Love Lane, B.R. (E) c.1956-59

Brian T

Western Thunderer
A question for the young lady about the sublime station master`s house if i may......:)

How has the rendering/pebble dash been coloured,and is it simply fine sand glued to the structure to achive the look?.

Ta very much,
Brian.
 

adrian

Flying Squad
A question for the young lady about the sublime station master`s house if i may......:)
How has the rendering/pebble dash been coloured, and is it simply fine sand glued to the structure to achive the look?.
I agree - the variation in colour, the patches, the staining and the crumbling bare patches are a superbly observed bit of modelling.
 

Susie

Western Thunderer
Thank you for your kind comments about the station master’s house. John (Oz7mm) is too modest in that the basic body shell of the house is his CAD work. This was the last item I laser cut for the group while still a technician at a local school.

The basic building shell is laser cut MDF, including the ground floor brickwork to our old method. The upper storey is also laser cut MDF. The flare at the base of the pepple-dashing is made from a thin triangular strip of balsa wood glued all round, mitred where needed. A layer of writing paper was then glued to the whole upper wall area – literally to paper over the cracks. This needs to be done carefully. The pebble-dashing is done with fine sand stuck on with slightly diluted PVA. The metal framed Crittall windows are brass etchings to John’s drawings.

The roof is made entirely from 1mm card mounting board, including the soffits, fascias and barge boards. The tiles are paper, with laser cut MDF chimney stacks. The lead flashing round the stacks is paper. The ridge tiles are Plastruct tubing split lengthwise with a razor saw, and stuck on in long lengths using Evostick. Once dry the lengths are marked out and cut into individual ridge tiles. The scroll hip irons are made from scrap brass etch. The chimney pots and the columns by the front door are turned from brass rod. The ogee gutters and downpipes are white metal castings from our own patterns.

The paints are mainly Humbrol enamels. The brickwork is done using the method described by Peter Insole using a limited pallet of colours; a basic shade over the whole wall with individual bricks picked out in varying shades. Gloss varnish is then sprayed on, the mortar put in using acrylic tester pot paint and then matted down with a fine foam sanding block. The pebble-dashing was sprayed using my ancient DeVillbis Sprite. The darker colours are again sprayed, particularly under the eves and the corners where the down pipes are and where the acidic rain wouldn’t get to to wash the grime away. The windows, except the bow, were painted before sticking on. The bow window needs some attention as the green lining, which was done with a ruling pen, went a bit wobbly!

I hate to disappoint John, but I took the building home so that I would have a model to take to the S Scale MRS AGM today (I'm the Hon Sec), even if it is the wrong scale!

Susie
 
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Brian T

Western Thunderer
Thank you Susie for such a comprehensive explanation.

It really is an impresive bit of work,made all the more real with the muted tones for the render and brickwork.

Cheers,
Brian.
 

LarryG

Western Thunderer
Lovely loco in authentic BR guise.

That yellow wall in a confined space adjacent to a steam railways would I'm sure be well blackened with soot. Same applied to buildings in heavily populated and industrialized towns and cities in the age of coal fires. 60-odd years on, it is probably hard to appreciate just how grimy thing were. I didn't realize this or how smelly town centres were until I visited "home" in the mid 1960's after moving to the north Wales coast.
 

Oz7mm

Western Thunderer
Ah well Larry, it's not at Love Lane in the picture. Peter and Colin would have it well sooted.

I'm looking to the loco's first visit.

John
 

Eastsidepilot

Western Thunderer
Lovely loco in authentic BR guise.

That yellow wall in a confined space adjacent to a steam railways would I'm sure be well blackened with soot. .

The diorama was built for photography work by Adrian Knowles, editor of the Great Western Echo, a quarterly journal for the Great Western Society
He also carries out photography for Masterpiece Models.

Col.
 

Oz7mm

Western Thunderer
At the last meeting before lockdown, Jacqui (now in charge of natural scenery and greenery) was hard at work experimenting with wild hedgerows. I asked her for an explanation of what she had done and this is the reply.

Hedge 1.jpg

This was an experimental line of summer hedging, to be used either for field edge or wild edging of a garden.

A 5cm high strip was cut from a fibrous brown 'Brillo pad' and teased apart to get rid of straight edges from the packaging. It was then lightly sprayed with a 1:3 PVA glue and water mix before shaking on Flock It grass with the static applicator (my own mix, incorporating some slightly longer fibres than I would use for grassing, including Noch Summer Meadow grass, Peco Static 4mm Straw and Expo's Mid Green Flock). This gave it it's general mixed green top and sides, but leaving insides and base brown. Also 'planted' a small, dead foliage tree through it at one end - there are quite a few of those after last summer's drought.

Using closed scissors, push through the base of the hedge at random intervals to create gaps and expose some of the 'trunks' as you would see in a normal roadside hedge - only well-manicured garden hedges that have been trimmed from babyhood look like a green curtain right down to the ground! Greenish fibres pulled out of carpet underlay were then pushed through parts and dotted with clustered white flowers (to resemble Old Man's Beard or wild clematis, that covers hedges from summer - trimmed from Mini Natur tufts blossoms ) or pink flowers (representing wild Dog Rose - from Garner's Grass Mixed Flowers) dipped in neat PVA.

Finally, brown woodland floor debris was pushed under gaps and in front of the hedge (where grass wouldn't grow) and 'Mini Natur Two Colour grass tufts Early Fall' stuck in front of the biggest gaps, where it would have escaped the farmers' weed control of a cultivated field.

Great fun experimenting. And useful to take a long look at hedges you walk/drive past beforehand to decide what they are comprised of that makes them look different to models! But still looking for more realistic flowers and some different foliage to better represent a mixed hedge.


John
 

daifly

Western Thunderer
John
Do tell her that she'd be better to titivate rather than titillate - particularly with so many chaps around here!
Dave
 

Oz7mm

Western Thunderer
Oops - and I keep complaining about every else's spelling and use of English. the biter bit.

John
 
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