Photos of the latest progress

One side of all rails has been painted on the main station board now.

The Fridd Isaf rocks section has gained a backpiece (held on by a clamp whilst it dries) and has started to be populated by newspaper balls.

Following a suggestion in Model Rail magazine, I purchased some 'Florera' from IKEA today. This is grey coloured sand, used for decorative flower arranging etc., which is just the right scale for ballast and is just 99p for 750ml. On the left is the woodland scenics alternative, slightly darker (but negligible really) and £5.75 for 730ml!!! I have cut out a small section of plywood, glued on some cork and tomorrow will nail down a piece of track to it to act as a test piece. Both forms of ballast will be tested and I'll post the results soon....

Colin

Photos of progress - see for yourself!

spines are a multiplying!
The stream now has polyfilla banks
The ebay walls were delivered - not bad at all. Can't wait to try the bending in heat!

Colin

Camera-phone - any good?

Hi,

Quite a bit of progress this weekend. I have used my new-ish camera-phone to take some images (hope they come out OK)...

The stream running just north of the main sheep creep on the Fridd Isaf curves has been cut out from the baseboard and plywood has been fixed underneath the resulting space. This is now ready for polyfilla to create the 'banks' of the stream.

Also a number of spines were cut and glued in for the rock faces and 'hill' on the Fridde iSaf board. (7, of which 3 are in two parts).

It doesn't look like that much, but it has taken loads of planning and minor tweaks to get this far...

C

The stream....

The spines with various things to hold them in place whilst glueing...

Call off the search!

Hi,

Sorry for the lack of updates, have been busy at work (and building decking in the garden). Much of the work on layout things has been searching for dry stone walling and I've found what I think will be the answer...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=290133513059&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=019

This stuff can be heated, flexed and then cooled again to shape! Brilliant! I have ordered some and will report back on how good they come out, but I'm hopeful this will save hours of DAS-ing. (which I was not looking forward to).

Also, woodland scenics appear to have launched a 'static' grass product:

http://www.ecscenics.co.uk/index.html?lang=en-uk&target=d18.html&lmd=39301.634109

This could well look good and give the grass the 3D look I need...

Anyway, back to planning...

Colin

Photos

The emulsion paint I'm using for hills - Opulence by Craig & Rose - dark chocolate.

The result - first coat on the hills...

The realigned roadway.


The rock alongside the level crossing just at the north end of the station. The scenery will come up to meet it, hence its slightly (on a piece of plywood) elevated level. Also note painted rails.

The first spine for Fridd Isaf...

Colin

More progress than expected this week, so here's another post

Progress so far this week:

- The few edges of the modroc that were loose, were stapled down using the NETTO nail gun (see previous posts for detail of the amazing bargains available at NETTO)

- The roadway was repositioned (again) to line up with the corner of the triangular infill board, necessary due to the initial marking out of scenics on the Fridd Isaf section.

- Rail painting has continued, evening by evening and is now complete all the way to the first loop point from the Fridd Isaf end and one side of the rails have also been painted for approx half the loop.

- After much discussion and consideration, I decided to just go for it and I cut out and glued angle pieces onto the first spine for the Fridd Isaf 'hill'. Further spines should be added tomorrow.

- I hoovered (well 'Dysoned') the layout and ten mins later created loads more dust to replace that removed by the Dyson!

- I added bogies to the WHR(P) Bro Madog Eisteddfod coach, which is now available for gauging trials.

- The small trial with brown emulsion paint applied directly to modroc was successful and thus I am ready to paint it asap.

- After purchasing two more 6mm ply sheets, I cut out the backscenes for the triangular and Fridd Isaf boards. The edges of two of these were filed down to allow the boards to 'mesh' together and hide the gaps between them. There only remains one last back piece to do on the main layout - the end of the Fridd Isaf board. There are then a few bits for the hidden sidings board, but they can wait.

Photos soon...

Colin