Sign of the Time

The office at 'odsock Corner now has a sign to indicate to all lost souls where they have ended up. However, it may not assist their confusion...

Whilst I could have created this sign and the ghost letter effect entirely on the computer I actually went down a more convoluted, yet practical route by starting with an actual sign. This uses a wooden sign blank purchased from The Works (cut-down to three planks from four) and self-adhesive cardboard letters from Boyes. 

The sign blank was sprayed with grey primer and sanded to a weathered effect, whilst the letters were temporarily fixed to a scrap of cardboard and sprayed black. The letters were then stuck to the sign and because the adhesive wasn't that great, the whole thing was then sealed with diluted matt medium. The letters were then dry-brushed with grey emulsion from a match-pot to give them a worn effect.

The intention is that the bottom plank will eventually have some extra info added such as scale/gauge info. However I needed to leave it blank to create the model sign... 

The next stage was to photograph the sign square-on on the back step of the house in daylight (but not bright sunlight), adding in an unpainted 'H' on the bottom plank in order to create the ghost letter on the final sign. This photo was then manipulated in my editing software to create the signs for the model, moving the ghost letter to join the top plank and carefully blending the join.

Three sizes of sign were printed on glossy photo paper, which was given a coat of spray matt varnish and left to dry overnight. The middle size was chosen and cut out with the raw edges touched in with a pencil. The resultant signs were then fixed in position and matt varnish run around the edges to kill the shine from the pencil.

As part of the same exercise I also created some small 'Private Keep Out' signs for the gateway, these were created entirely in my image software but treated in the same way as the nameboards.

I'm not sure if the rabbit will pay any attention... 

Colin

Tyred

I realised that a feature of the Mini was not really apparent in the pictures posted recently. As a fairly cheap model the tyres left a little to be desired, moulded in hard plastic with no representation of tread around the circumference. Realising I could not easily and reliably scribe this detail on to the model I opted to create the effect by weathering.  

So I found myself cutting very thin strips of masking tape and wrapping them around the wheels, one centred and one either side. In fact I did this twice as during the first attempt I realised the strips were not thin or consistent enough. I then dry-brushed the effect of driving on a dusty roadway onto the treads of the wheels, and once dry removed the masking...

To my surprise the effect, although subtle, works! Not bad for an idea sparked by looking at my car tyres after a trip down the lane to the Sherwood Forest Railway...

Colin

Three Pound Mini

There is a new arrival at 'odsock Corner in the form of a Mk1 Mini tucked to one side of the lane. It's very unlikely anything will be able to get past!

The original sketch from many years ago that was eventually brough to life as 'odsock Corner did indicate a vehicle could fit here, and I teased an ice cream van in the space last year. However to be as practical as possible in the daft space a smaller vehicle was going to give a better balance to the scene so I sought out a Mini. After some research into the various options in 1:43 scale I opted to go with the Lledo Vanguards model as I felt the shape looked about right. A trip to a local toy fair before Christmas found one in the original packaging for just £3.00.

It is quite a basic model, I think later versions were probably improved a little but the basis was there for some modelling work to create something unique. Creating a reasonable "layout" model from a cheap diecast is the sort of thing the late Chris Ellis, editor of Sale Trains and Model Trains International, would have encouraged. The model required old-school dismantling using a power drill to drill out the rivetted joint underneath the bonnet and then unclip the rear registration plate.

I failed to take any work in progress shots but the notable work included:

• Fixing the front wheels with a slight steer to the right and sanding a flat into the base of the tyres so the model sits better on the road,
• T-cutting the paintwork on the body to remove imperfections in the surface (I picked this tip up in one of Gordon Gravett's books) and carefully removing paint from handles and trim reveal the metal surface,
• Spraying the body, chassis and interior with Humbrol matt varnish, subsequently re-coating the body in Halfords matt lacquer as it looked too matt (!),
• Weathering, including the wheels (more about them another time...) and a few bird deposits to hide lumps in the paint on the roof,
• Adding (HO scale) windscreen wipers over the moulded originals and weathering the screen.

Finally everything was re-assembled and the drilled out rivet filled with Araldite and clamped together whilst drying. 

A few other additions of note are the usual Araldite on the headlights and some printed items in the form of a newspaper and crisp packet in the front window and a Tesco carrier bag on the parcel shelf, These came from a Scale Model Scenery print-at-home sheet printed on matte photo paper. The registration plates were created using an online generator for real plates, screenshot and manipulated to size and printed on glossy photo paper. In all these cases I have peeled back the layers at the back of the paper to make it thinner with less of an "edge". The registration plates had the edges touched in with a pencil to hide the whiteness.

All in all this has been a very pleasing project. Whilst the result may not pass really close scrutiny (especially the windscreen wipers) it is really at home on the layout.

