Risborough project today. I haven't fixed it to the platforms, as it will be travelling to my customer's layout, where everything will be bedded down in situ. I will take some photos of the whole ensemble shortly, but for now, here is a photo of the steps.

The dimensions had to be guessed from photos...not easy, but I kept in mind some basic sizes, such as the height from the rails, minus the platform height...nominal heights of stair risers, etc. I got there in the end, but it is amazing how much you miss when estimating from photos. I drew the whole thing out in Adobe Illustrator, at which point I noticed a couple of things that I had forgotten to include, such as exactly where the little door goes on the track side of the stairs. A drawing does at least help you to understand the job.

The steps were made from card, as was almost all the footbridge, only the span itself being braced with brass. A fiddly, but satisfying job!

City of Truro- flawed beauty?

2010-02-13T11:03:00.005Z

This beautiful photo from Chris P's photostream on Flickr...here

There is no doubt that the new NRM release of City of Truro is a spectacularly lovely model. I couldn't hand build one as good as that, and certainly not to that price. So it's rather tragic that the two stunning examples of the Bachmann model that I have seen didn't actually work. I'm sure that most of the locos sold by the NRM work well, after all, there's a proud "Q.A." sticker on the box, isn't there?

My father-in-law purchased one from the NRM recently. After we had stood around in amazement, gazing at the wondrous thing, he put it on the layout, expecting the loco to move silkily away. Sadly, it stuttered ominously, buzzed and suddenly moved off, only to stop a few centimetres later. I should say that Bill has a sizeable stud of Bachmann locos that all run beautifully, so it's not his controller, or his track. After a couple of hours of running in on the rolling road, things were worse. So he contacted the NRM, who were very apologetic, offering him a full refund. However, Bill is 81, and is a little impatient, so he immediately ordered another one. He couldn't wait while the first one was returned and refunded.

The NRM did indeed send another immediately- top service. But this one was even worse, running in a series of scary lunges and refusing to work well enough even to "run in". So, the old boy has given up any thought of having the City of Truro, and has decided to wait for the promised "Castle" to be released. I just hope that runs properly...and that he lives long enough to see it.

But, back to the "City". I am sure there must be examples of this superb model out there that run well, I guess Bill has been unlucky. The NRM have been fine, doing all that could be asked of them. But what about that "Q.A." sticker? It's less than worthless.

Yours is smaller than mine...

2010-01-12T10:57:00.006Z

I found this amazing video while reading David K Smith's excellent blog. What do you think? The model is quite something, and if you follow the other links on his YouTube page there are other amazing things.

More astonishing than the model are the comments from some other YouTube users. A cornucopia of ignorance and intolerance that makes me slightly ashamed. No wonder us railway modellers get a bad press.

The doubters don't even seem to be able to grasp the basic concept of a "model of a model".

David made this model for the hell of it, because he is a superb craftsman and has certainly forgotten more about modelling than I'll ever know. His commenters get involved in debates about whether it is even a train, doesn't qualify as a model railway...and when stumped for words, just type in "dumbass".

Criticising other peoples' work because it's not your bag, because the wheels aren't P4, because it's not run like a real railway- it's all cowardly behaviour. Tribal cage rattling, that is best left to the monkey enclosure at the zoo. Sorry to be so dogmatic, (and monkeyist) but that's the way that I feel. If other peoples' work makes you feel insecure then we're in the three ring circus of intolerance, a bitter world where all the fun gets sucked out of this wonderful hobby.

Equally entertaining, though, are David's patient but firm replies to the misguided folk. Thank goodness, too, that on his video produced for the doubters, there are many supportive comments. Perhaps there's hope for us yet.

David K Smith's blog is here

Gotham atmosphere, RTR style!

2009-12-31T11:35:00.005Z

There are a lot of amazing modellers over the pond, in the big ol' US of A. As Trainspotter USA noted in his blog here, the US magazines sometimes have a strange idea of finescale, notably a blind spot concerning track standards. There again, we Brits do rather obsess about stuff like that, as a glance at the pages of that excellent comic, the MRJ, will prove.

But, if I want to raise my scenic game, I'll go and riffle through my stack of old Model Railroaders and Model Railroad Craftsmen...and that takes me nicely on to the subject of this post. A person I encountered on Flickr who calls himself "subwayfx" , who makes no claims about his modelling other than that he is (obviously) having a lot of fun. He uses proprietary items to make up dioramas (and a large and impressive layout) with no pretence other than losing himself in the enjoyment of it.

When I first saw his modelling, I thought it was intriguing and fun, and was aware of being taken back to the days of Starsky and Hutch, when yours truly sported flares and cool shades, not to mention a wild haircut. I enjoy his photos because through his honesty and sense of fun, he has captured something special. Incidentally, there's more than enough inspirational modelling on Flickr, from most countries of the globe. It's a humbling experience browsing the many galleries.

So here are a few photos of Frank's excellent work, some of which really do it for me. Not a rivet or finescale crossing in sight!

subwayfx photostream

Taking Stock

2009-12-15T16:37:00.006Z

A 4mm/ft cottage built mainly from Das and Pecoscene clay on a card framework.

I was tidying out my work cupboard and found an old folder I'd forgotten about for many years. As you do in this situation, I stopped tidying and started looking at the photos it contained. They brought back some memories, as some of the photos were of models I'd built during my first years of modelmaking for a living.

One of my first customers was a very nice chap who commissioned quite a few structures from me. He was a modeller himself and has since become a very talented structure and scenery builder. I seem to recall one of his projects appearing in the MRJ a few years ago. I liked the jobs he gave me because I was given pretty much a free hand. Like me, he loved the rural scene, and commissioned me to make him some cottages and a village pub. The pub was made with styrene thatch, melted with solvent and chopped on the roof with a knife. Great fun.

The colour photo is the only one I have of a little "OO" ex HR Dornoch tankie I made for a retired army gentleman who had a vast Highland layout in a shed. I think the loco was from a Jidenco kit, could be wrong, it's a long time ago. Not so much a kit, more an exercise in scratchbuilding, but fun to build. It was finished in Precision Paints LMS Crimson as per his orders, but looks a little bright here. For a 4-4-0 it ran beautifully, but I had been reading the Guy Williams book, followed by the Rice articles in "Model Railways". I built scores of models for this very kindly, softly spoken and unassuming man, only later discovering from an acquaintance that he had been a top brass general in several major theatres of war...

This leads me to something that Phil Parker mentioned in his excellent blog (here) ... the good General wasn't particularly fussy about his scenery; so long as it looked vaguely right, Superquick and Bilteezi would do. Todays Metcalfe stuff would be a little too detailed for him. Locos were a different matter, of course. But one day the general arrived with a pile of Superquick Police station kits and a box of Airfix canopies that he wanted me to model into a station for him. Inwardly I turned up my nose, but money's money, so I got to work on this mega kitbash. I can't recall having so much fun and being paid for it before or since!

As Phil says on his blog, it's good to lighten up every once in a while and enjoy yourself.

Featured Modelmaker: Hywel Thomas

2009-11-30T16:02:00.007Z

I first saw the work of Hywel Thomas in the pages of the Model Railway Journal (issue 186). I soaked up the layout's atmosphere of dereliction and grubby industrial reality and was hooked. Now, I know that some modellers like to create a halcyon scene from their sun-drenched, brunswick green childhood and hey, there's nothing wrong with that. In my case, however, the formative bits were wandering round gasworks, railway sidings and docks, and my sun-drenched days were often spent in locations like John Summers steelworks, pre-Health and Safety.

I suspect Hywel's story is similar, as he has mentioned visiting Barry scrapyard and being driven through the docks, fascinated by the tangled tracks and levels, hemmed in by buildings. As will be seen from the latest MRJ, he is also a connoisseur of wagonry, but here we will concentrate on his considerable scenic and structural modelling skills.

Hywel very kindly let me have a selection of photographs taken on Morfa Bank that I hadn't seen before, showing areas of the layout in more detail. What strikes me in all of them is the level and consistency of detail, not too much, yet more than enough to intrigue and provide a sense of life in the scene. The colouring, too, is applied in a masterly way. Well considered tones, observed from the real thing and subtly desaturated to give the effect of distance and fragility. A far cry from the "pastel" look that seems to pervade many layouts. Add a sure and confident modelling style and the result is an inspirational work. You won't see a King in full cry with a rake of Ocean Mails here, but the potterings of the various shunters will seem equally as fascinating.

The scrapyard scene: It might seem easy to make a scrapyard, just pile a load of old bits and bobs together and paint them rusty, right? Well, I tried that, and it didn't work. I reckon that this has taken a heck of a while, and not an Airfix sprue in sight! I like the shipbreakers scene, with scrap shears compressor unit in the background.

I love the air of neglect and dereliction here. The various walling types and the feeling of layers of industrial archaeology make it a fascinating scene. Plenty of road surfaces like that around any dock area, too.

A familiar industrial scene with forgotten piles of scrap and half junked cars.Looks like they are about to get a visitor...

Risboro' Progress report...

2009-11-12T17:45:00.007Z

The background here is the goods yard of Bill Brown's Watlington layout, which lives next door to our little studio.

Jam was kind enough to say (in response to a recent post here) that my mistakes made for a better model...eventually. Well, I made enough on this one.

I was commissioned to make the buildings for Risboro' quite a while ago- and I thought I was nearly finished. When my very patient customer saw the progress photos he was pleased with the results, but a friend of his spotted something. The footings to the walls were wrong. I had made a soldier course, whereas on the prototype they were half round. Not a disaster, quoth I blithely to said customer. Fix that? no problem!

But when I came to fix the course, it brought off the rest of the brickpaper on the wall, no matter how careful I was. I sat there looking at the model and began to realise certain things had been nagging away at my subconscious for a while. The window openings perhaps weren't as good as they could be. The roof line wasn't as tidy as it should have been. The gutters were a bit of a

compromise...and so on. At least I didn't attack it with a mallet, like the famous Caley Single.

After the building was disassembled, there was little left usable except the windows and lintels, so I shut the studio door that night and slept on the problem. The next morning I realised that I was keen to get on with the new building, and this time it would be as good as I could possibly manage. Although it was a disaster for me in that I couldn't charge for my mistake, I can't turn out a substandard model, and a satisfied customer is worth two in the bush...or something like that.

The new walls were cut out from 60 thou white styrene after drawing up on the computer and pasting the elevations onto the styrene. I used the Dremel with a router style attachment...difficult at first, but the skill soon develops after a few ruined sheets of plastic. A lot easier than cutting out the openings with a knife, I can tell you. Construction proceeded carefully with the brickpaper being applied and varnished, and each elevation worked on flat, with every possible detail being applied before the sides were assembled together. This required some patience as I am that impetuous sort that likes to get everything together immediately.

But then, this was the third time I had made these walls, since the first time I'd used styrene too thin, bracing with further 40 thou but to no avail, as warpage set quickly in. How long have I been a professional modelmaker? 30 years and I still hadn't learned. The second time I had used 2mm card, which was fine, but the window openings were not as sharp as I'd wanted. Too bad I forgot about the footings! This time I made a fully detailed interior as a back layer to the wall, seen in the photos.

Surprisingly, the mitred walls went together perfectly. In fact there were no more problems, perhaps because I had made all the mistakes possible on this project- my score card was full! I'll let the pictures tell the story and you can make your own mind up. Do you think my footings look big in this....?

I cheated here- I put the tracks in with Photoshop. They are from a photo of the real Risboro, although too rationalised for the chosen period, 1947-48.

The new footings...

More Trumpet Blowing

2009-10-26T14:25:00.005Z

Sorry folks, I did warn you that I'd be crowing when my article was printed in the MRJ... That's all. I'll shut up now.

This month's issue is a good one though, particularly the article by Hywel Thomas about sheet metal wagons in South Wales. I was knocked out by his "Morfa Bank Sidings" layout when it first appeared, the buildings are superb and the rolling stock is fascinating.

This issue's guest editor is Don Rowland, a name that will be familiar to Railway Modeller readers of a certain age...his article on "Inspirations" had me remembering the 00 gauge "North Devonshire" by Ken Northwood- what a line! Apparently the layout is still intact and is waiting to be housed in a museum. I do hope this comes to fruition, as along with several others, it was a seminal work.

We're lucky to have some of Jack Nelson's magnificent dioramas just down the road at Betws y Coed, at the Conwy Valley Museum- I hope to be doing a full post about them soon. Like other examples of historic modelmaking, these could so easily have been lost.

Wiring? Me? I don't think so...

