Saturday Ramble

 After having to sign in via half a dozen devices, I am waiting for the point where I can't get into here at all. If I disappear, that's probably the issue.

Most of the way through the second signal box in as many weeks. This the West Highland item from Peco. This is only the second of the new bread of laser-cut kits that I've built and I found the first, the Tan-y-bwlch station building, quite taxing, this however may have saved my opinion as it just falls together and any problems have been down to slightly curly wood rather than it not fitting.

I must admit that I have been a bit of a luddite here and this is my reasoning: My damascene conversion to Wills sheet aside, I have got very used to working in plastic - sometimes the fit can be poor, but either some filler or solvent and squidge can sort gaps and a file can reduce oversize. Laser-cut wood ain't so  forgiving; it either fits or it don't. It that respect it is like card, and card kits can go from good to utterly appalling. The jury is still out, but if this (and not the TYB station) are typical, then I could be swayed. What they definitely don't do so easily is allow for bashing, which regulars will know is a favourite approach around here. Welding extra bits on would be less easy and cutting and adding new overlay detail much harder. I threw the frets from this in the bin - I really can't start another level of scrapbox for wood bits. This one may sway, me as it is very good. We'll see how the next one goes.

Crying in the chapel.

 Working to a brief can sometimes be constricting so I try to find ways of pushing it beyond the obvious and squeeze something unusual in. The Scottish needed a 'something' in the lower left corner so a lengthy peruse of google images of the general area suggested that a non-conformist chapel. The Wills kit being the logical start point. Photos of tin chapels are plentiful, in either converted or derelict states. The later was chosen and an example at Skerray was found. This led to an idea to cut and shut two kits and go for the full last -legs look.  Here just before the windows were boarded up with plasticard plywood sheets.

prototype here

The boy on the bridge

This has became a signature cameo now and harks back to the layout that titles the web page. The 009 layout in question, built some 26 years ago,  featured the Airfix/Dapol schoolboy figure looking through the bridge railings. Since then, if there was a bridge, he stands watching the action, though there has been some inventive ways to do this as there is not always bridge railing to peer through. This is a case in point with the parapet walls and he has been shunted southwards.
 

Box bodgery

The box just about done. This has been a bit of a battle in more ways than one, but I have roughly what I was after. To recap: The top half is a Ratio GWR M&H style small box, picked up part built for a fiver, The lower section is Wills sheet and a mix of strip. The steps have been moved forward to suit the site with some jiggery pokery undertaken with the railings to compensate for this. The internals (top) are the usual bodge of scrap and some off cuts of Ratio spear-point fencing with a touch of colour to fool the eye. Behind the glass it disappears into the gloom, but fools the viewer into thinking that there is a lot more detail than there really is.

Now to deal with Mr. Hill's fencing...

 

A Kentish box.

 No section of the above is either finished or fixed, but at that point where you need to get it perched together so get an idea of how it will look. Having a kit without the setting part of a lower section to work to is not a good starting point, however, that as a) what I had, and b) where it needed to go. The lower section is the Wills clapboard sheet (one of) with a small Wills window and the curved top door from the kit, which took longer that I would have liked to get a reasonable fit.

Regardless, this is still top value for a fiver and some scraps. Moreover, it's modelling, as opposed to just assembly. Although there is a kit at the heart of all this, there is a remarkable amount of calculating and trial and error involved to get something close to what I want. 

PS. Anyone got a lump or two of house coal that I can have? After years of an open fire I never kept more that a little in the scenic box, now used up. Gas central heating produces less modelling material.