Sunday 22 February 2015

Lynton Landscaping

This weekend a couple of hours has seen me create the road below the Bay platform and some landscaping.
The road way section was formed using plywood with artist card on top to create a suitable surface for the road.
Profiling of the drop from the bay to the road was achieved using squared wire and a covering of my preferred us of mod roc ( plaster bandaging) . Although this method does add more weight to the module than say polystyrene cut to shape, I believe it to be a much more robust method. To be honest I've never used the polystyrene foam method,but I have heard of how this becomes a nightmare to work with due to its static properties . Cleaning up afterwards must be very difficult.
After completing the road  I repaired the section of hillside at the back of the layout where the control panel used to be . I took the opportunity at the same time to re- profile this a little better. The hole you can just see above this repair will be lost when the top covering of hanging basket liner is fixed in place and some static grass applied. In addition this area above the station had quite a lot of bushes which will need to be placed yet. For now the landscape will remain basic until the remainder of the layout is scenically prepared.
Line side fencing etc. all to follow.
The backscene will be redone as a last stage when the landscaping is near completion. Presently it looks quite poor but this will improve.


Random Ramblings

I've been busy lately on several areas, none of which have reached any state of completion. So no reason to take any pictures of progress. The lamp huts are progressing with more coats of paint and the enamel signs receiving some paint. The chimney pots for Lynton are painted and on their plinth. In addition the station itself has had more landscape surgery on the bay platform area.
Looking ahead to making more progress with scenics I've purchased a static grass applicator and hopefully this will arrive soon. In the meantime I've come across some photographs of one of the rare times I've actually run anything on the model .

Saturday 14 February 2015

Coach detailing

A little while ago now I bought some Langley coaches from eBay. They were a snatch at less than 20 pounds for the pair. However although the assembly was good there was much to do to make them look right. The exterior paint finish was very nice , the interior a little clumsy , but I decided this I can live with.
First I added some new Langley bogies to each model and these are of course correct for the model but as with all Langley models the ride height is high. However this keeps a uniform look with my other Langley coaches .
I have painted the window frames and added smoking and non smoking signs from HM transfers. The destination board is resized on my ipad notes from a picture of the actual destination boards and glued to very thin plasticard .
The curtains were again from a picture of curtains resized on ipad notes cut to size and glued in position . The overall improvement to the original purchase I'm quite pleased with . Still need to populate the coaches and secure the roof. 


Thursday 5 February 2015

Woody Bay kit

My new kit of Woody Bay station having arrived has been given a quick look over before building.
The kit comprises a well thought out set of laser cut card components for the main building, chimney stacks and pre cut printed paper for walls and roofing tiles. With the kit came a CD of  over 100 photographs to show the build sequence. As my model is a prototype the actual kit, if released would come with a full set of instructions . A quick line up of the models dimensions to the Measured And Drawn book by Stephen Phillips seems to show that dimensions are correct.
The pictures below do not show the complete items for the kit but the general overview of some of  the items to be found in the kit. 


Monday 2 February 2015

Taw on the turntable

A few more pictures of Taw after some more detailing. The cylinder covers have been reworked , the vacuum pipe along the side of the engine together with some toning down and weathering on the painting side of things .