2009-10-21T21:19:00.008+01:00

The above photo is a dramatically toned down reconstruction of the last time I tried to install wiring on a customer's layout. There were many points, to be worked by Fulgurex point motors, a mimic control panel, all sorts of sections and loops...hey, I managed to do a reasonable job, it only took me a week...to wire one point to the control panel. Then it was weekend, and by Monday I'd forgotten how I'd done it, since my head was full of other things like how much I wanted to get started on the village model waiting on the bench. In the end I had to admit that electrics are just not my thing.

I've a great deal of respect for people who can understand wiring. It takes me all my time to install interior lighting in model buildings, yet alone make up those awesome panels one sees that look like the bridge of Voyager. I'm glad, though, that the technology doesn't exist yet to replicate things as on Star Trek. Can you imagine it?

I'd be out of a job- and can you imagine Captain Kirk's layout? All those Klingon class 686 "Liberator" diesels going round and round. No, I don't mind laying track, I'll even occasionally try my hand at a loco...but wiring? No thanks.

I wish I'd had my camera...

2009-10-19T20:29:00.011+01:00

Here are a couple of rather poor photos- I'm sorry about the quality, as they were taken on a point and shoot camera I used to own quite a while ago. It had a habit of setting the flash off even on a brilliantly sunny day; wherever I went, I left a trail of dazzled, bemused people- and that was before I had the teeth done. However, I pulled them out here (the photos, I mean) because I don't have any more shots of this 4mm scale model... and I miss it. It was sold a while ago, to a good home, and I guess I could always build another, but it wouldn't be the same. I wish I'd had a decent camera back then.

It was inspired by a real building in Dorset, which as you can see above, I startled with my little camera. I incorporated this idea into a brewery scene, as that year I had been to Devizes and seen the magnificent brewery there. The model was partly featured in the Railway Modeller a year ago; I've given up waiting for the second part of the article to appear...but basically is made from card, Howard Scenics embossed card brick sheets and some Grandt Line windows.
These days, I do have a good camera, and I'm in the habit of taking photos of buildings wherever I go- I don't think they will go amiss, as inspiration can strike at any moment, although I do have to keep backing them up on to disk- then hunting them out can sometimes be a vexed business. Over the last year, I've discovered Flickr, which is the most wonderful resource for photographs of architecture. There are many fascinating photostreams full of inspiring stuff, and I spend too long exploring them when I should be modelling.

Here's a photo from a trip to Chester last year, from my photostream. It's quite an inspiring structure, with all that pseudo Norman detailing and the moorish feel going on- hopefully it will still be there now, as it is in use as a business centre. It seems that every time I see a building I like but don't have my camera, the next time I come back it has been razed to the ground to make way for spurious executive villas or a shopping mall.
One thing's for sure, even if I haven't photographed it, someone on Flickr will have. So in case you haven't already looked around Flickr, here are some of my favourites:
Awe inspiring Railway Photos: Loose_grip99
Good selection of Industrial photos: Tarboat

The Models of Mike Gill

2009-09-30T00:45:00.001+01:00

A couple of years ago, a customer asked me to refurbish some models that he had bought many years previously, from a modelmaker called Mike Gill. The name rang a bell, and I remembered a little book published in 1984 by Peco, where he outlined his techniques. There were also occasional articles in The Railway Modeller featuring Mike's work.

The models I had to refurbish were simply a delight. My customer hadn't taken care of them and they were covered in dust and damaged by careless handling, but the spirit and atmosphere of them shone out if you had a mind to see it. Petra spent a couple of hours with a brush and some watercolour paints, while I repaired where the models had been broken. Gradually, the life began to come back and I began to realise what a set of charming models we had on our hands.

Sadly, I didn't take any photos during the refurbishment, something I bitterly regret. But my customer left me these old photos of some of Mikes work. They are not very good, but you can see the delightful attention to quirky detail and charicature of the work.

I don't know much about Mike Gill, my customer spoke of visiting him and buying a batch of models for next to nothing, before he died. I think that his work deserves a little bit of a reappraisal. I've made a start, and will hopefully find out more about the man.

Apologies for the poor quality of the photos, they are scanned from some tiny prints.

The Old Loco Shed

2009-09-27T01:53:00.000+01:00

I found this photograph in a box tonight. It's of a 4mm scale model I built back in 2002, for myself. Originally, it was part of an industrial layout and was supposed to be a rather run-down operation. The walls are made from Slater's brick embossed sheet, although the end wall is from Howard Scenics card. I photographed it from the wall of my old home in Aberdeenshire. I still like the atmosphere it has, although I sold it on to a new owner who actually had spare time to build a model railway!

Cowes Signal Box

2009-09-19T14:30:00.000+01:00

I popped the photo of the model on top of one of the prototype photos.

It's not quite right, but it gives the idea of the location.

I built this little signal box a while ago- it's a favourite of mine. It was to order from a customer who was building the station to high standards in 4mm scale, and I was supplied with plenty of photographs to start on.
I measured up the photos and made a scale plan and elevations in Adobe Illustrator. Luckily one of the photos supplied was a straight, face on view, so I ported that into the program and was able to double check my measurements with the photo sized up behind the drawing.
Construction was pretty straightforward, although the interior was quite a squeeze. This was due to the walls being thicker on my model than the real thing would be scaled down ..but we're against the laws of physics here- if I made the walls to scale thickness they would be a bit too thin. I used the Wills lever kit to put the levers in and of course, the bases were too thick, so I had to make a new set...that was about the only grief, although I expect a visit from the signal box mafia about some aspect of the model being wrong. Photos of the interior show a token instrument, so one was made up from card...I was pleased with that.

The real box had a lamp on the outside which was quite tricky to make...I kept making versions that were too big or too small. Eventually I think I got it right...the lamp housing is made from paper painted with PVA and the "lamp" is a lump of Milliput.

A very enjoyable little job, which was well worth taking time and effort over. Incidentally, if you're thinking of trying to find the real signal box on the Isle of Wight, don't bother. The whole station site has been covered by the march of "progress" in the form of horrible faux toytown flats. But not in our model worlds, eh?

Geoff Taylor's buildings on Gresley Beat

2009-09-10T20:03:00.006+01:00

I was reading the last issue of the Model Railway Journal and mentioned to Geoff Taylor how much I liked his Georgian style terraces, made for the Gresley Beat layout. He was kind enough to send me some photos of the buildings and now I've had a closer look, I like them even more. You might have thought that Geoff only did atmospheric, gritty northern realism- but of course, he is a master at any style of building...as regular readers of the Journal will attest.

I like these because of two things. Firstly, one of my all-time influences was dear old Illiffe Stokes (sorry for going on about him again) and I have always remembered and loved his work on Georgian town houses and terraces. The Railway Modeller where they appeared, back in the sixties, is well thumbed now. Secondly, these buildings have a kind of Ealing Cinema feel about them, as if The Lavender Hill mob, or the Ladykillers are going to come bowling around the corner at any moment. I can hear street children playing off-shot and the distant chime of an A4 as it tackles the banks out of Kings Cross.

The modelmaking is clean and precise as it might well be from such a skilled professional, but it's that added ingredient that does it for me...atmosphere, again.

There's more to come in the Model Railway Journal concerning the Gresley Beat...so I'll be sitting on the parapet of that remembered bridge waiting for an A4...although a Deltic would be nice...

More Seaside Thoughts...

2009-09-08T01:39:00.004+01:00

I found these photos on the hard drive and thought I would post them. They are of my quayside module built for the Tetford layout last year. This part of the project was very enjoyable, as I was given a more or less free hand to do what I wanted, except that the rails would have to come down to the quayside with a kick back siding, run from the main line above. This required a little fiddling with clearances and gradients, but eventually everything was fitted in to the scheme. I made up the boatyard, thinking about old Illiffe Stokes and his Arthur Upham's boatyard, so this is my little tip of the cap to him. The quay is to be the subject of a Railway Modeller article, eventually... but these photos won't be featured there.

Seaside Cottages

2009-09-05T23:10:00.004+01:00

A little glimpse of these cottages featured in a recent Railway Modeller article, but the editor ran out of space, so I thought I'd give a couple of more detailed shots. The houses are all made of 2mm mounting card, with windows from various sources, notably Scale Link and some Ratio examples. I'm fascinated by little closes or "Wynds" as they are called in Scotland, so I fiddled about with the levels until I could incorporate steps and alleyways between the structures. The rock is fibreboard/Sundeala, ripped apart with pliers and then wirebrushed. We're still burning the midnight oil over work here so I had better get back to the bench- Hope you enjoy the pics!

One Man and His Dog

2009-09-05T00:09:00.003+01:00

I'm working late tonight on a project, trying to get it finished. Our little studio is a hive of activity as Petra is also working against a deadline, on a book she's illustrating. One of her characters is a very loveable little dog, which made me think of this photo of a sheepdog, on a farm model I made last year.

The dog's a standard offering from the trade, and I painted him to look like what I thought sheepdogs looked like. He looked, well, nothing like a sheepdog! I went and found some reference- yes, there is a particular way the white patch goes on most collies...so I studied it and hey- the dog looked credible! Blindingly obvious, I know...except that I didn't think of it.

The wall of the house is made from Pyruma modelling/fireclay, scribed then baked in the oven for half an hour to harden. The final touch was painting with acrylics. Roof is the Wills sheet, dremelled at the edges to look more like real pantiles.

Break over, better get on. Come on, Shep!

Some more paintings...

2009-09-03T12:12:00.005+01:00

The workbench is furious with activity just now as I am finishing off a big project and laying the groundwork for a new one. Nothing to show just now, so I thought I would post some more paintings.

The first is from a photo I had of a Fairburn tank blasting out of Cheadle...the woman is an homage to George Heiron, one of my favourite railway artists, who often included his wife in his photographs.

The second is our own lovely soup dragon, David Lloyd George, climbing the Ffestiniog spiral at Dduallt. She is now to be seen in a slightly more restrained livery similar to Merddyn Emrys...I like both liveries although the soup dragon epithet doesn't really fit now! This is painted on watercolour paper, more as a sketch, really, but I was pleased with it...hope you like the pics, even if they are off topic!

Stacks, Platforms and Trumpet Blowing

2009-08-28T19:30:00.001+01:00

No, not a seventies fashion feature with Miles Davis...but how can I follow the Chuck Doan post? I'll not try, but I have been busy lately, working on the Princes Risboro project, which is drawing towards completion.

Here are a couple of photos of some chimneys I've made for the station. I enjoy this kind of thing- although it's time consuming, the results look good, especially using the John Ahern layered method. They sit on top of a canopy...it was too impractical to fix them to the roof of the building, so I checked the angle of the canopy pitch and drew them out so as to slot in. It seems obvious, but the old school protractor is really handy here.

I've been making the last of the platforms, which were made very carefully from styrene and very well braced. Last week, while about to fix the buildings and canopies to them, I noticed that a rather unacceptable amount of warpage had occurred. Speaking to a couple of other modellers, the general opinion is that I had used Mek Pak on the job, and I shouldn't have. Apparently this has caused warping in other people's work when used extensively as on the platforms. Now, platforms Mk 2 are almost complete, but this time there has been no Mek, or styrene used!

On another note, the Model Railway Journal have decided to publish an article of mine...the fulfillment of a long-held ambition, ever since I held issue no1 in my hot, feverish hands, fresh from the news stand on Glasgow Central station. I've written quite a bit over the years for the Railway Modeller, but with all due respect, the MRJ is something else. For a long time I didn't think my work was good enough... so I'm pretty darned chuffed! I'll post something on here when the article is published...it'll be a few months yet.

Sneak preview of my MRJ article!

Featured Modelmaker: Chuck Doan

2009-08-20T16:35:00.005+01:00

Both the above shots are of 7mm/ft models.

Every now and then I stumble upon a modelmaker who redefines my standards and makes me look scathingly at everything I have ever made. One such is Chuck Doan, a modelmaker working across the pond, mainly upon diorama projects in the larger scales. I have to say that I think some of his work crosses the divide and becomes art...I've never seen such an obsession for detail and fidelity.

Look away if you are of a nervous disposition...

Take this close up of a door hinge...yes, for goodness sake, a door hinge. It is in 1/6th scale, admittedly, but not only has he made everything perfectly, he has even left a ghost image of a previous hinge...it makes me dizzy just to look at it.

I could rationalise, and say, sure- this guy has done a deal with the devil. He's not like us ordinary mortals. He was exposed to an overdose of gamma radiation as a child and has superhuman modelmaking abilities. But I suspect the truth is that he is amazingly talented, he tries harder, goes that little bit farther than I would and OK, probably has superhuman powers and bionic vision. I wonder what he could do in 2mm finescale?

