2mm Modbury

[Ian Smith]

Just found a short clip of Modbury at the Epsom & Ewell 2018 show in the following video : https://www.youtube....h?v=1Fsx76gk5eA. The footage starts at 18:00 (18 minutes into the video). My thanks got to "Hils TheTrainLady" for including Modbury in her footage and sharing it on YouTube.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

Following a discussion on RMweb (http://www.rmweb.co....neside-fencing/) I have made a start on adding some line side fencing to Modbury.

Initially I did a bit of experimenting - I decided to model just the top 5 wires rather than the full 7, so made a little tufnol jig that takes 2 brass posts spaced at 36mm (i.e. 18'0") with a view to adding 2 plastic intermediate posts (at 6'0" centres) once installed on the layout. Horizontal lines were scribed on the tufnol jig at the wire spacing, holes were drilled at one end of these lines to accept pegs around which the wires looped so that one length of wire provided 2 fencing wires. Fine slots were sawn at the other end of the scribed lines so that the wires could be secured parallel to each other while being soldered in place on the posts.

For the fencing wires, I acquired some 0.05mm wire (the thinnest I could find easily online) which was soldered to the posts in the jig, the whole assembly was moved along the jig so that another post could be inserted and the process repeated. I ended up with a length of fencing about 10" long.

What I discovered was that even when keeping the wire under tension as it was soldered in place I still ended up with the odd slightly slack wire. Actually seeing the wire while trying to keep everything on the jig was a bit of an issue too! So in retrospect I have decided to abandon the idea of having wires on my fencing and will just be planting posts at 6'0" intervals!

For info, the original fencing jig looks like this :


The experimental fencing looks like this :


So having abandoned the idea of having wires on my 2mm scale fencing, I ended up making the posts from 1mm square Evergreen plastic strip, cut into ~15mm lengths with a point cut onto one end. These were painted with Precision Paints Track Colour (Weathered Sleepers) - a grey colour, then a wash of PP Sleeper Grime was applied almost as a water colour wash to vary the colour of the posts slightly. I will eventually apply a wash of green to the foot of the posts too with the posts in place, again to provide a bit of variety.

GWR Post and Wire fencing seems to have strainer posts at fairly regular intervals, and these are generally made from old "Bridge Rail", this is something that I do want to replicate on my fencing - so first I needed some Bridge Rail!

So to provide the strainer posts of bridge rail, I have taken some 2mm Association Flat Bottom rail :


And after a bit of draw filing and sanding I produced some lengths of Bridge Rail by removing the head of the rail :


A saw cut was made in the rail-head of the bridge rail section to allow a 45 degree bend to be made so that a diagonal support could be fabricated for the strainer post, this was soldered in place on the strainer post upright (the pair were held together in a jig of bits of spring steel wire in the end of a piece of balsa - evident in photo below) :


These strainer posts were painted in Precision Paints Rust, again with Sleeper Grime washes to vary the colour.

The final effect of putting these posts in position on the layout can be seen in this photo :


I'm quite pleased with the effect, although I intend to progress the effect further by painting a green wash on some of the posts, adding some taller dry grass around the posts and along the fence line, and obviously adding some vegetation growing up some of the posts will hopefully improve and vary the effect too.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

Progress on Modbury has been a little slow over the last few weeks - it's been far too warm in the shed/workshop to spend any more than an hour or so out there at a time. However, I have now added all of the fence posts to delineate the railway land. As described in an earlier post these were all made from 1mm square plastic rod, an apex being cut at the top end and painted a grey-brown before planting at scale 6'0" intervals. Once all of the fencing had been installed, I applied dry grass along the fence line with 2mm static grass in a straw colour - a little PVA was brushed along short sections (about 4-6 inches) of the existing grass fibres (just generally touching the tops of the existing fibres) and the straw fibres added before the PVA dried to much. Pre-painted strainer posts of "bridge rail" were added about every 50 posts.

I've also adde the yard gates. These started off as laser cut items from York Models that I'd picked up from the York show while we were exhibiting St. Ruth earlier this year. The York Models gates are designed to be laminated together to provide a pair of gates that really didn't suit what I had in mind but they provided a good starting point. I took one of the laminations that provided the top and bottom rails with diagonal supporting struts, and glued a load of 0.010" x 0.020" palings onto the rails (the palings had been cut with little pointed apexes). These were added over length at the bottom and trimmed to size once dry.


Once complete, the gates were separated (they are provided as a pair of closed gates). The posts beefed up by adding a post lamination on front and back (supplied in kit), and once dry filed to a pyramid shape. The finished gates were painted white, and touched in black to represent where the hinges would be (the hinges are not represented in the kit so I just painted a representation on). A 0.5mm wire was inserted into the bottom of each post to make securing to the layout easier.


