A LITTLE POST CHRISTMAS PROJECT

Tony Overton

Western Thunderer
Having found a couple of spare short lengths of rail, an off-cut of cork sheet, and an off-cut of MDF I’ve decided to knock together a small diorama/short display track for wagons, nothing fancy but it’ll also be useful for when I want to photograph stock. The ultimate plan is to create something representing a Midland Railway siding shunting neck of circa 1905 set against a high L spaced brick retaining wall in a country setting. So far I’ve built the track and created the board it’ll go on. The track is built using ply sleepers from an old layout sorted, cleaned up and re-stained – why throw them away if they can be re-used. The MR chairs are by Exactoscale (7CH103A), as are the fish plates. I could have used Templot to help me with sleeper spacing but with so few sleepers I decided to set them out using a ruler – most are to MR 1885 30ft 85 lb rail sleeper spacing. I say most, the sleepers around where the Ragstone MR rail built buffer stop will go (left hand end) needed easing out a bit to accommodate it. After a dry run to see how it goes together my next task will be to build it. Leaving the length of track loose for the time being and therefor easy to pick up/handle allowed ‘rust’ painting (first coat) to be done with relative ease this morning.
As I say nothing fancyDIORAMA 29.12.2021.JPG .

So that’s where I am at today.
Cheers
Tony
 

Tony Overton

Western Thunderer
A little more progress to report. The rail built buffer stop is built. In my enthusiasm, getting carried away really, I took only two photos, sorry.

As to the build. I wasn’t keen on the lengths of white metal rail which are cast as part of the up rights, so they had to go. A relatively easy task, clip off the main bits and then carefully rub down any white metal left over with a file and a piece of coarse ‘wet and dry’ used dry. Wanting visibly clean joints when the rail ‘beam’ was attached to the uprights I opted for carefully placed Araldite rather than my attempt at white metal soldering. After completion I found that the rails forming the up rights were a touch too long. Rather than try to shorten them at this late stage and risk damage I decided to cut holes in the cork allowing the buffer stop to sit down properly – any sign of these holes will disappear when it comes to ballasting.

The finished item now suitably painted and partly weathered clips neatly into place on my length of track – I was impressed by its clean casting. More attention to weathering will come later.

Laser cut brick sheets for making the retaining wall arrived by this morning’s post, I’ll start on that tomorrow – after opening the envelope they came in, the hobby room now has a distinct smell of burnt wood about it.

So, 2021 is drawing to a close and 2022 beckons……….. Happy New Year to one and all.

Cheers
Tony
DIORAMA 2 30.12.2021.JPG
DIORAMA 3 31.12.2021.JPG
 

Tony Overton

Western Thunderer
Every now and again we drop larger clangers. Feeling quite pleased with myself with how the retaining wall using laser cut brick sheets was coming along (pride before a fall) I was looking at MR period photos of bridges and retaining walls and such like when it suddenly hit me. I was using the wrong type brick sheet! I'd used flemish bond when it should have been english bond, grr... :mad:Thankfully, whilst annoying, I found I could rescue the situation. Having since sent for some laser cut English bond, that built so far was used as templates allowing the English bond sections to be simply glued over the flemish.
DIORAMA 4 17.01.2022.JPG
It’s helpful when you can hide these embarrassing errors……

Those spare tubs of emulsion and glue and chunks of steel lying around come in handy when laminating.

DIORAMA 5 17.01.2022.JPG
Not having had any experience of 2mm MDF laser cut brick sheets before I’m impressed and will use it again. The narrower and sharper mortar courses certainly look better than found on embossed Plastikard.

Careful sawing with a fine saw blade and aligning and butting up allows lengths to be glued together easily with an ‘invisible’ join. A quick light rub with fine dry ‘wet and dry’ over the surface at any joint and it just disappears.

So there we are, making progress again. :) It was supposed to have been a Christmas project………… :confused:

DIORAMA 6 17.01.2022.JPG
In the end I opted for a slight batter on the main wall, it makes for an interesting join where the wing wall butts up. Hope it’s something like the real thing. At the moment its all free standing but it will be screwed to the back of the base. Whilst the wall is now three ply laminating, the length of strip wood is insurance against warping! The glue I used was PVA.

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DIORAMA 8 17.01.2022.JPG

The next task is to way up whether it’s going to have all stone coping or stone on the pillars and those very large rounded blue bricks on the walls. I do like the look of those huge elegant cruciform topped copers. Then its painting, then get the track down and then ballasting........

Cheers
Tony
 
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