The site showing these photographs (link here) also has some articles by Chuck showing how he achieves his effects and some of the castings used...like all great modellers, he isn't afraid to let us know his secrets.

Genius!

I did try to do a deal with old nick once. He was OK about the dancing girls, the wine and the extra pair of hands. He just wouldn't deal on the 48 hours in a 24 hour day idea.

The observation in this scene is phenomenal.
It is as if the smith is just off shot having his tea. All in 7mm/ft, too!

Observation and placing of clutter is an art in itself. Chuck is obviously a master.

For the Record...

2009-08-14T22:19:00.003+01:00

Petra at work on a Mike Gill model, in for refurbishment.
Handy portable backscene by Bill Brown. Camera mk1 in use.

For a long time I avoided taking photos of my models. The ones I took for model railway magazine articles back in the eighties and nineties were awful, to this day I don't know how they were published. The joke was, I actually had a top camera, although used it more for photographing the real thing.

My partner is what I would call a proper photographer, she thinks things out and is aware of the focal length, where the light is coming from and so on... for an important model I wouldn't trust anybody else with the camera. She seems to be able to get great results from the most rudimentary lash ups -(see photo above!).

However, recently we were forced to buy a new camera due to the old one being crushed under the wheels of a mainline steam loco- readers of "Losing Track" will know the story- and we purchased a moderately cheap Panasonic Lumix TZ6. What swung the purchase for me was that it had a Leica lens and reviews praised the macro focus. While I do have reservations about the camera, mainly due to it's slightly perverse auto features, I seem to have experienced a new lease on photographic life, snapping happily away and actually getting half-decent results.

I was taking some photos of Bill Brown's layout a while back and my 12 year old daughter asked me if she could borrow the camera just for a moment. She had spotted something I hadn't- and here's the result. Shot totally on auto with just Sam's creativity to guide it. So, if your camera gets eaten by a steam loco or is just tired out, maybe a new toy is just what you need!

The Ghost Wall

2009-08-12T22:42:00.003+01:00

I was building a warehouse recently in 4mm scale...making it up as I went along, really. There was a small area to fill at the end of a row of buildings, and I had the idea of a set of steps going up to a higher area near a rock face. I busked this for a day or so and realised it wasn't going anywhere quickly, so I tore it down. The steps and walling left witness marks in the Wills embossed brickwork, just as if a building had been demolished. Then I realised that my problem of what to do with the vacant lot had been solved for me by serendipity. It would be just that, a demolition site, awaiting "redevelopment" . In the meantime, someone has parked a heavily weathered Wiking HO truck, which looks as if it may never move again.

The rock face behind is made from fire cement, sculpted and teased with an old toothbrush, then given a gentle heat in the oven for half an hour. It was painted with dark colours before drybrushing to bring out the texture.

My Greatest Modelmaking Disasters

2009-08-10T23:40:00.006+01:00

Photo courtesy of Glasgow City Council Museums

All modellers make mistakes, don’t they? Surely that’s all part of the process of acquiring skills, a kind of apprenticeship in the hobby. It’s even possible to learn from other people’s mistakes by reading articles in the modelling press, blogs, or at a club.

This isn’t what I mean, though. I’m not talking about the ordinary kind of gaffes that most of us make, or even embarrasing fox’s pads, like one modeller I know who put pinpoint bearing cups in the roof of a Kemilway etched Gresley coach, thinking they were torpedo vents. Oh, OK, that was me. I was beaten severely for that one, but it was nearly 30 years ago, and I was very young. I’m still sorry Don... As my teenage son would say: epic fail, Dad!

No, dear reader, I have darker secrets than these.

The case of the Caley Single, for instance. Many years ago when I was still North of the Border, a customer asked me to build him a model of Caledonian 123, the celebrated Drummond single wheeler. Well, it had other wheels, obviously, but there was this whacking great wheel between the leading bogie and the (quite large) trailing wheel. All went very well, for a while. I built a chassis from the then customary 8th gauge brass, bought wheels and axles..the largest Romford was just big enough, allowing for the overscale flanges. (Obviously I had to file the crankpin bushes off etc, I’m just giving you broad brush here) and after a week’s tinkering, the chassis worked perfectly and was laid aside.

I built the body starting from a Sutherland “Small Ben” kit...very heavily bashed and altered to be as dimensionally accurate as possible and with all manner of quite major hand made bits and bobs like the splashers. I’d already built a “Small Ben” for another customer, so this was easy. Into the paintshop and out she came in Caley Blue...what a honey!

I married the body with the chassis and off she went, round my small layout, running perfectly. Then it happened. There was a whirring noise, and the loco started to do a little regular undulation, a kind of Drummond does Strictly move which wouldn’t please the judges at all. Or my customer, even though he was posessed of saintly patience.

Nothing I tried did any good. I had a new set of drivers trued by a colleague on his lathe. New gears. New bushes. More new wheels. By then the motor had burned out with all the testing, so a new one was installed along with more new gears. Nothing would work. My customer was a very nice man and he was paying me a lot of money, so I wanted this loco to be perfect...and it wasn’t looking like it was going to happen any day soon.

One morning, I walked into the workshop and put the pickups back on the loco. This time I had built a new chassis. Everything worked beautifully on my test rig. I only had to put the body on and all would be well, surely? Over two months had gone by now, with all the footering about on the loco. I’d managed to build a signal box, and a fully, perfectly functional Dornoch tankie 0-4-4 in the meantime.

I don’t really need to tell you what happened next because you know, don’t you? I remember looking up from my bench and across the yard to the South Ayrshire hills in the distance, and something snapped. I picked up a mallet from the tool tray and delivered a heavy blow to the hapless loco. The smokebox squashed flat and the bogie dug into my workbench, and it felt good. Another blow, and the cab sheared, solder seams splitting, handrails assuming crazy shapes. Blow after blow, I reduced that loco to a flat disc on the bench, and then I went out for a walk, in the good British way.

I couldn’t trust myself to build another, so I commissioned a friend, a fellow professional modelmaker, to build it. It didn’t feel good, especially as any profit on the job had vaporised months ago, but hell, the loco worked.

Next time, perhaps, I will tell you about the strange case of the David Bain Clerestory Diner, or should that be diver?

Pincer Movement

2009-08-09T11:44:00.007+01:00

A few posts ago, I put up some of my railway paintings. The writer of the hugely entertaining "Grumpy Old Git" family of blogs asked for more...so it's your fault, Martin!

The Hughes "Horwich Moguls" or "Crabs", as we greasy haired, duffle coated schoolboy spotters used to call them, were strangely fascinating machines. Some of them could be seen by the seaside, too...I lived near Ayr in Scotland for a while, and they were regular performers on the coal trains from Waterside down to the harbour in Ayr. Not that I posessed a camera then, of course.

I've always wanted to build a model of one, and bought a Wills kit many years back. It was not too bad, a friend built up the chassis, but I was never satisfied with the margarine metal body which was quite thick and coarse. I then bought a Lima model, and almost instantly gave it away as in my naive eyes, it was beyond improvement. Thankfully, Bachmann produced a model which made up for all the previous false starts, it's very nice straight from the box, although Brassmasters produce a detailing kit (and enough reference) to produce a first class model. I think converting it to P4 might be a challenge. A Crab would be ideal as a mainline loco to take coal trains from the sidings on my proposed new layout...I will have to start saving!

To the paintings! The Loco at the top is indeed a painting of one of the Ayr cohort, purposefully chuffing up the Girvan valley to Dailly colliery with empties. When I painted this, I was much influenced by the work of Atkinson Grimshaw, the victorian painter of gothic landscapes and tried to give a haunted, melodramatic atmosphere. I put in a platelayer, looking away disinterestedly while supping his mash.

The next, rather more prosaic, painting is of a generic N.E. Manchester location...a feel of Stalybridge/Hyde to it, confirmed by the SHMD Atkinson centre door bus going over the bridge. Again, I painted two workers ignoring the loco as an uninteresting part of daily life. Fools!

Hope you enjoyed the paintings and sorry for going off topic! It won't happen again...well, it might. I've got plenty more.

Brassmasters link

Rail UK site, section on Horwich Moguls

Atkinson Grimshaw on Wikipedia

Grumpy's Daily Grump

Taking the Work out of Stonework

2009-08-04T20:06:00.008+01:00

Some time ago, I built a 4mm scale model of a stone built mill for a customer. During a wrong turn down Silly Avenue, I took the decision to hand scribe the stone onto dried Das modelling clay...the results were very nice, but I could only be spoken to very quietly for some time afterwards. It was a little labour intensive.

Ever since that episode, when someone mentioned stonework, I would take on the long faced, philosophic appearance of a tired dray horse, painfully aware of the hours of toil ahead. For a while I used all manner of things like Wills sheets (pretty good, but recognisable for what they are if used en masse) and I even stuck separate card stones onto a wall once (no, it's not big or clever).

For my release from this torture, I have to thank my better half, Petra, who often looks over my shoulder and points out where I am going wrong- usually as a prelude to taking over completely. The infuriating thing is that she is usually right. I was grumbling about how I didn't really like plastic stone sheet, so she suggested making the quay sections that I was working on at the time from card and Das clay. I wasn’t convinced, for obvious reasons. Undeterred, she noncholantly slapped some clay about and carved it using a specially ground down exacto blade. I couldn't watch, and went off to sulk and put slates on a goods shed roof.

Petra's walling. The seaweed is Heki Pine leaves, painted with PVA.
The rock and steps are also carved Das.

The Das was put on to braced 2mm card, previously covered with trusty Resin W, and worked while damp. Upon drying, the walls were fine tuned with a pointed scriber and put into place. At least I painted them, using light onto dark dry brush techniques. I was pleased with the steps leading up to the quayside.

Since the geat clay capitulation, I must confess now to having made an evil clay engine in the form of a styrene stamper, cunningly designed to emboss Das stonework. I stole the idea from Allan Downes, who has forgotten more about modelling than I will ever know. The basics of this arcane device are in the diagram, and it really does do a good job, especially if you make it symmetrical, like a seamless tile, and then tidy up the stone courses afterwards when the Das is a little drier. It isn’t as good as Petra’s hand embossed masterpiece, but it’s an awful lot quicker.

Hornby Skaledale walling, dry brushed, looks very good.
The Albatross is not impressed, though.

Wills stonework can look very good.
It wasn't until after Petra had taken this picture that I realised
I'd put the clapboarding on upside down on the shed wall,
and had to take it to bits and re-assemble....

Fill that space! A small Permanent Way Store

2009-08-03T21:47:00.004+01:00

This is just an excuse to put up a couple of unseen photos of the goods yard on Tetford, a model constructed for a customer last year. It's also proof that I do occasionally lay track and install, heaven forbid, point rodding! I did actually volunteer on a P. Way gang a while ago on the Ffestiniog Railway, so I can vouch that it's a bit more difficult to lay real track- at least 4mm track isn't as heavy or as pesky to saw! Mind you, the fishplates aren't as easy to lose in the carpet in 12"/ft...

However, here was a space alongside the signal box that looked a bit forlorn and empty...my customer was keen on lots of detail, and it wasn't long before I came up with the idea of a small permanent way store. A flick through back copies of any of the railway nostalgia mags (I love 'em!) will show evidence of seemingly random quantities of sleepers, chairs and tools by the track, especially near goods yards and stations. I know it wasn't really random- the trick is to make it look like there is some kind of logic to the placement of items. The speed restriction sign is a Smith's etched item, and the grinder, wheelbarrows etc are from the Ratio accessories. Tools are from Scale Link.

Incidentally, the point rodding was scratchbuilt from articles in the Model Railway Journal. Trackwork is Peco finescale, ballasted with Faller fine grit and drybrushed to taste.

The final photo (below) shows the view from the platform end with more trackwork in evidence. The exquisite signal was made by an (unknown) fellow professional modelmaker and supplied for me to install on the layout. Sadly, it's out of focus, but provides some atmosphere! A whisp of steam was added in Photoshop...the whole scene was photographed against a blue background, making it easier to put in the sky as a layer in Photoshop- a bit like the green screen in movies.

Gutters and downpipes

2009-07-31T12:26:00.006+01:00

I'm making some downpipes for my latest project and thought I'd put a couple of photos up...I guess it's not new, but this is how I do mine!

I generally use jewellers' brass wire for downspouts, or "roans" as they are called north of the border. This is 1.5 mm dia, although it's available in several gauges... this is just the size I like best.

I buy mine from a book/craft shop in our nearest town, but I guess it's available online from places like Eileen's emporium and such.