Finally, taking inspiration from Dave Stone's (Wenlock) Sherton Abbas blog, I've also added a couple of coal heaps towards the end of the long back siding. The area around the coal heaps has been blended in with dust from a black pastel.

To add further interest to that area, I've also taken one of my 3D printed outside frames vans, cut out one of the doors and added a new plasticard one in an open position, the moulded underframe was filed away and the van placed on some timber baulks. To finish, a couple of coal sacks have been draped over the open door and on the roof, and the coal merchant and a customer are in conversation just outside.




Ian

 

[john lewsey]

Lovely work Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

Having acquired a new DSLR camera, I have been trying it out trying to take some photos of Modbury. All of the photos were taken on a full manual setting with a 18-55mm lens, setting the aperture to f22 (or thereabouts) to give a reasonable depth of field. The photos were all taken under the layout lighting with a sheet of crumpled foil leaning against the backscene to bounce light back into the scene (the layout lights are only behind the fascia above the front of the layout). To hide me and the detritus of the workshop a sheet of white foam board was held against the front of the layout.

To make these "interesting" for the reader, I have taken photos looking out of the layout rather than into it, meaning that these are views that are not normally achievable (without unscrewing the backscene) or providing the viewer with a mirror.

First up the Signal Box :




Main Station Building :


Down Waiting Room :




Thank you for looking.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

I have been playing around with my newly acquired DSLR again, this time producing a video of Modbury. As yet, I have not posted said video on YouTube, however I have added it to my Modbury website - http://www.modbury2f....uk/Videos.html

There was a lot of "cut! - take it from the top again", and quite a bit of editing in iMovie to produce the final version, but even then there are bits that are not quite as focussed as I would have liked, however I'm reasonably satisfied with the final result.

Comments welcome,

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

I have now published the above video to YouTube :

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

I have been playing again and produced another video of Modbury. As yet, I have not posted said video on YouTube, however I have added it to my Modbury website - http://www.modbury2f....uk/Videos.html

The theme this time is a Goods and a Passenger train passing at Modbury. I will upload the video to YouTube soon.

I have also uploaded the above video to YouTube :

Now that it's cooled a little I've also started to get some paint on 3 of my new set of coaches too.

Ian

 

[adrian]

Simply stunning - the Buffalo looks and moves brilliantly. I think if you showed this to many modellers very few would tag it as 2mmFS, in my book with the landscaping and detailing many would peg it as 4mm.

 

[Ian Smith]

Simply stunning - the Buffalo looks and moves brilliantly. I think if you showed this to many modellers very few would tag it as 2mmFS, in my book with the landscaping and detailing many would peg it as 4mm.

Thank you for the kind comments Adrian. As a first attempt at modelling in 2FS, I'm quite pleased with the way everything is coming along - I still have quite a list of "still to-do's though! It's my first (almost) complete layout since one I built as a teenager (an N gauge effort), and the stock is all either kit or scratch built, indeed the nearest things to RTR on the whole layout are the fence around the wood (Peco), platform fencing (Ratio) and the figures (Andrew Stadden)/ cattle (Merit & Fleetline), and none of those are "take out of the packet and plonk on layout" items.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

It has always been my intention to eventually provide Modbury with a fully interlocked lever frame, so over the last few days I have started to work up a design in CAD (albeit not for the full lever frame or for the locking mechanism) :



Before I progressed the design too far, what I wanted to do was to knock up a prototype lever to prove that the catch mechanism would function as I visualised, primarily to ensure that the catch block would be lifted far enough up the lever to allow the lever to be moved. With that in mind, whilst at RailWells I visited Eileen's and purchased some 2mmx4mm brass strip (for the levers), some 3/16th nickel silver bar (for the lever handles) and some 3mmx6mm brass rectangular tube (for the catch handles and catch blocks) - the latter was not completely ideal but was the only rectangular tube material that was anything like a sensible fit around the 2x4 bar.

To form the handle of the lever, the nickel silver bar was chucked up in the lathe and a 2 degree taper turned on the end, a 2mm length of full diameter bar left in the middle and a 1mm diameter spigot turned to facilitate a fixing into the end of the lever.

For the lever itself, a 57mm length of 2mmx4mm brass bar was cut, and a 1mm diameter hole drilled into one end to accommodate the spigot of the nickel silver handle. Further holes were drilled towards either end of the lever (3mm in from the ends), a 1mm diameter hole at the handle end, and a 1.5mm hole at the other for the pivot point(I expect to have to open this one out later).

