Tinworthy progress report

It seems a long time since I reported any progress but I am still here!

Firstly I have been working on the small buildings at the back of the yard and the surrounding ground works. These buildings hide point motors.

The green storage sheds are based on one of the photos I have of Tavistock and are constructed of scribed card. The roof is corrugated iron using sheets of rolled foil from Eastwell Iron Works. The stables are based on the ones at Minehead and the brickwork is embossed card sheet from Howards Scenics. The other storage shed is one I inherited from the old Eggesford layout.

This is a motor shed built again in card with a similar corrugated iron roof. This is based on a drawing in Adrian Vaughan’s Great Western Architecture.

There is still a lot of detailing to be done to the ground work as well as trees and a painted backscene.

Secondly I have been working on the end of the Down platform where I have built the signal box and installed a water crane. This an old 3mm scale Mikes Models casting.

That’s all for now folks!

Tinworthy-Station Building

The original Tavistock GWR station had an overall roof. My interpretation of the station for necessity of space involves a shortened building. There are no plans of the original station but looking at pictures in a very good article published in the Great Western Journal I could see comparisons with the buildings of Henley-on-Thames. They are in brick whereas Tavistock is in stone but the window and door sizes appear quite comparable. There are very good drawings of Henley in Paul Karau’s book on the subject.

The building Is constructed from card to which I stuck a brown manilla envelope turned inside out onto which I scribed the stone courses. This is a method I learnt from the late Peter Gentle-a superb building modeller. The brown paper gives a very good texture and takes watercolour very well. The stones are painted on using various shades of grey and brown

Here shows the effect before and after painting

The outer wall of the train shed is constructed from a sandwich of Wills sheets and planked plasticard with the windows made up from thin card and set into openings cut in the sheets.

The overall roof is made from mounting board with plastruct girders and trusses soldered up from 0.7mm brass rod on a marked out jig. The outer surface is covered with corrugated plasticard. The whole roof is detachable to allow access to the inside of the shed.

I think it portrays an atmosphere of the original building.

The roadside entrance to the station.

An aerial view of the completed train shed.

Pannier tank 6414 waits in the UP platform with an auto train bound for Plymouth. Compare this to the picture below!

Wheelwright update

Last time I was left pondering how to light the interior of the building and it was suggested that I could try a light tube up the chimney. That is what I have done. I inserted a plastic tube up into the chimney-actually the sleeve from a hyperdermic needle-behind the forge and then inserted a smaller tube at right angles to the chimney to lie along the beam in the roof. I then managed to thread a yellow micro LED up into the tube and hey presto I had light!

With the lighting sorted I attached the roof and stuck on strips of tiles. These were made by printing a 2mm x 2mm grid onto cartridge paper, then cutting strips 5mm wide with the tiles cut with scissors 2mm into the strip. When dry the whole lot was given a wash of tile colour followed by randomly painting each tile with varying mixes of light red, burnt umber, scarlet and neutral tint watercolour.

Finally the roof and brickwork was weathered by dry brushing a mixture of chromium oxide, raw sienna and raw umber. The main doors made from thin card were added as well as a cellar base and it is now virtually finished.

The only thing left to do is some ivy growing up the end wall between it and the lean to. This will be done with dark green coarse scatter material.

Wheelwrights for Pendon….

For a change I have started building a new model for Pendon Museum. This is the Wheelwrights. The building itself is fairly basic but has a feature of a large window made with overlapping glass panes. The main feature of the building is a detailed interior which hopefully will be lit in the night scene.

When in the scene eventually it will be located quite close to the viewing glass.

I have completed the shell of the building and have been working on the interior. Details for this have been obtained from photographs found on the internet as well as a visit to Tiverton museum in Devon where they have a mock up of a wheelwright.

The brickwork is embossed Flemish garden wall bond and still needs tidying up and weathering.

The lapped glass main window is made with strips of Perspex stuck with Humbrol Clearfix and mounted behind a frame of thin card with the whole lot mounted in the opening cut out for the window.

The interior was initially lined with Howards Scenics embossed card and painted to represent dirty whitewash. The various benches, wheel horse and saw horse are made from a mixture of 1/32″ plywood, balsa wood and obechi strip. A raid of my stock boxes produced bits of carts, wheels, saws and buckets.

The next stage is to work out how to install a light tube from the base up into the roof without impeding the view of the interior!!!

Lananta- March update

Having returned from a successful trip to the Netherlands with Lakebank ,where we had a very warm welcome and loads of interest from the Dutch, as well as the camaraderie of Gordon and Maggie Gravett, Mark Tatlow, Jerry Clifford and Olly and Chris, I have turned my attention to the left hand side of the layout.