I straighten out the wire and cut it to length, then twist fuse wire round the thicker brass wire using a pair of fine pliers. Incidentally, the pliers I use cost me just over a fiver twenty years ago and are still in perfect nick, and I use 'em every day. I think a selection of pliers such as round, square etc is a good investment, especially if you are scratchbuilding locos or using metal.

The fine wire is twisted around the downspout and secured by it's own tightness..whereupon another loop is added in just the same way. This gives the appearance of those cast brackets so common in the buildings of the pre-Marley era.

A quick spray with primer and one of the finish colour and they are ready to attach to the building. I drill holes with the trusty Dremel in the wall and slot the downspout in...giving a sharp, clean result...although obviously some accuracy is required in the drilling.

Gutters...I now use plastruct half round section, although for years I used to use Dave Rowe's method of scrawking the edge of a sheet of 0.60" styrene with a special tool and curving the front edge, like this...

It's fiddly but good...however, time is money to me, so the half section is fine. When the top edge is painted black the gutter looks very convincing, and all that remains is to add paper brackets and paint.

Scale Link do some superb guttering as whitemetal castings, see their site here, they are expensive, but if you are making that perfect model they will be worth it.

There we are...you probably knew all that, but hopefully there was something of interest!

The finished down pipes in position on a model. Grass is Good old Static grass.

Further Armchair Ramblings

2009-07-30T12:03:00.003+01:00

images copyright Iain Robinson 2009

I was organising my reference files last night and stumbled across this watercolour painting I did for a customer about 20 years ago, in my parallel life as a railway artist. It is just the sort of atmosphere I want to create on my model, when I get round to it. I'll put the pit head gear on the backscene, although it would be a nice model to make. I think the wasp stripes on the loco are going to be tricky- anybody have any ideas how I can do these? Perhaps Crafty Computer Paper as on the excellent "Pictures at an Exhibition blog might be the answer. I've also been looking at the Hornby Austerity wheels, and they're not good...these will have to be replaced. Luckily because of my work commitments I will have plenty of time to think about all this...hope you like the pictures, anyway- back to the workbench now!

Not that I'm obsessed with Hunslet Austerities or anything,
you understand, but here's another watercolour
I painted a few years back...

Making plans...

2009-07-28T11:48:00.002+01:00

Image copyright Iain Robinson 2009

I'm very lucky, being a professional modelmaker. Sure, it's not particularly well paid and the hours are long- but I get major job satisfaction and work from home. I also have a variety of tasty projects to work on, which I couldn't justify embarking upon unless I was being paid. The only drawback is that my own pet modelling projects are pushed to the back of the queue, and this is true of my latest scheme, which has been in the planning for over ten years.

However, just lately I have been spending a little spare time pottering about with an old Hornby 4mm scale Austerity loco, converting it into something a little bit more unusual...of which more anon. Mineral wagons have been careened from the depths of my stock box. Some old track plans have come out of my sketch book, and the trusty HB has been scribbling. ..what could this mean?

The tipping point was when Petra suggested a space here that would suit a small model railway. We're lucky again, in that we live in an old slate mill, in Snowdonia...but the space at our disposal is probably less than a modern town semi. I had already discounted the ceiling, or a railway at 90 degrees on the wall (magnadhesion?) but my powers of visualisation are nothing compared to Petra's. She suggested a shelf running round one of our rooms with removable modules that could be worked on at the bench...at which point the mighty modelling brain swung into ponderous action.

I'd always loved the scheme by Alan Sibley years back in the railway modeller, of an industrial concern and it's railway. This could be a colliery, an engineering works, a soapworks as at St Helens...even a quarry. Some years ago I settled on a mine, as I love the old Waterside system in Scotland. The scheme vaccilates from narrow to standard gauge, but just now I like the idea of the High Level Barclay pug and my Austerity, especially since I used to clean one regularly at Dinting in the seventies.

The emphasis will be on scenery. I love locos and like to see them move, but have absolutely no interest in operation, so the locos will be an adjunct to the overall scene and will be modelled to the highest standards, although not neccessarily to P4.

The sketch at the head gives the flavour...a bit of Eatwell Ironstone via Pennyvenie, with sharp curves and house backs, allotments and rusty corrugated buildings. It will be a long time coming, as my customers come first, but I'll keep developments posted as and when they happen!

At the Watering Hole

2009-07-25T11:24:00.002+01:00

More Great Westernry, I'm sorry! I couldn't resist setting up this shot of Bill Brown's pannier, watering at the tank on Watlington. It was taken in available light on my Panasonic Lumix...a white card behind the camera would have helped with fill-in light on the loco but I'm pretty pleased with the result. As usual, I continued the sky in Photoshop from the backscene upwards and added the smoke and steam on another layer. Thanks to Sammie, my daughter, for holding up my trusty backscene board as this was looking towards the front edge of the layout.

Developments at Watlington

2009-07-21T11:38:00.006+01:00

Figures are the excellent "Monty's Models" offerings.

No choo-choos? This is a model of a branchline!
Nothing happened for hours.

Laying aside Roman Soldiers, hordes of Barbarians and World War 2 Corvettes for the moment, Bill has been adding some details to his Watlington layout. A tall stand of scratchbuilt trees has been added alongside the carriage sheds, making a big difference to the overall atmosphere of the model. To my mind, it now looks uncannily like the photos in Karau's book. I've taken the photos with my new Panasonic Lumix in ordinary light, only retouching the sky in Photoshop to extend Bill's excellent backscene up to the top picture edge. He's also been tweaking and modifying some P.O. wagons... along with a new motor vehicle to grace the forecourt- more of this anon!

Oh, well...alright. Here's a train. I had to wait days for this, you know!
Smoke and steam added in photoshop.

Details, Details...read all about it!

2009-07-15T11:06:00.006+01:00

I've been making some little detail features for the station buildings on Princes Risborough...as a change from soldering up the canopies. My customer wanted me to model the station in 1947/8 , and photos of the station back then show a lovely little kiosk which was crying out to be modelled. While I was doing this, I also took the opportunity to detail the station interior and install lights, as once the canopy was fixed there would be no chance of access to the buildings.

The kiosk was easily run up from styrene .020" sheet, working from the photos in the excellent book "Princes Risborough-Thame-Oxford Railway" by R. Lingard (OPC). There are also some pictures in the similar Wild Swan volume.

I like to use coloured card, obtained from an artists' supplier for the coloured exterior, as it gives a flatter and more consistent finish than enamels. The card I use is Daler "Murano" paper (A4). This is fixed with Evo-Stik and all will be well, providing the glue doesn't leach out around the edges! There's a nice brown shade of card which is perfect for all kinds of Great Westernage, called "Chocolate", and a light stone lookalike called honey, while a passable dark stone could be "Cinnamon" . These are about 24p each...cheap.

I did paint the edges of the kiosk first, where the paper couldn't cover...I don't think it shows. The roof was covered in Murano "Slate" and laid aside until the interior was ready.

Shadowy figures, waiting for a train...why not buy a magazine to while away the hours?

Now for the real fun. I trawled the web looking for 1947 headlines, and then made up an artwork in Photoshop for the newspaper headline boards. One layer was for the mesh and one for the actual headline. You have to be careful because the different newspapers used different fonts for the mastheads, the mail in particular was quite pesky, I ended up using Windsor, which is close enough at this size. I also looked for some sites in the public domain where old posters were available, and found quite a few. One was a Flickr 50's collection where everything was covered using the creative commons licence, so was free to download...although a quick mail to the owner of photos usually results in permission anyway.

I ended up with a lovely page of covers from newspapers and magazines, which I copied on the page again and reduced in size, just in case I needed smaller examples. This was printed out on matt PQ paper and carefully cut up using my trusty Swann-Morton no. 10a. I really enjoyed placing the papers and magazines! The bathing belle magazine above on the lintel is actually a Nivea ad, reduced, but it looks the part!

The Kiosk doesn't look too bad, although the lady is not exactly delightful, I was waiting for an order from Dart Castings for some Monty's figures, so when they arrive I will perhaps replace her with a more comely specimen!

The interior details on the station building were also great fun. I built a little box which slid into the building so that I could detail at my leisure. I had the wall elevations in Illustrator so I printed them out and stuck them onto styrene to cut the windows and doors in the correct place. I did it wrong first time, of course...

Nothing much to report here, except that Petra made the floor for me from a seamless tile she made up on Photoshop, and printed on gloss PQ paper to give a high shine.

I'll post some piccies when the canopy is fixed and the interior lights are shining to show the view from the platform.

Now, where's that soldering iron...

Featured Modelmaker: Geoff Taylor

2009-07-08T09:28:00.004+01:00

Anyone who reads the Model Railway Journal regularly will be familiar with the work of Geoff Taylor, a professional modelmaker who resides at the very top end of the art. His work evokes a fast fading world where the buildings were blackened with pollution, steam was king and the Leyland Comet was the height of HGV sophistication. Studying his townscapes for "Dewsbury Midland" I was back in my twenties, trying to navigate an overloaded Bedford TK round the narrow streets of Huddersfield for yet another mill drop.

Of course, Geoff doesn't just do grime and gritty northern realism. His own layout is a delightful and extensive recreation of Barmouth Junction in the 'sixties, a beguiling time machine, guaranteed to transport one back to the days of buckets and spades, endless sunshine and Tizer. Geoff is also a contributor to "the Gresley Beat", a superb 4mm scale layout depicting the approaches to King's Cross, a deservedly popular sight on the exhibition circuit.

Not frightened to put his head above the parapet, where the rivet counters and armchair experts roam- he's won many awards at exhibitions for his work with the Manchester Model Railway Society.

In addition to his inspirational articles in the Railway Modelling press, Geoff has a DVD out on the "Right Track" label, entitled "Building Buildings" and a web site where there are many more fascinating photos to pore over.

School of Flock

2009-07-01T19:37:00.005+01:00

I can just about remember my first attempts at scenery. I dyed some sawdust using green fabric dye, under the supervision of my Dad. I was eight or nine. I was never really satisfied with the finished result, stuck down with a mixture of office gum and gloss paint onto the plaster hillside, but the Duchess of Atholl now had scenery to run through!

These days there are a confusing number of techniques for simulating grass and I confess, I’ve just about tried ‘em all. Recently I needed some rough moorland grass, and I realised my usual method of PVA’ing flock, Heki Flor and foam onto rubberised horsehair wasn’t really going to cut it. A radical solution was required, and as usual, a period of roaming about the house, looking preoccupied, ensued. Magazines were riffled through. I was even spotted roaming the jungle that is our garden, stopping to look curiously at the lawnmower until I remembered what it was.

As always, though, the solution was near to hand. My partner, Petra had been making a soft toy for my daughter and I noticed some offcuts of fake fur lying about. The devious modeller’s mind clanged ponderously into low gear and I was soon experimenting with scissors, glue, paint … and fur.

Formers on the layout had been made in the usual old way out of packaging card, roughly cut in the shape of the hillside.This was covered in a layer of Mod Roc plaster impregnated bandage- lovely stuff. Thus, a solid former was quickly ready for the next stage in the birth of the wild, trackless moor. In true Blue Peter style, I had already prepared a two foot square chunk of fur material to cover the area. It was stuck down on to the support with the trusty glue gun, fixing the fabric ready for the rough and tumble of brushing and trimming. I use a cheap proprietary glue gun, buying the sticks in bulk from a craft supplier on the internet- much cheaper.

Cutting a rug

Working on the fur is quite good fun- using an old comb, the fur is teased about and trimmed with a medium sized pair of good scissors. Some areas are left long, others cut fairly short, in a strange kind of landscape hairdressing. You can ask the fur where it has been for it’s holidays, but it won’t answer. If it does, you have been trimming for too long and it is advisable to take a rest. I certainly couldn’t be a hairdresser- it’s hard work.

Once the cutting stage is complete, the grass can be coloured. The fabric that Petra had bought was sienna brown fur, which I thought would be a good starting point for the moorland grass. I proceeded to paint the fur with a fairly dilute mix of green poster paint, the cheap kind sold for small children in toy shops or artist’s suppliers. This was applied using a stiff hoghair brush- the shade is a bright green, a little on the yellow side. The fur soaks up the paint nicely and even at this stage, the whole thing looks like unkempt moorland.

A mixture of fur on the right, with static grass applied to horsehair on the left by the road, to simulate rough gorse and brambles. Also plenty of coarse Heki ground foam applied over the fur and then sprayed with static grass. Mix n' match!

When the fur is dry, usually about two or three hours later, the paint can be loosened from the fur, teasing out with a comb. This brings some of the brown back, looking like older shoots. Providing the paint hasn’t been applied too strongly, all will be well. Otherwise, the sward will be stuck- it’s not a total disaster, you can attempt to revitalise with some water sprayed on with an atomiser bottle, combing out and rubbing with paper towelling. Conditioner, sir?