A catch handle was fretted and filed from the rectangular tube, and a piece of L section brass soldered on the rear with a 0.7mm hole in it for the catch block lifting rod. The catch block itself was formed from the same rectangular tube (a 5mm length), which was cut down and a new end piece soldered to restore the box and to be a suitable fit around the 2x4 lever. A piece of 1mm square brass was soldered across the back of the catch block (which will engage against the rubbing strips on the quadrant plate). A 0.45mm hole was drilled through the centre of the 1mm square brass against the back of the catch block for the lifting rod. The lifting rod itself is simply a length of stiff guitar string with a hook bent on the lower end, the rod is passed up through the 0.45mm hole and soldered to the back of the catch block such that the bottom of the hook is 5mm below the block. The block is threaded onto the bottom of the lever, and the lifting rod passed through the hole in the previously built and attached catch lever. A couple of twists of copper wire are soldered onto the lifting rod so that the catch block is at the right height up the lever when the catch lever is in its normal position. To complete, a 0.5mm hole is drilled into the edge of the lever at a suitable distance below the hook on the lifting rod for a suitable return spring, and a 0.5mm wire hook inserted into this hole for the bottom of the spring.

The photo below shows my completed prototype lever (and another turned handle). I'm quite satisfied with the design, and the catch lever and associated gubbins have a really pleasant tactile feel to it. So now I just need to make another 17 levers and to finalise the design of the lever frame and locking frame, and of course decide how I'm going to fit and activate the microswitches which will eventually replace the switches extant on the current control panel.


Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

As a change from trying to make levers for a lever frame for my control panel, I have made a start painting up my second rake of coaches. The first in the set to be tackled is a diagram V13 Brake Van. This is a nickel silver etched kit from my own artwork, and once primed with Halfords Self-etch primer, the model was masked so that I could paint the cream upper works. After a day or two to dry really hard, Maskol was deployed over the whole of the cream panelling (including the windows), and the roof covered in masking tape so that the brown could be applied to the ends and lower sides. Again after a day or two to dry hard, the masking was removed and it was time to start the "fun" part - the lining!

First my tools of choice :

An adjustable board to hold the model (made from 3/4" MDF), paper towel to protect the painted surfaces not being worked on, a sturdy ruler and a Rotring pen with 0.1mm nib loaded with Rotring black ink. The ink seems to take really well on the Precision Paints GWR Coach Cream but for some reason not on the same manufacturers GWR Coach Brown, so I only use the pen on the upper mouldings. The lower mouldings are brush painted with Humbrol matt black, and after a couple of minutes drying time any that has strayed onto the panels is carefully removed with a thinners moistened fine brush.

And now a couple of photos to show the progress so far :


There is still a little tidying up to be done, and I have tried to paint the mahogany coloured door droplight, but I had the paint too thinned and it bled horribly so a re-think is necessary. The problem is that the door droplight should be set in a cream panel within the black mouldings! I will initially try again with thicker paint but first need to restore the cream around the droplight. As a fall-back I will simply file away the droplight, and fit separate ones to the glazing - with the benefit of hindsight I probably should have made them as separate etches, but in my defence the Worsley Works coaches that I've previously successfully painted do not have separate door droplights so I thought I could get away with it.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

As is normal for me with my butterfly approach to railway modelling, I've taken a break from lining coaches and made a start on the fencing for the cattle pens.

The dock itself was made and painted and temporarily screwed in place on the layout a few months ago, but lacks the pens themselves.


The basic cattle dock built up from plain and embossed styrene sheet, the area of the pens having a raised brickwork pattern to prevent the cattle from slipping around to much.

It was always my intention to have my cattle pens constructed from old lengths of bridge rail, and whilst I could have fabricated the fencing parts from plastic strip I felt it would be much stronger if made from metal and be soldered. To this end I needed quite a bit of 2mm scale bridge rail!!

Having made my line side fencing straining posts from bridge rail that had been filed from short lengths of 2mm Association flat-bottom rail, I felt that this would be a goer so made a jig to allow whole lengths of flat-bottom rail to be (fairly) consistently be filed down. The basis of the jig is 2 lengths of 0.020" nickel silver sheet sweated to 0.010" nickel silver sheet such that the 0.020" overhangs the 0.010" by a mm or so. The overhang is to provide a recess for the foot of the flat-bottom rail. One of these pieces was super-glued onto a piece of flat flooring laminate, a length of rail was put against this (with it's foot under the overhang), and the second half of the jig super-glued alongside to trap the rail. The rail can then be slid through the jig as filing progresses.

The bridge rail filing jig

Once filed down, the result is sanded and a pre-set vernier calliper slid along it to try to ensure that all lengths are similarly sized.

Resultant bridge rail

The posts of bridge rail fencing on this type of cattle dock were Vignoles rail, I decided that the 2mm Association flat-bottom rail was a good enough approximation of that to use as is. Therefore, the end 2-3mm of a length of flat-bottom rail was filed down to provide a mounting spigot, and then cut off to give an above ground post length a little of 11-13mm. These embryonic posts were mounted in the vice so that the end could then be filed back to leave an above ground length of 1cm (5'0").

