Shed

The final building on Tiley Road is a very small goods lock -up. Quite frankly this is a little unlikely and in model terms is just there to fill a space and to stop the tail-end section being totally featureless. The inspiration is the shed that stood at Stratton and I found a couple of shots of it in a semi-derelict condition in a Chris Leigh book . Basic doesn't cover it. It was firmly rooted in the GWR's standard small building family with an end door and sliding side door, with a couple of small windows in the opposite wall. Where it scored in this case was that I could suggest most of this but make it more anorexic to fit the narrow space that I have at my disposal. The sides and ends are the same Will asbestos sheets, but I had to go with some Slaters material for the curved roof and side door. The rest is... scrapbox fare. Most of it has had a base coat of paint and I'm at the final coat and detailing now, though I'm leaving it deliberately vague. When done it'll sit on a low-ish brick platform as per the Stratton shed.

O gauge - the full test

Regulars will be aware that the general layout building area in Ford Towers in the last couple of years has been the small workshop area. The pluses for this are that it's attached to the house, but mentally separate from it. The minuses (especially in this case) is that it's a through room and is a tight 2.8m long i.e. Hopwood will just squeeze in, but the current O gauge won't; I have to decamp to the vast open prairies of the front room to set it up fully. This is obviously, while not a negotiated arrangement, one that has to be carried out with a certain amount of understanding. Nevertheless yesterday saw the full post-ballast test - always a nail-biting moment. Lumps of stray ballast will derail things, previously perfect electrical connections will suddenly have become inert and there will be rails with a layer of PVA on top no matter how carefully you've cleaned it all. In the end all was well apart from a self isolating fishplate which needed a little squeeze, and soon the borrowed MW was whizzing up and down. I can thoroughly recommend this based on this performance - silky smooth and unfaltering is probably the best description. It does look very naked without at crew though. It does also have to go back, so there's little that I can do about this.

Repairing the O gauge

I spent a large-ish chunk of yesterday, fixing things on the O gauge. Not that things went wrong as such more that they hadn't gone right, which is a different thing altogether. I don't know whether it's the PVA I'm using (Asda's finest) or it's that I'm getting sloppy. 

I ran a hoover over the layout pre electrical test. Really just to pick up any stray bits of carpet underlay that will gravitate toward the motors. What happened next was predictable (now). Odd bits of ballast hadn't stuck and ditto bits of scenic fluff - not a problem in itself, but it was the range of unstuckedness that was the problem. I had to reenergise the ballast laying procedure just for a combined area of about 2" as well as the whole pallet of scenic bits. Essentially a micro layout's work. Of course once you have soggy ballast, even if it's a small area, any thoughts of electrical testing go out of the window until it's thoroughly dry and unconductable. I followed this with the waking of the bramble factory. The upshot is that platform furniture excepting and a couple of figures this main part of the layout is done.

Re my suggestions about exhibitions a couple of days ago: Mr Weller has given a lengthy reply in the comments of that post which is well worth some considered reading. 

Modelling the normal way

Just to prove that I can not only be flexible when the occasion warrants it, but will also refuse to follow my own advice.

It's a race to the finish now with Tiley Road and as with Hopwood the rat's tail siding section is the last to be tackled. 

After explaining at length a few days ago why I never follow the standard procedure of ballasting the track as soon as the rails are down, but leaving it until the bones of the scenic in place, I made an executive decision on Friday. Namely in order to get all the clutter of three open bags of ballast, runny glue pot, syringe etc. off of the workspace, I waited for Mrs F. to leave the building, dumped the third board on the kitchen table and ballasted said rat's tail track. Waiting for her to go out isn't usually necessary, but she's been using the same space to work from home and I couldn't be doing with the potential territorial grunting. 

Only some lightweight landscaping and a wiggly tin hut to finish this bit.

O Gauge loading platform

I was picked up today about being too gloomy on here, and I can't even blame Mr. Hill for it. On the contrary I'm very upbeat, but possibly just as many are at the moment -a little directionless due to some of life's corner markers being removed. Much of this may be down to the plan of retiring from hitting things for a living in the Autumn which would mark an unbelievable 40 years at it. The current situation has thrown this, forcing this moment to two months ago. What do I do? I didn't exactly want an exit party, but I did want to do it on my own terms. Now I'm wondering if I stick to the plan, which may well mean that it's already happened, or do I add a bit on and make it 40.5 or 41? 