If a lighter effect is required, giving the impression of winter grass, there are all manner of colours and textures of fur available- I have some light sand coloured fur which is perfect for unkempt February herbage. Again, it’s a case of going out into the… er, field and really looking at what you see, not just assuming everything is green. As Petra’s modelmaker father annoyingly says, “You’ve been looking at a blade of grass, boy, not a field in the distance!”

Finishing touches can be applied by pastels, rubbing over a piece of coarse sandpaper and brushing with a soft brush. I glued on some fine Woodland Scenics foliage, light green, to some of the coarser tufts of fur- this looks fantastic. Other touches were added with different grades of foam, in fact, a very relaxing and enjoyable half hour was spent tricking up the surface like this.

I ended up needing more fur, but I managed to buy mine from a seller on Ebay- there’s quite a few specialists on line, although fur fabric seems to have disappeared from the high street these days.

Static grass and Noch foliage used in various length, softened with Woodland Scenics foliage fibres and foam.

Lock, Flock and Static Applicator

Of course, there are many other ways to represent grass on the model. The latest developments in flock materials are quite exciting- and there are whole ranges of wonderful grass mats to provide an easy way to cover large areas with herbage- although these can be quite an expensive solution.

One method which I have been experimenting with, after seeing the fantastic results Gordon Gravett, Roy Link and others have achieved, is static grass. This is produced by the usual suspects: Noch, Faller, Heki and Javis, to name but a few. It’s flock, certainly, but not as we know it. The fibres can be imbued with a static charge and will stand up when propelled at the scenery, producing quite stunning results.

Noch, in particular, produce a grass applicator gun which will fire the stuff onto the landscape, ready charged. The price might make your hair stand on end, too, although if you do a lot of flockery it may well be worth it. I have also read articles on the internet describing how to make flock guns from all manner of scary electrical equipment. Since I can hardly competently wire a plug and have to get Petra to change the wiper blades on the car, I didn’t think this a practical proposition for me. For a while, I thought the whole process was beyond me, until someone suggested trying the Noch puffer bottle, an applicator sold along with a starter set of grass. I will confess that, having been brought up on Blue Peter, I like to make do and mend and I noticed an almost empty washing up bottle that might just pass for the aforementioned puffer. Dried out and cleaned, it proved to be ideal. Once I got the hang of the process, which requires a little bit of care, I started to puff away, applying grass to everything in sight. However, rather than try and describe the highly charged process of applying the greenery to the landscape, I have made a diagram, which I hope explains the process more succinctly.

I have also tried applying the static grass to rubberised horsehair, having first coated the horsehair liberally with PVA. The result is a very convincing representation of gorse, one of the best I have seen. I then moved on to sea foam, using a shorter length static grass. The seafoam was coated in PVA and the grass fired at the bush. This gives a good impression of Larch, or any shrub with needle-like leaves. Experimentation is the key, and not being afraid of making a mess.

As always, a great array of colours and lengths of the flock are available commercially- it’s a case of scouring the net for a suitable supplier, or supporting your local model shop, if you are lucky enough to have one

Foam on the Range

I will conclude by mentioning another favourite ground cover method of mine, coloured and ground up foam. Experience will dictate which type of foam works best, but I find that a good quality synthetic bath sponge is a fine starting point. This is pulled apart roughly into two-centimetre sized cubes then dyed using fabric dye, and put aside to thoroughly dry. The next step is to rinse the cubes of any excess dye and then, bizarrely, pop them in the freezer ice cube tray until solid. They can then be loaded into a coffee grinder (used solely for the purpose, or when certain folk aren’t watching) and bashed into nice little bits of herbage. The longer the grinding, the finer the foliage. Trying the process without the freezing stage results, initially, in nothing much happening- the foam resists the blades, and the grinder makes nasty, un-coffee like smells, before dying in a cloud of smoke. Mind you, the frozen foam cubes aren’t much fun in a G and T, either.

Of course, Woodland scenics make lots of lovely different grades and colours of foam, as do many other manufacturers. One of my favourites is their light green foliage, held together with fine strands like “postiche” (theatical hair). Most manufacturers have web sites where you can choose from a huge range of tempting scenic materials. It’s cheaper and, I think, more fun to make it all yourself, but as always it’s a balance between time and money. As of now, I can’t think of a way to make static grass, but give me time…

Click to see larger version...

A herd of Ayrshires coming in for milking...
actually modified Merten cows, repainted in the proper livery.
The grass in the background is a mixture of blonde teddy fur
and Woodland Scenics foliage.

Canopies- Give me Shelter!

2009-06-27T08:28:00.004+01:00

What a difference a photoshop sky makes.
First shot with my new camera, a Panasonic Lumix.

I'm still busy making the station buildings and canopies of Princes Risborough in 4mm scale. At first sight it didn't seem a huge task, but when I looked carefully at the detailed plans and elevations supplied by my customer I began to realise that I might be some time...

The first things to take care of were the trusses for the canopies. I fiddled about for a while with some brass rod, using a jig, but it soon became apparent that I would have to etch the major roof components. The same applied for the lattice girdering- Scale Link do some excellent lattice, but it is too large for this job. If you are familiar with a drawing program such as Adobe Illustrator, the etching process should hold no fears. You have to be aware of the limitations of the process in terms of thickness of lines and where to put tabs, but a good etcher will help you along with this. Etching isn't really a short-cut; it took me three 8 hour days to draw out the A4 etched sheet for the trusses and get it just right. I included some riveted strengtheners, which proved too fiddly, and I initially made some mistakes with the tabs, which I placed on the wrong layer in Adobe Illustrator. Luckily, the etchers pointed this out before they made the plate, or I would have incurred an extra charge. All the grief is forgotten, though, when the shiny etched brass sheet arrives- it's a lovely thing in itself.

Ooh! Shiny things!

While waiting for the etchings to arrive, I made a start on the station buildings. Again, I had excellent plans and elevations from the original GWR versions supplied from my customer, and these, together with the photographs in the OPC Lingard book ("Princes-Risborough-Thame-Oxford Railway") helped me to piece together how things should look. The windows would have to be etched, as I didn't think I was capable of fretting out all those window tops with any consistency, but there was enough work to do on the walls while waiting for the etches to arrive.

A moody shot, emphasising the sculptural qualities of the trusses.
I like the patterns of light and shade through the glazing.

I initially made the walls of the building with layers of styrene, bracing from the rear. This allowed me to carve the window tops. However, after only one night the styrene began to curve alarmingly, despite being braced along its length, vertically and horizontally. I have had this happen before, and I am sure it is due to solvent build up using MEK. The solvent has to be used very sparingly, but then of course, the strength can be compromised in another way. The red mist descended, and I threw the styrene elevations into the bin with some force.

The walls were successfully completed using 2mm card, fixed with Evo-Stik Resin W. They were braced as before, and haven't warped. The window tops were carved by cutting the apertures out with a 45 degree angle where the curve would be, coating the edge of the card with a couple of applications of Resin W, then filing the card. Brickwork layers were fixed using Power Pritt...absolutely no room for error, but it sticks cleanly and forever. The lintels were drawn on to the etch sheet along with the roof trusses, and only required the tabs grinding off with the Dremel and painting with car primer from Halfords.

I had several abortive attempts at the canopy, using jigs to solder and assemble accurately, but eventually decided to build up the units onto the already assembled corrugated sheet...this produced a consistent roof line. The corrugated sheet was the Wills product, a bit thick, but very handy in this instance. The verticals are from H girder sections made by Plastruct, and the stringers are from brass wire made by K&S, in my case sold by Cheshire Models who, along with Mainly Trains, hold my Blue Riband award for service. The finished canopies were sprayed with GWR stone , supplied by Fox, another superb retailer. As my professional work depends on getting materials quickly, I have come to appreciate dependable suppliers, and I think that some time soon, I should have a blog entry for the most reliable, and perhaps also list one or two complete duds...

Glazing at the moment is by the time-honoured method of scribing clear styrene, although I am experimenting with a couple of other tricks which may produce better results. Watch this space for further developments!

The rear view. I'm pleased with the chimney- which still needs flashing.
I think it's worth spending time on details like this, even though the stack took quite a while to make.

Castle Rise, a Country Town Street in 4mm scale

2009-06-24T11:31:00.012+01:00

The rooks, high up in the trees above Castle Rise, hoarsely cry their disapproval as the shrill sound of a locomotive whistle disturbs them. Holmes, looking down the short road to the Great Western Railway’s station, turns to Watson. “Well, Watson, what do you make of this place, eh?” Watson looks around him in a dazed sort of way- the journey from Paddington has been long and the facilities meagre- “ Quite ordinary, I suppose …although that lamp post leans somewhat.”

Holmes averts his eyes to the now wheeling rooks. “Watson! Open your eyes, man! We have somehow strayed into a parallel dimension, and if my eyes do not deceive me, the barge boards and windows here are from Langley Models etched details sheet V1! We’ve been miniaturized! I sense the hand of Moriarty, Watson….”

A Seagull's eye view of the shops.

Apologies to Conan Doyle fans, but it’s more likely to be the “great hand in the sky”, as at this point, I hadn't installed uncoupling and point motor facilities at Tetford, my latest commission. I felt the scheme needed a backdrop that had a 3D element, to provide a raison d’etre for the station. Thus, Station road climbs, Tetbury style, from the aforesaid to a small group of shops on a hill, leading to what is assumed to be an ancient fortified town- Tetford. You won’t find any mention of it in any Gazetteer, because Tetford is an amalgam of Wallingford and Tetbury, and that majestic tome “GWR Branch Terminii” is responsible. I built a model of Wallingford 28 years ago (featured in these pages, too) and so I felt reasonably confident when asked to build this .

The Structures

My partner’s father, Bill Brown (Watlington, RM July 2006) offered me a small castle that he had built for a previous layout. As with all Bill’s work, it was superb, and this gave me an idea for a road leading up to the castle as a focal point. There is nothing very unusual in the construction methods used, the main building shells are from card, and windows are, as Holmes noted, from Langley etched detail sheets. A couple are from the excellent Wills detail packs, and I can’t praise these too highly.

Establishing the levels was tricky, and I found a sketched elevation was useful before I started. I wanted the road to be steep, yet not so that a trough would have to be installed at the top by the Horse’s Humane Society. We had a day trip off to Ruthin to find some shop prototypes- of course, I came back wanting to model the whole town, but I secured some good reference shots. It’s no use, in my book anyway, building a model without referring to the prototype. I also had some shots of Conwy which let me see how the castle related to the town.

Frontages under construction, mainly from 2mm card.

The buildings themselves are all a mixture of vernacular and town, or “polite” as the historians call them- and the first building that I tackled was the middle one, Benham’s, the ice cream and sweet shop. I had fun giving the shops names- the head boards are made on the computer and printed off on good quality laser printer paper. The signs have to be just the right size- too small and they are illegible, too big and they just look wrong. Shop windows are all from the Langley etched sheet, (V1) as Holmes so cleverly pointed out, which includes fittings for blinds.

I made some detailed interiors, for the Bollin café and for Castle books. Again, Langley do some nice interior detail castings. I am ashamed to say that I spent several hours detailing the interior of the Bollin café – and you can hardly see anything from the outside- I shall have to install lighting!

A cruel close up of the frontage of Castle Books

It was a bit of a struggle knitting the buildings and their levels together, but the roofs were even worse. It’s all part of the fun, though, and as it progresses, the scene comes together. I built the road up using scrap card on formers, then “tarmacced” it with Das, smoothed when wet, then sanded for a smooth finish.

The doctor’s house, at the foot of the rise, differs slightly in that it has pretensions to Georgian style- the windows are from the Scale Link range. This manufacturer’s range is another one worthy of exploration by anyone who models structures. I finished it off with some Heki bushes and a Langley post-mounted mail box. There’s also a horse mounting block , made from Das scribed with a knife blade.

The hedges are the work of my partner, Petra, who spent a few hours disappearing under a mound of sea foam, rubberized horsehair and Woodland Scenics light green ground foam, which she magically transformed with PVA glue. I think we should get an agri grant from the EEC for this- reviving traditional skills and all that. She is also responsible for the delicate touches such as the light weathering on the road and the trackways and rough grass in the field. This adds the finishing touch. Not to be outdone, Bill then produced two magnificent trees, which compliment the scene perfectly, giving a heavy, summer quality to the model.

Watson stood by the bench at the top of the rise, startling an unusually large seagull, as Holmes studied the information board outside the castle Keep: “I say, Holmes- that’s a marvellous old tree! Shouldn’t wonder if it dates back to mediaeval times, eh?”

