It's late - so here are some bullets of progress today...

- Edge piece (on public side) cutout of ply and nailed to Ffridd Isaf board

- Newspaper and modroc finished up to new piece

- Filler used for lower slopes in absence of a better way of creating very slightly raised landscape (newspaper+modroc as used elsewhere is too high)

- A small section cut out of modroc and rock glued in.

- More rock strata poured to complement the one successfully poured yesterday

- New emulsion colour tested (lighter as I now find the dark brown may be too dark!)

- Ffridd Isaf roadway prepared for smooth-it application

- New DVD watched (image above - review to feature on this blog soon) and grass technique now finalised - underfelt teased up and trimmed to shape - a Nicky Clarke trimmer purchased from tesco (£14) for this purpose.

- Spent evening cutting out pages from magazines and filing as my bookcase is starting to struggle and I don't really need bits in a mag about Egyptian delta light railways!

Colin

Bridging the gap

Some images of recent progress:

The bridge (UB113A) coming together

The new end piece with cutout

The new roadway at the Pitt's Head end of the layout.

Ffridd isaf curves...

Colin

150 posts!

Hi,


This is the 150th post on this blog! [I must enjoy a glass of the moose tonight to celebrate!]

I really need to add some images (but the nights are drawing in and photography at the end of a modelling session is difficult and ruined by flash - not good for photographing models that flash!)

Progress has been:

- Attended a show at Ashchurch, with the 009 Society sales stand in attendance - various bits were picked up including:

*A very poorly put together body of a Pickering brake, now refurbished and re-soldered into decent condition. Not bad for £3 and better than the £12 it is to buy the kit, but a lot of scraping and remodelling to remove the adhesive and blobs of solder! I was at home over the weekend for Mum's 60th so Dad was able to move this along much quicker than I had expected.

*A decent approximation to an FR bogie oil wagon (£2!)

* Some more ballast to try for size and colour - PECO light grey and some 'brush it on' grey ballat (that with the glue particles already mixed in).

*Some nice trees for 50p each

*Plastic kits for WHR brake van (altready made up last night) and FR Van 2

*Some pliers (without serrated edges - hooray!)

- Dad also completed one of the WHR (2003) semi-opens, which, with a design flaw around the ends in the worsley works kit was harder than expected.

- Work on the layout has also moved on, with the beams for UB113A having been cut, superglued together and attached to the stone piers. Polyfilla has also be used to fill the gap. The plywood 'hole' for the track to disappear into hidden sidings has also been added and lastly, the roadway alongside the line at the Pitt's Head end was cast using the woodland scenics method of paving tape + 'smooth-it' plaster.

Slow, but steady progress!

Colin

Carry on up the pass....

Progress recently:

- Tracklaying (real) this weekend in the Aberglaslyn - super!
- Addition of backscene plywood on sides of Ffridd Isaf board
- Test of Woodland scenics fine ballast
- Test of curving the stone walls works well at 120 degs C in the oven!
- A bit more modroc added in some strategic locations.

Colin

Woodland scenics 1 - IKEA 0 (AET)

Hi,

The ballast experiment has concluded. The IKEA FLORERA looks too much like snow or ice (IMAGE 1 BELOW) and would only really work after significant airbrushing and repainting. The woodland scenics ballast (IMAGE 2 BELOW) worked well, but the syringe method moved the ballast too much on application, so I will be moving to a dropper instead. The mix of 50:50 PVA to water worked fine (with a drop of washing up liquid). The medium grade of ballast though looks too big and thus I will be sourcing some Woodland scenics fine grade ballast soon. I am still undecided on the colour though, the mix of grey doesn't look right from a distance, so I might just go for light grey and weather it, in places.

I have continued adding spines and tonight finished the newspaper/masking tape bits (after borrowing extra newspaper from our kind neighbour - Daily Mirror - huh!). I then pressed on and completed much of the modroc application, the results below. It got dark and the masking tape wouldn't stick to damp wood, so I'll leave it till it's all dried and continue...

Colin