Railway modelling in 7mm scale on 9mm gauge track, representing 15" gauge miniature railways and 18" gauge industrial railways. (Plus anything else that I choose to include!)
Saturday, 31 May 2025
Avalon and Austria
Monday, 26 May 2025
Sign of the Time
Saturday, 17 May 2025
Tyred
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...
Saturday, 3 May 2025
Three Pound Mini
- 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.
Saturday, 26 April 2025
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.
Saturday, 19 April 2025
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...
Saturday, 12 April 2025
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.
Saturday, 5 April 2025
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.
Saturday, 29 March 2025
Three - Finishing Touches
A little light weathering has now been applied to SMR No.3, just enough to be a work-a-day miniature railway machine, especially one that has seen recent workshop attention!
Saturday, 22 March 2025
'odsock Corner - Flora and Fauna
Wednesday, 19 March 2025
Ghost of Three
Saturday, 15 March 2025
Take Three
Having managed a very minor refresh on my recent scratchbuilt i/c loco, I was enthused to carry out some rebuild work on another older O9 loco and after some thought the Shifting Sands workhorse, No.3, has emerged from the workshops resplendent in yellow livery for the first time in about 20 years.
Painting was concluded with a coat of Humbrol acrylic matt varnish from an aerosol, after which the task of adding the smaller detail parts was carried out, including an open sliding window on the cab side, a nod to the original 2004 model. The exhaust, headlights and air horns retain their original finish and the number plates were cleaned up prior to refitting with matt varnish. Lead window strip weights, removed prior to paint stripping, were reinstated to both body and underframe, where the primer from the previous rebuild was still visible as seen above.
I'm really happy that I have made this much progress in just two months. There is a little weathering to do to complete the model, this will largely be around the underframe area and the plan is to be as subtle as possible, although a workhorse it is still a miniature railway locomotive rather than an uncared for industrial machine.
Colin
Saturday, 8 March 2025
Caravan and Cake
Saturday, 1 March 2025
Through the Gateway
Saturday, 22 February 2025
Saturday Snapshot V - Growth
Although there are still some areas to revisit and enhance, I'm pleased to report that 'odsock Corner has finally reached the stage where all the scenic ground cover is in place and there are no (unintentional) patches of bare earth. The previously turf-only narrow strip along the back edge of the layout can be glimpsed here through the gateway sporting a mixture of wild grass and brambles.