A Cosy Office

Over the last week or so the workbench has been host to the Port Wynnstay office building for the O9 pizza layout. This is a simple resin kit that goes together easily although I did have to flatten the sides and ends before assembly as they had warped in storage. This was achieved by submerging them in a Pyrex dish of boiling water and then removing them with tongs and laying on a glass worktop protector weighted down with weights from old OO gauge Lima diesels. 

I assembled the walls and floor of the kit using a combination of superglue and epoxy resin (but not at the same time) - the superglue to hold parts quickly as there were still some slight curves in the parts and the epoxy to strengthen from the inside and to fix the final wall in place.

For the roof I built an inner roof from mounting card and fixed the kit parts to this, making a removeable unit to allow access to the interior. As can be guessed from the angle between the two parts, the main section of the building is not yet fixed to the foundations in order to make painting a little easier when the time comes.

The chimney in the roof is a length of copper tube let into a hole drilled in the roof. I have filled around this but when painted I will add some flashing from Creme Egg wrapper. The chimney gives a clue to what might be inside and anyone peering through the windows will hopefully not be (too) disappointed by what is within... 

The version of this building on 'Shifting Sands' has an interior with a desk and modern chairs, this version is a little more old fashioned. The desk is a Highland Castings example, however it had drawers at either side so I shortened the top and made a new side from styrene. The chair is from a 7mm scale coach seat moulding, with the base and headrest cut away and narrowed. Legs nearly troubled me but in the end the legs from the card table in the Prieser Luftwaffe ground crew set were used, slightly shortened and with some styrene and wire additions. 

Finally the stove again raids the ground crew set and started life as a radio or speaker. I have made it deeper with 80 thou styrene and sat it on a scratchbuilt base. The light grey legs are snippets of Dapol railbus step mouldings. Some Evergreen tube completes the illusion, you'll not be able to see it too closely once complete but at least it is there, and I'm left wondering where I should have drawn the line!

Colin

Back to the 422 Wagons

Whilst work progresses on the pizza layout, I have finally got the two 422 Modelmaking wagons painted and attached to their Peco chassis. 

Painting followed my usual path of a spray of grey primer followed by painting the interiors in a bare wood colour. A black-grey wash and brown wash followed to highlight the plank and grain lines. Dry-brushing then followed, lighter colours in the interior and a semblance of paint on the outside. Ironwork was picked out in black-grey and some some light dry-brushing highlighted edges and gunmetal was dry-brushed onto the bolt heads etc. Everything was sealed in place with a spray of  Humbrol acrylic matt varnish.

The one-plank wagon has a brown (ish) tinge outside and is weathered with weathering powders to look as if it has carried a sand load recently, including runs outside the body where the top has been lifted off Heywood-style.

The drop-side has a grey tinge to the exterior although one plank has no paint at all. The interior load weathering is more of a brown tinge and again this has been extended to the exterior where the load has spilled during unloading.

Jumping back a stage, prior to fitting the chassis I decided to add a little extra weight to the wagons alongside the Peco weight. I used self-adhesive lead window strip in the under-side voids that would surround the Peco weight to use the space effectively, as demonstrated below.

I then placed the Peco weights into the spaces, mixed up some epoxy and filled the two smaller holes, sitting the Peco chassis into the weight and securing chassis to weight and wagon all in one go. 

Couplings are still required, I need to find a spare evening to tackle some Greenwich assembly...

Colin

Pizza CAD - Cardboard Aided Design

With the basic woodwork completed on my O9 pizza project I have started to think about how the scenic treatment might work. I have therefore worked through a series of cereal packet cardboard mock-ups to explore a few ideas. Luckily I had a few bits retained from previous exercises to help with this.

The first has a distinct theme, backstory and to a degree, a sprinkling of whimsey, something it inherits from my other pizza 'Christmas Tree Halt'. When I built my O9 Railcar a year or so ago, I had visions of it running on a layout depicting some sort of tramway leading to a small hotel or resort. To the rear of the scene is a small station at the non-business end of the line, this would have a slightly rustic look, think Groudle Glen or Eaton Hall. Next to this is the ominpresent Port Wynnstay hut and behind both trees on the left give way to more non-descript shrubbery that extends behind the station building.

Around the other side of the trees the land rises, there is a tunnel but this may be a miniature railway folly built for effect rather than burrowing fully under higher ground. More bushes hide a bit of a perspective trick, the hotel/resort represented in the background at a smaller scale.