The opposite of gloomy was my morning accuser Matt Kean who was ostensibly writing to plug the Wiltshire 009 Group's 'Skills Day' on the first of August which they are still hopeful for. Not so much an exhibition as a rolling masterclass. Keep your eye out for it. An email in the same batch from Tim Rayner informing me that I have a Comment piece in the next RM (regulars here will recognise it) and asking for payment details. Peco have not only moved from the collar and ties, but are now paying BACS rather than ten bob notes by carrier pigeon. My fear is now for their office tea lady. 

Back to the present and the current job (one of them. Bored? Moi?) and the loading/cattle dock on Tiley Road. The eventual use is somewhat decided by what fencing I can build/get hold of. The same card weave technique has been used as with the main platform, though after the warping in this I've made the cells smaller which will hopefully help.

Hole in the sky

Pushing on with the dog-leg bit of the sky boards. The hole-in-the-sky was sized using the borrowed Dapol 08 and seems utterly huge, but then I've been working in 009 for the last year or so anything would appear large. It was pointed out that I don't normally like this dog-leg sky arrangement - this is true, but there is little else to do in the available overall space. This piece is glued to the back and the edge of the middle board with the final 900mm section butting up to this and fixed down the centre of board three. There are packing issues that I thought that I'd got round, but apparently not. Once this last centre split section is on this packing will be attended to.

I note that lock-down essentially ends today and that the government are 'reasonably confident' about safety. This from the same mouths that said that if we kept deaths down below 20,000 we'd have done well and that Dominic Cummings didn't break any rules. If you were buying a car and asked about safety and the salesman said that he was 'reasonably confident' that it was, would you proceed? I'm reasonably confident that we had a mild dose of it back in February/March, but I'm also reasonably confident that I don't trust anything that they say and am taking no chances.

Saturday Ramble

Planning and plotting. Like most I'm continually rethinking things at the moment. Personally, I believe that it's madness to open up this early when infection rates are still rising. Mrs F. (who follows these things) has been watching the graphs on the Gov site and has noted that the rates peaked two days ago, but just before the 'Happy Monday' announcement the graph was altered to show a flatter line before reverting back yesterday. Make of this what you will. They want us working again, no matter what the cost. Remember who funds them for the next election.

The mojo has returned slightly and some work on Tiley Road has resumed with the final sky boards cut, and then sprayed with the usual Halfords primer. This all needs to be done by the end of August, but what then? The possibles that existed pre lockdown have fallen away and there is now a cliff edge to fall over. Sitting in the garden until September might be possible, but after that... who knows?

O gauge ground frame hut

A quite disjointed week thus far with the builders now turned up and working outside. Although I'm in and they are out I've had to dismantle Tiley Road and work in the study. This has been hard as I find the constant noise distracting. Mrs. F. who is still WFH has also moved inward and now decamped from the kitchen table to the crossover point in the house meaning avoiding stopping to talk is impossible. I'm used to being on my own during the day and find this disconcerting and can't settle anywhere, so production has slowed somewhat.

I required a small building for the top-left of the layout, just before the exit. The ground frame hut at Tenterden was chosen as the basis as it fitted style and shape wise and I had a drawing available. It was actually smaller than I thought at only 6'6" wide so it was increased very slightly to a footprint of 70 x 50mm. This meant it would cover the switch as needed, but still be far enough from the track not to get in the way.

The now emerging standard method of Peco door, Wills asbestos sheet and window pack items have been employed. with extra framing from various bits of strip. Probably worth the effort, but the sliding sash took far longer than I'd anticipated. For me as a modeller rather than a purchaser is the main disadvantage of 7mm. I now have to building-in detail that I could simply suggest in 4mm with the outcome of a much longer build time per item. In 4mm, I could have probably knocked this up in under an hour and here we are into day two - I'll blame the building work.

Saturday Ramble

The narrative from some quarters would have you believe that we are doing very well: we aren't. As I understand it, on the cusp of the VE Day anniversary, we passed the number of civilians lost in WW2. The earlier in five and a bit years, the later in 3 months. Improving on the hit rate of the Luftwaffe is exactly the opposite of doing well. If people are interested in leaving legacies, then this one would be impossible to beat.

