6 days left - The Latest Update

Another day, another chance to get some modelling done.
Feeling more confident than I was yesterday about finishing the layout on time, I just hope I can get it up to an acceptable standard!

I have prepared a short video for you with a couple locomotives running.
Just one photo for tonight as I'm in a rush!

A little blue engine...

As requested from a couple people a few close up shots of the little blue engine made by Matt.

"The chassis of the loco is a GF 4-6-0 castle. The body is a stretched Lima 2-6-4 fairburn tank as the boiler was the right diameter. This has been overlayed with Plasticard tanks and plasticad details such as lowered buffer beam. The chimney has been made froma piece of brass tube, cab and backhead is plasticard, dome is from a broken thomas the tank in my bits box. "

7 days left and I'm pushing my luck!

Well I've only got 7 days left to complete the layout. This means I have had to work for long periods of time on the layout recently. Firstly I have had a friend round to do the wiring for me which I made the control panel for.

Today I've been scribing walls and scribing the gatehouse on the castle. I've also made a start on painting a basic sub-coat of colour to the stream area.

I have also completed all the infilling and areas where DAS clay has been used. You can see the slipway below all marked out with paving slabs. You can also see the scribed walls at the front, the ex-communication building on the left and the castle taking shape on the right. Eventually all the white areas will be painted.

And a new locomotive built for me by Matt. Looks the part and makes a brilliant addition to the layout. The backscene has been temporarily held in place by a willing assistant!

Hope you have enjoyed the update.

All the best,

Jam

More progress on Calshot II

The construction of Calshot - Weathering, modelling quay walls and general progress

 

Well, work is ongoing on Calshot II. I have experimented with weathering as it is something I have always wanted to try but never really been confident with trying out. The first image shows my two weathered wagons (I'm yet to work out how to weather the roof). First the wagons were given a wash of a browny colour and then mostly dabbed off with a cotton bud. The raised metal detail is then painted with a red/orange rust colour, paying attention to get paint into the corners. I am unsure if it looks good enough so I'd appreciate constructive comments - I can post more photos if required.

In other news, I have 'planted' some balsa quay piles (awaiting painting) and started some infilling using 'Fab Foam' which is just the right height for 00 track. The 00 track has been glued down as has some of the NG - the rest will have to wait till I get some insulated fishplates. 

Any comments, suggestions just write them down and I'll be happy to receive them.

Final plan and the sub-frame

Unfortunately carpenter Dad has been unwell recently so I've had to go it alone on the woodwork front. However, all is not lost as I'm not too bad at it myself (although not a patch on Dad!). Yesterday and this morning I started building the sub-frame. I have left it quite late but in actual fact this has been for the better. It is made from softwood reclaimed from an old layout.

To start with I marked out the longitudinal battens and worked out where I wanted the notches. The notches were then cut out using a saw and chisel which took about 3 hours to do 30 notches!

Next up was the initial trial fit of the battens just to check they all fit where they are supposed to!

Once I was happy, the battens were pushed into place. Quite a few of them needed a little encouragement with a saw and hammer but eventually all was well and they fitted in as shown below.

The next stage was to cut out the holes for the point motors. Some of these look far too small so I may have to remove some trackbed supports to enable them to be enlarged. They were cut out using a router.