Next I mocked-up something based on the original sketch I made that started this project, a simple scheme featuring a garage-style building and large tree, adding in some additional trees to the back right corner for balance. The Motor Rail looks quite at home, borrowing the railcar's luggage trailer for this posed shot. It ought to be possible for it to have a couple of suitable 8-seater passenger carriages to haul in this scenario...

An observer commented that this was like a mini 'Bellfield Hall' (a pioneering circular O9 estate railway layout). That led me to develop a third mock-up, based on a plan I published here on the blog back in 2021 (Pizza Ponderings - Fresh Toppings) which is even closer to the estate theme. The main deviation from the original is to mirror-image the plan it to better suit the baseboard. 

The high baseboard edge at the back-right corner would have to be lowered to accommodate the road but this does seem to fit. The original concept was to fit a road vehicle in parked against the wall, I subsequently tried this and there was room to spare. Nothing would be able to get past, but I suspect this is not a frequently used roadway.

The area of ground that was cut away inside the circle would be lost to the platform but there is still scope to drop the scenery on the outside a little below the board surface. The plan had another hut/shed behind the Port Wynnstay office (but no big tree) and there should still be space for something here and a good pile of junk. 

Plenty of food for thought...

Colin

Pizza Ponderings - A Freshly Rolled Base

It started with a sketch... a very small sketch in fact, literally doodled the size of a postage stamp on a scrap of paper. In fact I'm amazed it has scanned and cleaned up so well! It was initially drawn for a circular base but then squared off into an Octagon when I realised the cake board I had to hand was a little warped. It doesn't represent anything in particular, just some narrow gauge track, a building that may have a disconnected track emerging from it, and a tree.

Having procrastinated for a couple of weeks, it was soon getting towards the Easter Weekend. With family visits pushed back into the week after the bank holidays, and various other factors taken into account, I realised I had a window of opportunity to do something practical. 

What follows may be seen by many as over-engineering for a simple pizza, but I wanted to build something robust and without any tendency to warp, and to use materials to hand wherever possible. Construction largely follows the method used for my 009 layout 'The Old Quarry Line', with a 5mm ply base, 13" square as the starting point. 2.5" triangles were cut from each corner to avoid hard corners and bracing is in the form of some timber from stock, about 1" x 0.75", the sort of thing that some appliances come packed with.

Having glued and clamped the basic frame together I added an edging strip all the way around. On the two sides where there isn't a continuous strip across the board underneath this is part of the basic load-bearing structure. I had cut more 5mm ply for this job but this was not satisfactory, so in the end had an  Saturday afternoon dash to Wickes to buy 4 x 36mm pine strip to avoid grinding to a halt on Easter Sunday! 

The pine strip is used on three long and two short sides, the other sides are some 3mm ply that I had to hand, profiled to allow a raise in the scenery.

A layer of 5mm foam core board topped the ply, with cut-outs to allow scenery to dip below the trackbed level, and a layer of cork tile over that to add more depth and provide a good surface for pinning and adjustment whilst laying the track. Both layers were glued down with PVA and weighted whilst drying.

Regular readers may recall that several Easter weekends ago, in the isolated days of 2020, I laid out what was going to be my next O9 project, a now stalled and lifted interpretation of the Julian Andrews/Howard Martin 'Avalon Brickworks' plan. Two thirds of the trackwork laid on this pizza is recovered from the curves on that project, with rail sides cleaned up and broken sleepers removed. It was laid with my home-made 5" radius curve and lightly pinned into place.

 

Two of the rail joiners were pre-wired and some very simple wiring under the board allowed test running on Tuesday morning, with the Motor Rail doing the honours. There is scope to remove a small part of the board on the left hand side to drop the scenery even further but that will wait for another day.  

Whether or not the original plan will be followed remains to be seen, there are a few other options in the archives: Pizza Ponderings - Fresh Toppings and I need to decide if this project is to use the 18" gauge stock currently under development or maybe provide a home for the railcar and luggage trailer.

More soon...

'Invicta' - a quick photo survey

It is always interesting when a 15" gauge locomotive emerges from a prolonged period of hibernation, and whilst not as exciting as some of the potential hidden delights that may exist, the unique Maxitrax 'Invicta' has recently arrived at the Sherwood Forest Railway for testing and a longer-term residency. She has been on display over the Easter weekend and was kindly rolled out of the shed by Bob Colley into better light for photography.