However, down in the bunker, or rather the back of the garage, the O gauge continues. Not swiftly, but steadily. Not that it was news, but it dawned on me how I was building a cartoon which is very common with larger scale layouts due to the high level of compression. The trick is to not make that obvious by taking short cuts such as leave brake gear or drainpipes off. This is very small: the main chunk being only around 6'10" long and I'm working from the back as it were and I'm only just getting my 7mm eye in again. Some days I think I'm ahead of the timescale, some day not. It has the potential to get finished quickly and then I realise that there are two small buildings and a cattle dock to do (which I don't have the fencing for as yet). These will be the time suckers and the reason why I did the station building first (or the 'hut' as Mrs F. insists on calling it while en-route to the kitchen garden).

All of this while at the back of my mind the question of why? Why mostly because I was asked to, but the shape and design are totally wrapped around it rocking up at Warley on a 3m long stand. Is there anyone out there who doesn't have doubts to whether this event will happen? I for one will be highly surprised if it does. Primarily because it would take hours to disinfect all the rucksacks and the queue at 2m intervals would stretch to Wolverhampton.

Packing the O gauge boards

I had a small concern. One of the issues with Hopwood has been the packing. This is due to the fact that the structures on the layout stretch up to near the top of the backscene in a lot of places and 50% of the height in others. This means that the usual dodge of pairing the boards in diagonally opposing fashion with the two back scenes going either side thus creating a nearly closed box doesn't work - the roofs of one building will meet the top of the bridge etc. This means that the paired boards are wider apart than I would like. This wouldn't be a problem until loading the car happens. I'd normally load the trestles flat in first with the layout boards on top. This won't work as the top of the 'box' is now pushed against the head lining.... bad. The trestles are therefore loaded at the front crossways behind the seats. With Hopwood's 900mm long boards this is OK, with the longer 1,200mm Board 1 of Tiley Road, that can't happen.

A small experiment was carried out with one back board clamped in place. The issue was going to be the halfway backscene board on board 3 which would crash though the centre of board 2 with the boards paired. With the Hopwood pros-arch board deputising for this (albeit half the depth) it was quickly realised that the only thing in the way was 8mm depth of track...phew. I may only need to move it the once, but that once has to work.

O gauge platform

Unlike Hopwood the killer structure was always going to be the platform simply because it dominates. Though a day slicing up bits of card didn't make it quick either. The basic structure is in, just the edging stones and the surface to go down sometime in the future. It's a little rough round the back and at the ends, but this will be covered with other scenic bits and bobs so it hardly matters.
Am I feeling warm to this? Not as yet.

7mm scale platforms

Rolling now. I always find that the track and wiring takes too long, but if I rush it I pay for it later. Today, bufferbeams and marking out the platform. There's always a debate around heights. The official minimum is 2'8" above rail, but there are numerous, though mostly historical, instances where things were a lot lower. Todays mainline stations are a bit of a bum steer as they've a) grown  and b) have to cope with being disabled friendly. Not so the classic 1930s-50s branch terminus which can head down quite a bit and I found a cracking shot featuring one of the Woodhead locos standing at a platform which looked to require a small step ladder.

The rule of thumb is somewhere between the dead centre and the bottom of the buffer head. A wagon was placed and a bit of Wills sheet was marked. No, you're not going to escape the Wills sheet even with this. Ground level to top came out at 26mm - near on 8mm of that is track depth in O. now I just need to slice up a dozen or so lengths of the stuff and build it.

Station building for the O gauge

I know I said I'd get this done in two days, but I keep fiddling. Curtains were one - simple magazine paper - but with internal walls fitted was a bit of a fiddle. The already mentioned fire buckets needed a) painting (more on that later) b) a back board made up from some Ratio building sheet mounted back to front with curved hooks made up from staples.
I went a bit full on with the weathering. This is probably wrong as most wiggly tin buildings on railway property are quite well maintained, but the temptation to add some oxidisation is too strong.

All that's left to do is add finials to the bargeboards and a stove pipe chimney round the back, both left to the end of the build as I knew the handling would knock them off. Plus a minimal amount of signage to set it off.

Quite a bit of this leans on Gordon Gravett's piece in MRJ 245. I only wish etc.

Saturday Ramble

As we enter week three of the lockdown I haven't really noticed too much difference during the day - I now just don't go out at night. This isn't a problem as now all the crap TV is wound back and they are running more films (Ealing Comedies all next week) who needs money anyway when all the shops are shut? For those of you who still have a job; be grateful.