Colin 

 

Watching the World

A new addition to 'odsock Corner is a lone figure sat on the bench outside the office watching the world go by... I've decided to be very careful and not over-populate the tiny scene so apart from train drivers and passengers, this is likely to be the only figure actually on the ground, so to speak.

In a new direction for me this is a resin 3D print, sourced very economically from Eddie King's 3D Printing For Charity who attend many shows in Lincolnshire, the East Midlands and surrounding area and raise money for the Lincs and Notts Air Ambulance. I've seen the air ambulance land in our village twice in the last year, so this is a very deserving cause.

Whether he is pondering the options for an Ikea Mosslanda shelf or has been distracted by the O9 possibilities of the Peco Rail 200 Competition Baseboard we shall have to see...

What I can say is that he was cleaned up, sprayed with grey plastic primer, washed with a black-wash and then carefully painted with acrylics, using dry-brushing techniques to leave shadows in the creases of the clothing and head/hands. The trousers used an initial darker shade and subsequent lighter shade to further enhance the creases. A waft of matt varnish completed the finish and I think he's turned out rather well.

Colin

Saturday Snapshot VI - One Year On

This popped up in my memories feed this week, a year ago I was playing with the cardboard mock-up for what would become 'odsock Corner'. I suppose I really shouldn't share this as it highlights that it has taken a year to get to the point of a scenically complete scene in a very small space...

I'm not sure I've used this particular shot on the blog before, demonstrating that there was room to park a vehicle between the crossings... Whilst the ice cream van is may be a bit too much, work is underway on a vehicle for that spot. More soon...

Colin

Mosslanda Musings

A few weeks ago I was browsing in Ikea and just happened to pick up a Mosslanda picture shelf, the latest item in their inventory that has appealed to micro layout builders. It has been championed by the likes of James Hilton on his blog and Ian Holmes on his Micro Model Railway Dispatches YouTube channel. Interestingly they have different ideas about use, scale and construction style and I find myself in agreement with aspects of both of their approaches.

Whilst James favours smaller scales and a minimalist approach to trackwork, Ian has shown a scheme in 009 incorporating pointwork that caught my eye as a potential desk-sitter micro layout. Playing about with a few bits of track I devised the scheme below as a potential O9 shed scene, the wooden mock-up representing a shipping container or flat-roofed shed - a two-road shed would be in low relief on the left.

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I'll be honest and say that I think it probably looks a little too "busy", so an alternative is this 'tuning fork' scheme that could have a lot in common with my old Gn15 project 'Ambassador Works' as a shunting layout, with a warehouse building along the back with a loading dock.

A third option would be more along the lines of some of James' work, with a single-line scene of some sort. I've not felt the need to mock that up - yet...

Colin

Batteries not Included

One of our local exhibitions takes the form of a joint event with the Model Bus Federation and attracts an interesting range of traders. One of my fellow NGRM Online members described them as some of the best rummage boxes around... At the most recent show my eye was drawn to what looked like a large tramcar controller, the sticker said it was Tomytec, needed batteries and better still was just a pound! I've experimented with battery control on the Christmas pizza and I thought it would make a novel controller for the O9 battery railcar on 'odsock Corner.

Opening up the back I was surprised to see it used 4x AA batteries, and a quick test confirmed that was more than enough as the railcar was at an acceptable speed just opening up the controller with top speeds more suited to HS2. A comment on the NGRM online forum confirmed what I thought from a quick look at the inner workings, that you could bypass two of the battery slots and it would work at half-power. The retained batteries are at the base of the unit for better weight distribution.

With a suitable DIN plug added to the wire it has proved successful, the layout currently residing on the lit shelf in the shed that was intended to be home to so much more layout...

Another battery related project is one that provision was made for earlier in the build, adding an LED light to the office building. I'm not a huge fan of overly-lit layouts and feel that light does not scale easily, so the intention here is not over-bright illumination to use in the dark, just enough to see what is inside when scene depicts day time. Before Christmas I found a trader on eBay selling pre-wired LED units and bought a single-LED unit to try.

The two wires pre-soldered to the single  LED were sprayed grey to disguise them within the building, they drop through the hole in the floor and under the board. At present they lead through a hole in the framing that I had to drill by hand, to a switched battery pack for 2x AAA batteries hidden under the baseboard. I found that a unit for 2x AA was just a little oversize to fit. If the 3v provided by these batteries proves not to be enough in the long term I can possibly fit a 9v battery in the space. 

Photographing a very dimly-lit light in daylight is rather tricky, so I resorted to turning the room lights out after all. In reality that street lamp would be lit as well, but the railway at 'odsock Corner probably sleeps at night!

Colin