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