The primary work at the moment is the O gauge. The station building is done and only needs a couple of painty things to get it sparkling. Yesterday was 'hunt the fire buckets' - not as much fun as 'hide the sausage' and not a game I'd played before, but one that I can recommend for those with time on their hands. I was going to buy some from Invertrain, but was warned off slightly by their Covid 19 postal service. This was mentioned on the phone to our Mr. Hill who reminded me that we had used some on Morton Stanley. These would be stuck to the station building - which is now resident in the loft - which can be accessed by the ladder - which is behind the car - which is unlikely to move out of the garage for the foreseeable future. How many buckets were purchased? Well I can now inform you that it was ten, as eight whitemetal 7mm scale buckets have now been retrieved from the deep, dark depths of the cupboard and all is well with the world, I don't have to ring Invertain and I don't have to play that little wavy dance with the postman when he bangs on the door then jumps back and gesticulates at the doorstep from the end of the drive.

The rest of yesterday was spent avoiding gardening (nearly) and getting point one down on Tiley Road. This was a nail-biting affair as the last time I built my own track; here some Devon stuff is the order and I couldn't be 100% sure that the standard DPDT switch would work with the throw of the point blades. If it didn't there was no plan B in stock and no shops that sold one. In the end I did a little happy dance around the patio when it went 'clunk' and the blade hit the stock rail. The very old Lima motor bogie, which is the test unit, ran happily up and down in all directions, so hopefully all will be well.

7mm station building

Compression is the key. What I learnt from being brought up on CJ Freezer was the proportion tricks, well not so much tricks, as making sure you don't over do it. Scale modelling is all well and good, but we don't have scale domestic space. This is a case in point.

I have 3 metres to play with - sounds a lot, but a simple two point crossover sucks up 3'. Two of those for a loop and two, so 6' of point work and so on. In order to make things look open and spacious platforms need to be thin and long, with only up to a third covered with buildings. Once you hit 50%, your platform suddenly looks short.  Small buildings work better.

I took the general dimensions from a drawing of an L & B building in the 7mm NGA's buildings book, and basically lopped a door off the length. Adding the lamp room actually makes it longer overall, but takes away the squatiness, without making the building large. Well that's the theory anyway.

Peco windows and door and Wills corrugated asbestos sheet as recommended by David Taylor among others. The roof is a card mock-up to see how little overhang I can get away with.

Baseboards for O gauge

Well, it's deja vu all over again...
Or possibly the same meat and different gravy (that is, if you could get any meat). Three baseboards to knock together from White Rose. They fall together except fitting the top which requires a tiny bit of filing to reduce the tenons. Better that way around. This time two 900mm units and one 1200 dragging the total out to 3m - a little larger than Hopwood, but just a tad too big for the workshop. I think the best description would be 'robust'.

https://www.whiterosemodelworks.co.uk/

O gauge track planning

Time to get serious. A rummage in the box from Devon and some track appears. Paper templates are all well and good, but it's only when you get the 3D stuff out onto the plan that you realise how big O gauge is and how tight it's all going to be. It's not as if it can't be done, and there's really nothing new here, but once again I'm playing with things for the first time (last time in the late 80s I built all my own stuff) and it takes a while to get your eye in.

Essentially it's the Ahearn Gammon End track plan which I've used more than once, so hardly ground-breaking. Nevertheless, with this little relative area to deal with even something simple can get squished very quickly.

What concerns me with this is the outside situation. In theory I have enough stuff to get about halfway though. I'd over egged the track a little - easier to give some back - but what if it doesn't work or I run short of things with everyone at home?

A lineside shed for O gauge

Almost to get my eye back in again after the last couple of months in 009, I'd picked this Parkside kit out of the box as a good place to start. Straightforward and fool proof as well as being self contained... it's a plastic box, what could go wrong?

I suppose that if you were starting in O gauge this would be an excellent first project for just those very reasons. The only modification is the bog paper roof covering with the rip. Otherwise it's as per the instructions - not that it comes with any. I roughed the planking surface slightly with some wet and dry to add a little grain and the rest is the usual mix of grey/brown acrylics. I'll probably fit it up with a small pile of sleeper steps and some assorted debris when on the layout.

Parkside grounded van body

With a large box of stuff in front of me and as yet no baseboards, I wanted to make some sort of start. Aside from stop blocks there's no complete kits except the van body. I had a little niggle about leaving the headstocks on thinking that this was just lazy kit production. A scoot around google images revealed that the prototype is about 50/50, with half of the pictures showing the headstocks left on. Thus saving me sawing them off. As this is a 'get you going in O gauge' project it was probably best to run with the basic kit anyway.
After bouncing out of 009 this seemed huge, but then this is a jump that I've made before on more than one occasion and in some ways despite being 'niche', I think 7mm is where the future lies.