The small station building was previously used on my old layout- Wye Knot- and is based on a mixture of Fairford GWR station and Symonds Yat on the Wye. Valley. The signal box is also recycled and is from my first Broad Gauge layout- Bagborough West.

The over bridge is made from stone embossed plasticard initially painted with a wash of acrylic paint and then the individual stones were picked out in water colour. Finally it was given a wash of acrylic weathering paint. The four horse drag(old mail coach) on the bridge is again recycled from Bagborough West. The coach itself is scratch built from plasticard. Makes a change from ‘the bus on the bridge ‘!!

What is left to do now is mainly adding the small detail to the scene. This includes signals, fencing, plant growth,people and animals. I have tested whether the two boards fit together in the travel box and to my surprise found that all the odd bits of the scene all seemed to intertwine very well. 2 large trees have had to be made removable together with the sailing ship and the sky part of the backscene.

Canal locks update

I have now finished the detailing of the two locks including the gates in various stages of delay.

Here are some pictures of the end result.

Firstly the upper lock with the tail bridge and cut out to accept the lock keepers cottage;

Secondly the lower lock with more derelict gates;

Now to find the time to deliver them to the museum!

Canal locks progress

I have now finished the main carcass for the upper of the two locks. This one includes a limestone tail bridge used for getting horses from one side of the canal to the other together with a cut out to take the lock keepers  cottage when it is  installed in it’s scenic tray. The bleached carpet felt grass has been applied and now awaits painting and then the fun bit of adding all the weeds, brambles, ivy etc can begin. 

  
The canal was abandoned in 1914 but most of the pictures we have of their derelict state were taken in the 1990s. At that time there was still some evidence of the lock gates. As they would only have been derelict for some 15 to 20 years at the period we are modelling one can surmise that there would be a bit more of the gates and other bits still in situ. The lower lock will have very derelict lower gates and the remnants of the upper gate while the upper lock being near the lock keepers cottage will have more intact gates. 

  

Canal locks for Pendon

One of the last projects commissioned by the late Roger Haywood, Pendon modelling coordinator, was for the Wilts and Berks disused canal locks for the Vale scene and I was asked to make them. 

The canal became abandoned in 1914 and by the time of the Pendon scene they had fallen into a state of decay.

  
Two locks are required, one of which has a bridge over the lower end which carries a track from the nearby farm to the lock keepers cottage. Because of the distance the canal has to fall in the scene it has become necessary for each lock to have a 11 feet drop.

I have started work on the lower lock. The brickwork is being done with Howard’s Scenics embossed brick card as most of the brickwork will be covered in ivy and brambles. I have glued the embossed sheet to a card base and after painting it with a mortar wash I painted the bricks by the method described in the instructions. A mixture of water colour to the correct brick colour is applied by stamping with the cut surface of an eraser coated in the paint. When dry weathering powders were applied.

  
Because the lock is so deep I decided to make up one side and the base first. I then glued and painted plumbers hemp bundles to the base before assembling the second side and the associated  egg boxing for the scene. 

   
 
Once the scrim and plaster has been added work can start on preparing the surface of the lock and adding all the weeds etc. This lock will have the remains of the lower gates and part of the upper gate. 

Cowleaze Farm progress 2

I have turned my attention to the front of the farm. There is a gravel area and a front fence with two gates leading onto the drive to the garage.

The fencing is made from hoops of .41mm brass wire set into a strip of cardboard and then the horizontal wires are soldered on. The whole lot is then set into a slot in the ground plaster. This is an idea given to me by a fellow modeller Stuart Holt.

The gravel is represented by sprinkling chinchilla dust into wet masonry paint and when dry the worn paths were made by rubbing with a fibre glass pencil..

The gates are built up from evergreen plastic strip.

The next step is to finish the stone walls around the orchard and install all the various gates.

Cowleaze vegetable garden- finished

Well the growing season has been good and the garden is full of produce!

There are a lot of weeds growing around the garden. These are a mixture of static grass applied to thin amounts of PVA, plumbers hemp sprayed with varnish and then scatter added to represent nettle and some woodlands scenics dried grass strands dipped in PVA and then coloured and green scatter to represent rose bay willow herb.

It is amazing how much mess is created when doing this type of scenic work as can be seen in this photo of my work bench. Loads of different containers of scatter material, card, glue, paint and books for inspiration!

The next step will be to finish the stone walling around the orchard and front of the house and then move onto the detailing of the orchard.