Holmes looked round at Watson, then at the tree. “Ah, yes. A notable specimen of the Horsehair Chestnut, if I am not mistaken! And now, my dear fellow, shall we adjourn for tea in this establishment?”

There's a mirror in each of the castle doors, set back a little, which gives an uncanny feeling of depth.
"Smoke and Mirrors, Watson..."

Common Technical Terms Explained

2009-06-15T09:21:00.003+01:00

No. 1: The Headshunt.
click image to see larger version

Slot Car Racing- 60's Style!

2009-06-13T10:46:00.009+01:00

If anyone recognises themselves in this picture- please get in touch.
Bill is on the left in this shot.

A race in progress. Lot of work in those baseboards! This is the finishing straight.

A recent conversation with Bill Brown produced these photographs of a slot car track he made for Luton Airport Social Club, way back in the sixties. The track itself was hand-sawn, with the slots painstakingly fretted out. Curved section slots were achieved by bolting two hacksaw blades together; it must have taken some time- and skill. The whole layout was eventually scenically complete, these shots were taken fairly early on in the course of construction.

Just look at the concentration on the faces of those guys! Note also the shirts, ties and sports jackets- de rigeur in those days. Not a designer T to be seen. Full Grand Prix events were staged, including two-hour endurance races where drivers had to hand over the car to a colleague after a set time. Tyres had to be changed after an agreed number of laps, and of course, one slip of the throttle could end in disaster. The course was designed so as to give each slot lane the same distance, in a figure of eight configuration with a flyover.

Special lookout cockpits were built in to the course at critical points, for access and for marshalls to observe progress. Bill told me that one such lookout was at the end of a long straight section. During a race, the marshall noticed that one of the cars wasn't slowing down- he cried out to the driver, urging him to stop, but it was too late. The car flew off the track- straight into the unfortunate marshall's wide open mouth! The driver was heard to shout to the marshall: "Don't bite!!" Great fun.

Of course, today's young guys would now be sitting with the same expressions on their faces, but in front of an X Box running Red Steel or Halo 3! Except for Bill, I suspect. He'll be in his workshop, churning out another tour de force.

How to Suck the Fun out of Railway Modelling

2009-06-11T11:31:00.006+01:00

image copyright Iain Robinson 2009

Picture the scene. I've made a nice little model railway, nothing ambitious, just a small industrial line, with the accent on scenery, atmosphere and dilapidation. It works quite well, (unusually for me) and is a lot of fun, moving small trains of wagons about with my old Hunslet Austerity and pretending I'm sitting by the track on a pluperfect childhood summers day. I can almost hear the skylarks singing, the groaning of flanges on the tight curves, and the hum of summer insects. For me, this is what it's all about- recreating memories of the railways I have loved, or making metaphors of the ones that are too far away for me to visit very often.

One evening, a group of modelling acquaintances comes round. One of them points out the many errors in my work...fair enough, the point rodding isn't right, that particular loco never ran on this line, but....apparently, I don't operate it properly. He says, Olympian-like, that I should operate to a strict timetable, with bell codes, tokens exchanged and all that stuff. A little difficult, since on most industrial lines, there was only one train a day. One engine in steam. Bit boring, that. I mention this, at which point he turns to me, smiling, and says: "Well, you're not a railway modeller, then..."

No names, no pack drill, but the above has happened to me, albeit quite a while ago. The person involved left the house quite quickly, as I remember. Recently, however, I began to pick up a trend in the hobby that reminded me of this incident. Now, in this country we're lucky in that we have several really excellent, inspirational magazines. One magazine in particular stands head and shoulders above the rest, and it's in black and white, too. For a while there has been a growing trend of intolerance in the finescale end of the hobby against people paddling their own canoe and actually having fun. I pursue excellence in my own field, and I don't mind the guys that run to timetables, making choo-choo noises, or turning a little hand torch on and off to simulate the passage of time or whatever. They are striving for perfection too and, hey, what they do in their railway rooms is their business.

But, I don't think it's anything to do with railway modelling. It's when guys get together and they want to score over everyone else, to make themselves feel better. The guy that criticised me is a superb modeller...he doesn't really need to have a pop at everybody because they dont conform to his operational fascism. Lighten up guys, we're not modelling for Britain's Got Talent..it's for our own enjoyment and enrichment. I should know.

I'm a railway modeller!

Before and After....

2009-06-10T13:35:00.003+01:00

A couple of views of the 4mm scale quay at Tetbury, showing what an unholy mess it was when the developers moved in. Acres of Kappa board, trial paint daubs everywhere, and my trademark huge mug of tea. The boatyard and the warehouses were originally built on separate bases and glued on to the ensemble, once I had achieved the ideal juxtaposition of structures. I tend to draw out my ideas on paper, with lots of sketches, plan meticulously, and then make it all up as I go along, changing things willy-nilly until it looks right. Usually the finished result looks nothing like the scheme originally planned, but that's the way I like to work.

From my sketch book...

2009-06-03T10:49:00.005+01:00

Over the years I have filled at least three sketch books with plans and ideas for layouts. I thought it might be interesting to put some of the sketches up here...they are the result of thinking out loud with a pen, being a little rough around the edges, but may help and inspire some further ideas in folk.

The plans here were produced for a customer who was interested in a GWR terminus style of scheme. It was partly inspired by a charming layout in the January 1969 Railway Modeller, called "Falcombe". Yes, I'm that old, I'm afraid! Of course in those days the "Modeller" was full of GWR terminii, but this one had something special...a little bit of Buckingham GC, a little of Berrow S&D, and something else. I reckon the scheme would fit into a space of ten feet by about 3 feet wide, but compromises could be made by using smaller radii turnouts. Similarly, the headshunt could become a little cramped, but this might even introduce some operational fun. Not that I like operation...I just like to see the trains run about, slowly, shunting here and there. I suppose scenery and structures are my big thing, and this would give me the opportunity to develop some atmosphere, with a nice town feature after the work of John Ahern...echoes of Madderport, perhaps?

Click the image for a larger view...

I like reverse curves, on layouts as in life, and the new scheme introduces this in the station throat, along with some lineside industry, and my favourite feature, a dock side area. As a young train spotter, I gazed in wonder at the magic of an elderly pannier tank, going about it's fussy business at Watchet Dock in Somerset...I've loved quaysides ever since.

News from Bill Brown's workbench...

2009-06-02T14:10:00.004+01:00

28mm scale ballista, scratch-built from stripwood

What's this? Military modelling? Well, it does say "modelmaking" on the masthead, you know! I took these photos on a visit to Bill Brown's railway room, where I found a Roman look out tower standing on the sylvan meadows at the approaches to his 4mm scale Watlington station. The sheep seem interested, at any rate.

The lookout tower, nestling in the Oxfordshire countryside. Note the hand-painted backscene...

Most people know of Bill as a railway modeller, but closer acquaintance reveals a man for whom modelmaking is a broad church. On the shelves beside the railway there can be found various ongoing projects: a WW2 Corvette, tanks and armour in various scales, a sailing ship, Napoleonic figures, and so on. He has only recently disposed of an N scale model railway, based on Kingsbridge. The contents of his bookshelves are similarly eclectic- weighty histories of the German Panzer divisions rubbing shoulders with GWR Branch Line Terminii.

Roman Legionaries, looking rather pesky. The painting is amazing.

Bill is in his eighties, and can be found in the workshop just about every day- he has a far steadier painting hand than mine, and a good deal more patience. I'm looking forward to seeing the next project, roumoured to be a large band of barbarians to spice things up for the Romans pictured here.

Some Legionaries operating a "Scorpio" crossbow.

More Joy of Huts...

2009-06-01T11:22:00.005+01:00

Despite the guest appearance by a nice little mini in one of the pictures, they were taken in 2008, proving that there is still an excuse to put a model of an ex-GWR lamp hut on your layout, even if you model modern image. The "workies" dawdling about look just like Preiser figures, too, but if this was a model, I would say it was far too cluttered!

These pics were taken at Machynlleth yard; the station itself is well worth a look for some genuine Cambrian Railways architecture- a masterpiece, actually; the town is well worth a look, too.

As readers of this blog will know, I love making little models of huts. My enthusiasm dates back to a competition I had with a friend when I was 15. My mate, Dave Blythe, was a superb modeller for his years, and we challenged each other to make a 4mm scale yard hut.
A couple of days later, the models were brought to school and I had enjoyed making the hut so much that I wasn’t too crestfallen when Dave’s was much better than mine. I remember that I consoled myself that evening by watching an amazingly rusty 9F struggle up the grade on a freight up the Huddersfield line. Another time, perhaps, I will tell you of the Great Railway Sandwich munching incident, when Daves’ sandwiches became the victim of a rogue 8F freight loco…

The Old Farm Shed

2009-05-31T14:23:00.007+01:00

Photos by Petra Brown

When I was a small gricer, my dear old Dad took me along a disused colliery line near where we lived. After what seemed like a long walk, we encountered an old shed, almost buried in boscage. Dad lifted me up to see through the broken old windows, whereupon I was met by a sight to warm the heart of even the most jaded enthusiast. -the looming bulk of an old, rusty steam loco, sleeping out it's days, waiting impassively for the rust to render it unrecogniseable. Forgotten, yes, but not neglected any more, as I made several forays back over the years until one day I was shocked to arrive and find the loco dragged out into the sunlight and the scrapman leering over his latest victim.

I'd always fancied making a model of something like that, a shed with an old warrior within, retired to some modest Valhalla for rusty heroes. Of course, in my ideal world, someone, eventually, would come and preserve it- preferrably me. However, events took over and soon, I had my hands on an old Matchbox Allchin traction engine and I decided to build a shed around it.

I know those of the mint-in-box fraternity will faint at this, (please look away, you retentive souls) but heck I’m a rebel. Living dangerously, I weathered the loco and put it on a base with a skein of clutter scattered around. The ramshackle walls were built and painted separately and then assembled around the loco. Rusty areas were eroded from the galvo with my trusty Dremel then painted and pastelled to taste. The Dremel is a great tool, it has so many uses- and you can always do some private dentistry or chiropody with it to help fund the next modelling project.

The finishing touch with something like this is making sure that it looks as if it has grown out of the ground rather than having landed from outer space, and it’s not always easy. It takes a lot of faffing around with flock and sponge, bits of sisal, Heki Flor etc until, like a watercolour painting, it comes right- the trick is knowing when to stop and not overdo things, which I probably have. Again.. .

In Praise of Trucks

2009-05-31T13:41:00.003+01:00

As readers of my other blog will know, I love trucks. And I have a soft spot for Fodens, as I was born near Sandbach, home of that legendary marque.

The model in the picture is a 4mm scale offering from those good people at Langley Miniature Models, whose range of truck kits is extensive enough to satisfy even me. I've had this particular model for about 25 years and it has gone from layout to layout. Last year it picked up a new front axle and wheel assembly as the old one had fallen victim to a tumble from one of my shelves in the workshop. The replacement wheels are from an AEC Monarch, as no doubt afficionados will spot, but I was too tight to buy new ones from Langley.

My brother, a man for whom no machine is a mystery, informs me about the later, modern Fodens. He says that whereas a fault in a Scania requires a spare part to be ordered, a similar problem in a Foden requires a blacksmith. I think that is why I like them.

How the front wheels should look!

The Donor AEC Monarch, now languishing at the back of Finnie's Garage

Princes Risborough North Box

2009-05-21T15:32:00.013+01:00

The blog has been quiet recently, due to my attentions being monopolised by the construction of Princes Risborough station buildings.

Anyone standing outside the door of our workshop would have heard sporadic cursing, accompanied by the venting to atmosphere of mephitic clouds of flux smoke and other rather more base gases. After several false dawns, however, there came a point when I realised that this model was going to be okay...problems were resolved, nothing warped, and paint began to dry...matt instead of gloss-the joys!

Here's a shot of my South Box- a wee, sleekit, timrous thing it looks too, compared to the North beastie.

I’m still busy with the canopies, but all indications are that with a favourable prevailing breeze, they should be fine.

This box, the North Box, is so much larger than the previous South box- and of course I had learnt one or two things from it’s construction- but not enough. The walls, for instance. Front and back are so long, (278mm in 4mm/ft) that they required bracing with brass...a first, elaborately detailed attempt with styrene resulted in warping due to solvent build up....second attempt with card resulted in warping due to using PVA glue...will I never learn? Third attempt, with three layers of braced card(using impact adhesive) was crowned with success. A lap of honour of my workshop, slightly larger than a tea chest, was called for, whilst playing “See the Conquering Hero Comes” on YouTube, although it became a bit like musical chairs as we kept losing the internet connection.