Built in the late 1980s for the original incarnation of the Markeaton Park railway in Derby, I saw her in the shed there in 1996 but for some reason did not take a photograph, despite other pictures being taken. Not long afterwards loco and two coaches moved to one of the Gullivers theme parks where it is not clear how much use was ever made of her over many years. 

Now nearing the end of a full restoration the paintwork is gleaming, so much so you can see my reflection in the shot below! 

The compact nature of the loco is ideally suited to the SFR and the existing rolling stock, suitable air braking equipment is fitted and we should see passenger use in due course when the railway opens it's extension and a two train service is run. I'm informed there have already been test runs along the new length of line out of the way of service trains.

There are still a few finishing touches to make, including cab front and rear windows and surrounds, and a cover for the air intake on the bonnet side. The cab is compact and emphasises how us modellers have issues getting driver figures to fit in O9 locomotive models, the seat is about a foot from the floor so your knees are going to be in the air, a posture rarely offered in model form...

Another important detail for modellers, the suspension and axle boxes. Just in case you are wondering, the wheelbase is 2ft and overall length just over 6ft. You would need a tiny chassis for an O9 model (it definitely won't fit a Kato 11-109!) but it would be a reasonable build on a SPUD or Underground Ernie chassis in 1/24th scale...

Many thanks to Bob and David Colley at the Sherwood Forest Railway - and a plug for the railway's new hot food selection on weekends and Nottinghamshire school holidays.

Colin

Rails on Planet Hex

Back in October I completed my Doctor Who micro-diorama on a hexagonal base measuring 7cm between each set of flat edges in order to fit within my display cabinet. A second base was cut from MDF as a "just in case" and whilst not used at the time it was actively considered for a Christmas scene and a suitable tree was even sourced. 

I had wondered for a while whether such a tiny base could accommodate any meaningful railway scene so in an odd moment or two I created almost the seasonal opposite of what was previously intended!

Construction is very similar to the methods used for the Tardis Scene the track went in first with 5mm foam core board segments either side that were carved to shape and then blended in with modelling clay. Track was weathered and ballasted, before a base surface texture mix was added followed by the same fine sand used on Shifting Sands. This was laid liberally over a layer of PVA, allowing it to overflow into the ballasted areas and then matt medium used to fix the layer for a natural look.

The base will just accommodate a small O9 loco, in this case the recently completed Motor Rail. The grasses are a mixture of Silfor tufts and Peco 10mm grasses, cut from strips as I did not have suitable tufts in stock. A little pruning with nail scissors increased the variety of lengths. All grasses were dry-brushed with a light green/grey acrylic paint which really helps take off any sheen. Finally MIG 'Beach Sand' weathering powder was used over the sand to lighten it and add variety to the colouring.

I'm really pleased with the result, there may be more scenic modelling to come soon...

Colin

 

422 Variations

Work on the 422 Modelmaking wagons continues. Having proved the concept to modify the axleboxes on the spare chassis, I have now modified both of the other chassis castings. In this view one is lined  up with a modified Peco chassis, and the sad remains of it's old body! The Peco chassis has been modified to accept the Mathieson 7mm wheelsets which required removal of all brake gear, and opening out the holes above each wheel to be fully rectangular. 

 

The modified 422 chassis has the axleboxes modified and if you look carefully in the centre of the tubes you can see the dodge I have employed to mimic the end of the axle. This uses a moulding from the Dapol railbus kit, cutting the round mouldings off the parts on the left of the sprue, reducing some in size a little to match the others. By drilling out the back of the tubes I could insert this and give the impression of an axle in the bearing.

 

Once the axleboxes were sorted out I glued the chassis to the bodies using Araldite, clamping where necessary to bring everything together with minimal gaps. I then opted to add some extra details in further individualise the models, adding some basic hinge details to the drop-side wagon and handles either end of the one-plank to allow the body to be removed Heywood-style.

A closer view of the handles, formed from 0.7mm brass wire. With the 0.7mm drill bit out I also drilled the bufferbeams to accommodate Grandt Line 1 1/2" NBW mouldings to break up the plain surface. Not visible are the two holes drilled underneath the chassis on the centreline at each end, 1.5mm apart, ready to secure Greenwich couplers in due course.

Both wagons are now cleaned up and ready to paint. The third chassis with the experimental (and indeed removed) axleboxes is being brought into line detail wise and a body is planned using some recycled material... 

Colin