Project 20 - 0 Gauge Layout - Part 15

For those of us who mostly scratch build, especially trackwork, it can take weeks or even months working on the foundations of a layout. During this long period it looks nothing like a real railway and can result in enthusiasm waning. It is not until landscaping is underway that the scene comes to life, lifting the spirits and spurring us on with construction.

The two buildings previously presented are in place, albeit much closer to the branch line track than would be allowed in the real world. Between them is a privy (barely visible) being a scaled up version of the Wills plastic kit. In my case it is made from balsa wood 'planks'.

The grass is old fashioned hairy carpet underlay glued to the baseboard and peeled off when dry to leave a multitude of hairs that are trimmed with scissors to the desirable height.. Once painted with acrylics (by sweeping the paint brush to and fro) it takes on a grass like appearance. This method can give longer grass length and be clumpier in places than static grass.

The ivy is teased out hairy string covered in real minced dead tree leaves and then sprayed with acrylic paint.

The bush is the dead, bristly flower head of  Ceratostigma willmottianum covered in real minced dead tree leaves and sprayed green.

To Part 16.

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Project 20 - 0 Gauge Layout - Part 14

A second building for the dockyard is McBoaty Marine Engineers. Seeking another quick build I came across a free building kit, this time from 3dk. Whilst suitable, their copyright does not allow modification so. it is a non starter for me. I had to find another.

The February 1986 issue of Practical Model Railways magazine has a plan for a small building that has some merit as my marine engineers building. The plan is of a narrow gauge locomotive shed repurposed as a cow shed after the railway closed.

The building was scaled up from the 4mm scale plan to 7mm and designed in a graphic editing application.

Following the success of the last build using corrugated cardboard the same was used here. Internal decoration is provided and an office with desk, that is a scaled up version of that used in my 00 gauge goods shed kit. The office can be glimpsed through the windows and if lighting was fitted may become more obvious.

The purlins shown in the photo are balsa wood and are the foundation for faux galvanised steel corrugated panels.

I kept the tall 'loco entrance doors' on the basis that small cruisers or small masted yachts can be entered for repair.

The corrugated roof panels are 3D printed by myself and coloured with acrylics . Rust here and there is achieved by sponge dabbing. Quite pleased with the effect.

To Part 15.




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Project 20 - 0 Gauge Layout - Part 13

I started to raise the ground level to rail height in the dock yard. Upon reaching an area where there are to be buildings I had to stop because I want to embed buildings below ground level and at that stage had no idea what buildings to fit. I had to find some suitable. There is little room between the dock yard tracks and the branch line so I had to consider small buildings, maybe huts.

I found a delightful little hut by Scalescenes, given away free of charge as a taster for their range of downloadable card kits. I could have designed and built my own but wanted a quick result this time. Scalescenes are very generous in their copyright allowing kits to be customised and replicated for personal, non-commercial use.

Their kit is for 00 gauge. The first thing to do was to scale up the parts for 0 gauge and I am pleased to say the decoration suffered no degradation.

Sclaescenes builds require a range of card and board thickness from 200gsm to 2 mm thick. For 0 gauge 2 mm becomes 3.5 mm, a board size I did not have, except I do have a large stock of Ikea corrugated cardboard boxes saved from furniture purchases. Among these were some close to 3.5 mm.

Using corrugated cardboard for the first time I was pleased at its ease of use and robustness of the finished model. One mistake of several made during the build was to transpose the side walls resulting in the chimney and fireplace being close to the door when it is meant to be furthest from the door!

The hut is available in a variety of brick and stone decoration. I chose stone, partly because I wanted to add texture and the large stone blocks would make it simpler to achieve than brick.

I printed the stone decoration twice. The first was layered onto the building as normal. The individual stones of the second were cut out and glued over the corresponding stones of the first layer. As a result the second layer of stones stand proud of the mortar lines on the first layer.

The effect is not that noticeable at normal viewing distance but, close up or in optimum light the result is quite effective.

Four other customisations are the walls that have a 2 mm skirt for embedding in the ground. The gutters with facia boards designed and fitted using my own method. The drainpipes are 3D printed by myself and a door knob, which is in fact a post for the guard rail of a scrapped Airfix 00 gauge turntable!

The paint scheme is BR Southern, an option supplied in the kit. The hut therefore, is a yard office for railway purposes.

To Part 14.

To Part 1.

Project 20 - 0 Gauge Layout - Part 12

G. Pryer's book 'A Pictorial Record of Southern Signals' has a scale drawing of level crossing gates for a single line. Bizarrley the scale is a little larger than 7mm scale so, rescaling had to be done to make the model. The drawing is of a set of gates on the Hayling Island (LB&SCR) branch line. To complement the drawing I did a search for photographs and came up with a couple, one of which suggested the crossing was located at Langston. However, other photos of the Langston crossing clearly showed a different style of gates.

Further searching eventually identified the location as New Lane, about 1500 metres from Havant station. The branch line route now exists as a footpath and to my delight the gates have been retained as an entrance point. Google street view gives us close up views where details of their construction can be seen.

The model was 3D printed as a kit of parts and is manually operated. After the photos were taken a white mesh was glued over each gate, as the prototype in operational days. The mesh came from a small 'wedding favors' gift bag, available from Hobbycraft.

Grond surfaces will be to textured and coloured later.

To Part 13.

To Part 1.