I had fretted a tracery for the window mullions from .040” styrene....but to fix this was another problem. Luckily I had some K&S brass rod, .032” which I twin-pack epoxied to the walls at mullion gap width, running all the way down to the ground. The etched brass windows were fixed in with loctite superglue and everything looked wonderful.

As with the rest of this project, I used the superb Scalescenes brick paper, printed off from our rather weary Epson, at 1.5 gamma using matt photo paper. This was then fixed on to the walls using Power Pritt...no room for mistakes, but it sticks...without warpage. Assembling the walls accurately was accomplished with a jig to hold the two sides together...twin-pack epoxy was used, as I didn’t trust anything else at this stage.

At last, things became fairly straightforward, requiring only patience. A floor was fixed in place and the levers were installed...a lot of levers, three Wills signal box detailing packs worth, actually.

Nothing much more to say, except for the corbels. These had nearly given me a nervous breakdown on the South box, and as there were more here, I was determined to find a less tedious method of construction. I eventually stuck several different thicknesses of styrene together to form the profile of the corbels, letting them rest for a couple of days, and then cutting each one from a kind of styrene battenberg cake. The results are very satisfactory, although I was convinced it wouldn’t work...it all seemed too simple!

I enjoyed making the chimneys, from layer upon layer of card and brickpaper. John Ahern would be impressed...it did take a very long time though. I’m very pleased with the final result, it looks nice lit up with the two grain of wheat bulbs inside, although I’m still finding bits where the light leaks through. Poor old signalman, it must be draughty in winter. .

Wonderful Watlington

2008-12-17T20:37:00.004Z

Here are some pictures that Petra took a few years ago of Bill Brown's Watlington layout, a 4mm scale rendition of a very well known prototype. These views came to light during a search among disks for something else (which still hasn't turned up), but I happen to like them much more than the rather pastel and innocuous shots that featured in the Railway Modeller. The model wasn't quite finished at this point, and Petra's camera was a rather early and primitive digital offering, but I think they are worth a look.

The figure leaning on the barrow on the station platform is a "Monty's" production, now distributed by those nice folk at Dart Castings. They are the best figures on offer in 4mm, in my less than humble opinion- certainly since those incredible figures produced years ago by "Branchlines" of Rothbury...now what ever happened to them, does anybody know?

The name is Bond - Flemish Bond...

2008-12-17T20:12:00.004Z

English Bond, actually, but it makes an eye catching title.

A few months ago I made a 4mm model of Princes Risborough Goods Shed for a customer- some pictures of it featured on this blog. The shed used embossed plastic sheet in a laminated style of construction. Since then, I have been using some of the excellent Scalescenes brickpaper for some related projects and my customer asked if I would repeat the shed….but using the brickpaper this time.

The main shell was built of 2mm card and the entire structure was drawn out in Adobe Illustrator to scale, along with any rebates and/or decorative brickwork around the doors etc. This was then ported into Photoshop and the Scalescenes brickwork applied. All was then printed out, a bit like a Superquick Kit. I have to say that the whole job was a pleasure to build and a whole lot easier and sharper than using plastic sheet…and the result was infinitely finer looking. Areas where the brickwork would be in relief were cut out from separate layers of paper and stuck on with Power Pritt. I like working in card, which is probably why it went well…I have seen superb plastic sheet brickwork- Simon de Souza’s work, for instance, and admit I could never emulate his genius in plastic. But this brickpaper method makes a nice change and allows me to incorporate lots more detail.

One area on the original that I thought I could improve upon was the roof. Luckily, Petra came to my rescue by making up an artwork for scale size Bethesda Countess slates in Photoshop…although we live in sunny Ffestiniog (irony alert!) we do have the odd Bethesda slate, so the colouring could be checked. It was printed off in Hahnemulle watercolour texture paper, and the poor girl then painstakingly applied the rows of slates. Along with the shed, these were varnished with Winsor and Newton "Galeria" matt varnish.

One word of caution though- when printing off from the computer- keep an eye on the print dialog box and make sure it doesn’t default to “scale to fit”….I spent some time trying to figure out why the shed sides didn’t match up….

Bridges on the workbench- span up!

2008-11-07T21:38:00.004Z

Two bridges with plastic girders and abutments made from Das modelling clay.
The nearer one is the course of an old, abandoned narrow gauge line.

Naked cardboard and softwood!

A smaller girder bridge over a canal

A road bridge utilising a Wills arched bridge kit and some more softwood, covered with plastic sheet.

When you make your railway travel through undulating country, sooner or later a tiny Brunellian challenge will present itself. Since it's not possible to tunnel through thin air in any convincing way, model bridges are a necessary evil. The ones shown here under construction were all made from card and softwood, faced with Wills brick embossed plastic. I have to confess, I do actually like bridges. Pontcysyllte, near Chirk, is very fine, as are any by old Isambard. Even little, everyday girder bridges have their charm, like the lovely Brymbo Ironworks examples to be found all over Wales and the marches.

I'll post some pictures of the bridges completed and in the landscape once I finish coating the river with varnish and removing cat hairs.

Lost Layouts: Mellingfold and Middleton

2008-11-07T17:38:00.008Z

A bucolic scene at the end of the platform.

I like this shot...a realistic angle on the pannier.

The loco depot. Shed foreman is telling a couple of likely lads to clear off.
Great Western Ironmongery lingers in the shed doorway.

Very convincing crossing scene. The lighting is effective here.

While searching for some photos in a pile of disks, I came across these pictures of a long lost railway. The model was 4mm/ft OO, and belonged to my partner's father, Bill Brown. He's better known as the author of the cup-winning model of Watlington, featured in the Railway Modeller in 2006.

The layout was dismantled, but I'm lucky enough to have many of the buildings from Mellingfold. I guess it was a proving ground for many of the methods used in his later layouts. He's currently building an N gauge model of Kingsbridge now, as Watlington "rests" across the room.

Photos are by Petra Brown.

On Shed

2008-09-12T22:21:00.003+01:00

Here's a couple of shots of the shed at Tetford. It's modelled on Tetfield GWR, yet situated very much like Wallingford, next to the station buildings. What a treat for loco spotters! The model is made from several layers of Wills embossed brick sheet, and is pretty straightforward...although the roof caused me some grief, since I elected to make it from slate strips cut out of watercolour paper. The paper cockled when the paint was applied...what a very elementary mistake to make. It took a couple of days in between doing other jobs to sort things out. The roof is also removeable, as you can probably tell.

The in situ shot has a little smoke added in photoshop...my little Fuji Finepix could do with a bigger depth of field, but I'm still pleased with the result. Petra, my partner, normally does photography for me- but I'm discovering just how much fun snapping the railway can be. Of course the camera picks up all the blemishes that your eye and brain conveniently just don't see, so it's also a great way to crit yourself and improve the end product.

The joy of Huts - shedding my inhibitions.

2008-09-11T21:41:00.011+01:00

Some stables made from old van bodies. Tarpaulins are made from writing paper coloured green with acrylic paint. The backscene is painted in acrylics on mdf.
Two all-purpose huts in the coal yard, with gasworks in the background...and that backscene again.
I made this little HO Australian garage from wood veneer strips. The "galvo" on the roof is actually the backing material from a brand of carpet fixing tape.

This is the rather grandiose hut mentioned in the text, with a nice Lledo AEC truck and a Langley ERF looking on.

I really like making little models of huts- from garden sheds through to more important edifices like yard offices and the like. I even like the look of portakabins in a modern yard scene. The selection of photos above range over 30 years of modelling and are a very small selection of my total hut output, or huttage. The urge to build a hut can happen when you least expect it, and can take unlikely turns. On one occasion, I was making a simple agricultural store and yard office when the next thing I knew, it developed into a neo-classical folly rather like the Duke of Hamilton's dog kennels. Some of the models above have gone to Australia and the USA- I hope they are still intact. The oil depot was featured in an issue of "Model Trains", in the late 80's... all are completely scratchbuilt from fairly mundane scrapbox style materials. All were a lot of fun.

Out in the country....again

2008-09-03T20:57:00.003+01:00

Here's the latest of several model farms that I have made for customers. This one is a favourite because it is a mixture of farm buildings around the Bettws area in North Wales, all traditional vernacular structures. I would have thought that, being so near to Blaenau Ffestiniog, slate would have been the roofing material of choice, but a couple of buildings really do have pantiled roofs. Strange. Maybe there was a particularly persuasive tile salesman around the valley! Nearer to Blaenau, many old barns even have upright pillars of slate holding the roof up- it must have been a common material for structural members as well as roofing.

The model was made from Das modelling clay, a favourite material of mine- as usual the walls took forever to scribe! It was built on a separate board, ready to fit into the bigger scheme.

The Water Margin

2008-09-01T22:21:00.005+01:00

A few years ago, I read a series of articles in the Model Railroader by Dave Frary and Bob Hayden, describing their narrow gauge railroad...this had the most amazing dockside section, "Thatcher's Inlet" which I just couldn't take my eyes off. The models shown here, both 4mm scale commissions, were inspired by that model, although based on English prototypes. I would like to see a miniature Clyde Puffer tied up at the quayside, waiting for the tide, but maybe that will have to wait for me to build one for myself ...one day!

The photos have had sky placed behind them in Photoshop, but apart from that are au naturale, showing the limitations of my camera's depth of field!

The Perfect Pugs of Pennyvenie

2008-08-31T18:01:00.007+01:00

It’s not modelmaking, I know. One day, though, I intend to build a model of an Andrew Barclay tank loco, as pictured. I lived in Ayrshire in the seventies, within a half-hour drive of the Cumnock and Doom valley (local spelling) and the magical Waterside colliery system. This was an arcadian temple of steam, offering the sight of wee Andrew Barclay “Pugs” struggling up the grade to the colliery washery with heavy trains, or pushing spoil skywards to the tip from Pennyvenie colliery.

Down at the loco shed, near the long-abandoned steel furnaces of the Dalmellington Iron Co., there lived a couple of argumentative saddle tanks and their rather beautiful sister, a lovely side tank with funny geisl ejector chimney. All these local luminaries could be seen in action on a carefully picked day, going about their duties. The crews were a friendly bunch, vaguely bemused at the interest shown by us gricers, carrying out their work with studied indifference. I made a polite request once for a little black smoke for a photograph – I suspect the resulting pall obliterated south Ayrshire for days and probably hastened global warming.

I took these shots on Ilford HP4 using my trusty Canon ftb, hence the graininess. I printed them myself... hence the rather less than clean images. They give something of the atmosphere, though, I hope. The shot of Tam Bruce, no.24's driver, is from the "Carrick Gazette"

I’m not one of those enthusiasts that gets excited by numbers and data, so whilst I do know what happened to these locos I’m not really too interested- they are not the same now as far as I’m concerned. All due respect to the people who restore them and lavish time and money to keep them for us all to see- I just like to remember them in their glory, work-stained and purposeful. For the record, steam ended on the system in 1978, and the colliery closed very soon afterwards.

I like to immerse myself in atmosphere and colour, shapes and sounds. Other people can take care of the historical record side, and there’s certainly enough published material written. No, any model of the Waterside system that I build will have to include some magical mechanism for making clouds of black smoke, the sounds of curlews and skylarks singing high on the slopes of Carsphairn, and the unmistakeable bustling shapes of closely observed pugs.

A Tiny Street Art Project

2008-08-29T11:34:00.005+01:00

Slinkachu is an artist working in an unusual medium- HO scale model figures. He places them in city streets all over Europe, to fend for themselves. When I saw his work I was amused at first by the quirky humour going on but then I realised that these little figures convey some pretty large thoughts and emotions...loss, desertion, anger, innocence- it's all there in a little world underneath the gaze of passers by.

I often think about the layers of detail in a model, and how we railway modellers are so careful to get everything right. In obsessing over minutiae, I think that humour and reality go straight out of the window. Models might be realistic but do they seem real? All the truly great modellers I know do somehow capture reality- even if their locomotives don't have the correct number of rivets, or their trains don't run exactly by the rule book.

Then there are others, whose work is beyond reproach technically, but whose models leave me completely cold. So when I saw Slinkachu's brilliant little installations it was a breath of fresh air. To achieve the bigger picture with the minimum of means but a whole lot of creativity and style.

Slinkachu has a book out just now about his project and a show in London. Well worth a look!

Rubble at t' mill

2008-08-28T20:34:00.004+01:00

I was asked to make a model of a watermill in 4mm scale, using the Wills kit as a basis. The more I looked at the kit, the less I liked it. The building was wrong for a mill, and I should know, because I live in one. To alter it would have been simple enough, but I'm not a great fan of plastic sheet. In fairness to those nice people at Wills, there were some very good things about the kit: the windows and doors were excellent and the weir sluice mechanisms were absolutely spot on. The stonework, too was fine really, but being a masochist, I had to do things my way.

I'm afraid my way was hand scribing the walls using Das modelling clay, my favourite material. You can carve it or you can mould it, scribe or press it, and it dries in a few hours. However, once I'd cut the walls out of card and let the Das dry, then tackled the stonework, over a week of concentrated scribing had gone by- and me a professional modelmaker. I sometimes need to learn how to compromise. I'm pleased with the results, though...I've put some bolts on the wood baulks now and added the figure of a miller by the weir.

A Tankfull of Nostalgia

2008-08-27T16:15:00.007+01:00

Back in the nineteen sixties, we lived across from the village garage. It was no more than a gloomy wood and corrugated iron shed, with a brick hearth at the back where originally, I suppose, it had been the local blacksmiths. It was a pretty compelling place for a young boy to explore. There was a smell of oil and all kinds of junk lying about in the dark depths of the shed. Bits of engines and antiquated machinery, and an old wooden roll top desk covered in piles of darkly smeared bits of paper. I was curious why there were pictures of ladies on the wall with very few clothes on, looking rather cheeky. I was very young. Usually Mr. Vernon, the kindly owner, and his son Malcolm would be tinkering about. Clad in oily overalls, they would be bantering and whistling snatches of skiffle and Elvis tunes as they worked.

The model was, of course, inspired by those memories- and a superb article in the MRJ by the mighty Martyn Welch (No.95, 1997). I can't hope to compete with Martyn's brilliant model, but I had a lot of fun trying to lift my game. Mine is totally scratchbuilt apart from some of the windows, which are from the Wills' watermill kit.

The photos have been enhanced in Photoshop by placing in front of a backscene...it makes such a difference, as at the moment, there isn't a space anywhere to put the model permanently. I trawled the web to find a nice sky picture, then pasted it behind the model, which was photographed against a white sheet.

There are still a few old garages left...there's one or two here in North Wales which I should go and photograph. There's a site on the web, too at: http://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/old_garages.htm which will give some inspiration for modelling.

My local garage, by contrast, resembles some sort of hi-tech palace for servicing space vehicles, with flickering screens everywhere and futuristic lifting gear. Reassuring, though, to see that the monitors and keyboards of all those terminals are blackened by countless oily fingerprints. Funny to think that when I was a teenager, I despised the run-down, shabby, grimy, old fashioned towns of the North West. Why couldn't things be more modern, I insisted. Now I spend my time seeking out the run-down, shabby and antiquated old things that have survived. Everything changes and nothing changes.

Canal Knowledge

2008-08-19T13:35:00.001+01:00

I've been in love with canals ever since reading L.T.C.Rolt's "Narrow Boat" as a teenager. It's wonderful, the way the cut snakes through the countryside like a linear timewarp. When threading through the town or city, there seems to be some secret magic about the canal. Granted, there might be dead rats and shopping trolleys half submerged in the water, but there is the feeling of travelling through a timeless, quiet world beneath the bustling mayhem above. Of course, whilst standing on the towpath contemplating all this, you will probably be mugged. Better to travel through on board a boat, preferably with some burly companions and a well-charged Tazer.

This is the kind of atmosphere I tried to capture with this 4mm/ft model of a canal, for my Tetford project. It sits on a corner site, a bit like the old "Canal Corner" on Peter Denny's "Buckingham"...but there, the resemblance ends. I just have to include some yobs breaking a few windows...I'm sure Preiser do them. The period is the late forties, so no supermarket trolleys, I'm afraid.

Putting my head above the parapet again

2008-08-19T13:09:00.000+01:00

I've been very busy for the last few months finishing a modelmaking project. In itself, it wasn't particularly complex, but I'd started the job at a very high standard and had to keep that going. I have enjoyed it immensely, although there have been moments...

I'll post some pictures when I have put the finishing touches in place. In the meantime, here are some views of a 4mm/ft goods shed I built this year for another customer. I'm making the structures for Princes Risborough for him, and decided to start with this one. I've built countless similar structures for people over the years, but every one has it's little idiosyncrasies, and this was no exception.

The main shell was made from Wills brick embossed sheet... the sheets are too small, Mr. Wills! Don't be so stingy! I had to join them in several places, hopefully it's not too noticeable. The roof, similarly, was a no-go, and had to be made from individual strips. One of many interesting things about the shed was the bevelled (rubbed?) brick corners, made from engineer's brick. I tried endlessly to replicate them by carving and scribing, but had to admit defeat and used brickpaper. It looks fine, I think.

Many years ago my old Dad and I used to drive an HGV around various mills in Northern England, delivering very large rolls of textile and leathercloth. The view through the shed door reminds me of trying to back the truck up into the entrance of the shed at London Road, Manchester. I put a ten foot scratch down the side of the semi-trailer and dented the door...now a site of world heritage. Sorry!

From a boxroom in 1962, somewhere in Cheshire...

2008-02-20T18:33:00.000Z

This is my first layout, I'd be 8 years old. Hornby Dublo 3-rail, 0-6-2T loco and a rather nifty backscene painted by my dear old Mum. Dad built the baseboards and the scenery- he was a pretty useful modeller. I didn't do very much except lay grass and make foam trees. It was the first of many layouts until I discovered girls and music...with the other thing, what was it again...grape juice.

My Dad's great exploit with one of our layouts was to use the green velvet from one of Mum's posh dresses to make grass embankments. I think we had been reading about all that fancy scenery on the Craig and Mertonford. Anyway, it was lush. Until the next big dance came up, that was. The old boy was seriously grounded for some time.

It's just as well there are no photos of my other, later layouts; they became rather anaemic imitations of lines seen in the "Modeller". At least this one gave me a heck of a lot of fun.

Uses for a Wills garage

2008-02-16T20:34:00.000Z

There are few things more satisfying, I reckon, than the possibility of a little kit bashing. It's fun, and you have the feeling you are getting something for nothing, saving hours of work for a quick result. That's the theory, anyway. These two variations on a theme of Wills are a case in point. The boatyard I built for the Tetford layout, and I have to say it was very enjoyable to build- nothing too challenging, simply putting in some extra siding at the front and also a door/window assembly.

The loco shed was a little more complex-although it looks simpler. The lean-to at the side started out as a Ratio Iron Mink! I don't like their brickwork much, but Wills have made some great kits and this is definitely one of the more useful ones.

Below: The bit of blue and strange blob thing showing behind the model is the bonnet of my old Land Rover. You can't beat daylight photography!

From an old shoebox in the loft...

2008-02-16T13:29:00.000Z

A view set against the backdrop of the Ayrshire hills.

A "studio" shot of the road into Ravenscroft

These two photographs came to light after a trawl through the shelves by my workbench. They're of the town scene I made for my old friend Harry Rutter, to place on his N gauge layout, "Ravenscroft". Like everything else I made for Harry, they were lost after his demise.

It's funny, but when I look at these shots, I am taken back to the punk era- I was listening to the radio constantly whilst working on the model, and these images remind me of the Stranglers; it couldn't be farther from the rural tranquility in which the model was made. I was also heavily influenced by the work of Allan Downes on this job- it probably shows. His work still inspires me to this day. His articles in the old CJF-edited "Modeller" were a breath of fresh air, too.

A forgotten corner of Tetford, my latest project.

Narrow Minded Thoughts

2008-02-15T21:35:00.000Z

Some people say that they like the sound of birdsong, the burbling of a river or the wailing of distant bagpipes (for me, Tierra del Fuego would be a little close). But the sound of a steam whistle carrying over the warm summer air is music to my ears, and you can't live around the Vale of Ffestiniog without being aware of the little trains, working away somewhere in the woods.
There's the sonorous pomp of the double engines, the "nothing to prove" bawl of Blanche, the bravado of little Prince, and the slightly edgy squeal of Taliesin, a bit like a policeman whistling in the dark. We haven't heard Linda for a while, but she will be out from overhaul one of these days, and Mountaineer, too. His mournful freight train wail is best heard on an evening excursion, when it echoes eerily back off the Moelwyns, and you feel like you've strayed into a 1950's western B feature.
So for those folk who, like me, have a soft spot for the Tren bach, here are some snaps of local locos, and some a (little) bit farther afield! Hope you enjoy them, and I'm sorry I've not yet recorded some sound files...

Taliesin and David Lloyd George rumble upwards to Blaenau from Dduallt

The Sierra Leone Hunslet leaves Welshpool, seen during the ill-fated buffalo chip burning experiment...

Blanche at Tan-y-Bwlch

Elidir at Llanberis

The mighty David Lloyd George on the cob...

The Country Files

2008-02-14T23:17:00.001Z

This is a very poor photo, the only one I have, model farm I built many years ago for my dear and much missed old pal, Harry Rutter. He had an extensive model railway, in 2mm/ft, most of which I constructed. His little empire was of a Westmorland prototype, reflecting where he had been brought up. He was then over 70 summers, the pesky old terrier, so farming never leaves the blood, I guess. That model was featured in the pages of the "Railway Modeller" over twenty five years ago, and I wish I knew what had happened to it. That’s the drawback to building models for a living, you make your precious creations, then have to set them free, with only the mouldering pages of a long-forgotten magazine article to remember them by. (cue violins) .

On the Waterfront

2008-02-14T21:50:00.000Z

Some time ago, in the 1980's, I had a sabbatical year and became artist-in-residence at a shipyard on the Clyde- The Govan Yard of Kvaerner, now BAE systems. The experience was an incredible one and I will never forget it. Thanks, guys, and thanks Glasgow City Council for the modest (but desperately needed) grant. After the residency, I was asked by one of the yards, UIE, to build a model of their yard in Clydebank at a scale of 2mm/ft. The job took me a few months, but they kept rebuilding and altering the yard, so I was asked back to alter the model many times. It was a lot of fun if a little stressful at times. I became an expert at making cranes.

I've put a couple of shots of the model here. The display case was made by my brother, Sandy. I gave him the measurements, and when it arrived it fitted the model exactly...phew!

There's nothing quite like being in a shipyard to get the adrenaline going, it's noisy and big and mystifying, with lots of big toys like cranes and huge trucks being deployed- all at once. Although I'm very pleased that the Govan yard lives on very successfully, the Clydebank yard of UIE, (once John Browns, where the QE2 was built) is now a major redevelopment site. There'll be a college, and all manner of other stuff- a bistro, no doubt, and a shopping mall...well, it's hardly paving paradise, but they have preserved the mighty Arroll Titan crane- and run conducted visits. I must go and see when I'm up in Scotland again. It will be good for Clydebank, I guess- I hope so, anyway.

There is a sneaking desire to build another model of a shipyard, to 4mm/ft....but with the look of my order books, it won't be any time soon.

Here's one I made (very much) earlier..

2008-02-14T17:53:00.001Z

Here's a model of Wolsingham signal box that I made in the early seventies, for myself. Inspired by a small photo in the 1960-something "Railway Modeller", it looks pretty crude to me now, although at the time I was fairly pleased with it. Looking at it brings back mixed memories, because I wrote an article about it for the "Modeller", and unleashed a torrent of criticism from on high, aimed by a couple of guys who were "experts" in the arcane field of labyrinthine trivia connected with signal boxes. Apparently I hadn't included a wheel for the level crossing inside, among other errors and omissions. I hadn't made a very good job of the steps, either, but nobody noticed that. I was a little pee'd off for a while, but then decided to move on.

Since then, I have been priviledged to meet many wonderful people because of this hobby...some of them very serious, some a little crazy, most just decent, good folk. I've been a lowly professional modelmaker since the seventies, and apart from the industrial jobs for oil and shipping companies which I'm not supposed to talk about, I have made countless models for customers all over the planet. Occasionally I've met one of the "great" modellers, famous in their own lunch-hour. I've even had a (very nice) letter from PD Hancock, about another signal box I made. Believe me, there was plenty to have a go at on that particular model, but he was big enough to say I'd made a nice job from his drawings.

I'm just leading up to say that a lot of people have inspired me, and hopefully I will remember them all eventually. Folk like PDH, and Rice, and good old Allan Downes- all of them great modelmakers in their own style. Nowadays there are others, like Geoff Taylor (Dewsbury Midland) or Nevile Reid, both professionals working at the top end of the craft. As for the armchair critics (yes, come on boys, let's see what you've made!) I'm glad I helped to raise your blood pressure for a few minutes.