Embyonic post filed to size in vice and growing pile of posts ready for use.

The posts and bridge rail were then soldered together to build up fencing panels - the first being the long fence that will run along the back of the pens.

First piece of fence panel (the long back fence)

Finally for this episode are the gates of the pens. These were etched by PPD and had been included on the artwork for my etch of 6 wheeled coaches. They are a double lamination, which fold over each other and are aligned with holes in the outer frame of the sub-etch.

The cattle pen gates

Thanks for looking,

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

I've finally completed the first 3 of my train of 6 wheeled coaches. These kits are for both body and underframe, the underframe incorporating a floating centre axle in an inside bearing that is simply retained by two small wire retainers that prevent the axle from dropping out of the U shaped inside bearing. As a first attempt at producing artwork for etching and kit design I am really quite pleased with the way everything went. There were a couple of "errors" in the artwork, the main ones being that I had drawn the rooves slightly too narrow (not accounting for the fact that I had designed the sides to fit outside the ends), and the holes in the floor to accommodate the central wheel flanges I had not made wide enough to allow for the floating centre axle. Luckily, neither of these problems were unsurmountable.

So some pictures :


The 3 coaches coupled together, with a DG coupling at each end of the set and wire bent to resemble vacuum pipes connecting the coaches inboard of the end coaches.

Some cruel close-ups :


The Diagram U28 Clerestory 1st / 2nd Composite with central Luggage Compartment


The Diagram S6 All Third


The Diagram V13 Brake Van

The coaches have all been finished with Model Master transfers, trying to select the better prints on the rather variable quality sheet.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to enter these in this years AGM competitions as we are at Wigan with St Ruth that weekend, still at least John Aldrick will know what's coming next year ;-)

Ian

 

[adrian]

The panel work on the brake van is sublime. It didn't take much persuasion but I've been co-opted to help out at Wigan on Sunday.

 

[GrahameH]

Superb work especially at this scale.

 

[Ian Smith]

The panel work on the brake van is sublime. It didn't take much persuasion but I've been co-opted to help out at Wigan on Sunday.

I look forward to seeing you again then Adrian. I'll have the coaches at Wigan so you will be able to inspect them in person so to speak

 

[Ian Smith]

Over the last couple of weeks I have been progressing the cattle pens by reducing Association flat bottom rail to bridge rail section (filing down the head of the rail to leave an upside down T section), and soldering resultant bridge rails to posts made of unmodified flat bottom rail. The gates are from my custom etch and were also soldered in place. As construction progressed, holes were drilled in the dock to accept a 2-3mm peg filed onto the end of each upright, all soldering was done "off-site" as it were to avoid melting the plastic dock!

A few photos of the completed article in place on Modbury :


A fairly close up view with the camera at track level


A slightly elevated view hopefully showing that there are water troughs in the two pens


An overall view of the cattle dock in relation to the rest of the station


A final shot from the road along the back of the layout showing a view that is impossible for both the operator and the public

Before fixing the completed pens they were sprayed in white primer (as in the 1906 period cattle pens would be white from the lime wash that was applied to sterilise them). While waiting for the primer to dry properly, I attacked the surface of the dock with a skrawker, scribing pavers into the surface between the raised pavers that had already been attached. I decided to do this simply because the surface appeared to lack texture, especially on the flat area at the left hand end where there isn't a pen (or raised anti-slip pavers). Obviously this action necessitated a complete re-paint of the upper surface of the dock in a red brick colour.

Once the primer was on the soldered pens was dry, they were fixed in place on the dock with 24 hour araldite, a little being poked into each of the holes where each upright post sits. It was quite apparent that the white primed fencing looked far too stark (as I almost expected it to), so while waiting for the araldite to set I went back to the books to find photos of lime washed pens. What the photos do show is that the pens really do look stark white in the black and white period photos! Unfortunately in model form it just looks wrong, so I first applied a varied thin wash of Precision Paints Light Rust over all of the rail sections of the pens (the gates being wooden were not given this treatment although I did paint on an impression of the hinges and little gate latches in dark grey). Once the light rust washes had thoroughly dried I then applied a further wash of Precision Paints Track Colour (a brown) - to vary the effect again, subtly different strengths of wash were applied. Finally, once these washes had thoroughly dried, diluted Humbrol matt white was applied in a couple of separate washes to build up the lime wash, while still preserving the underlying rustiness of the rail sections that the pens were constructed from. Whether I have achieved that look is perhaps not for me to say but I am nevertheless fairly happy with the result.

To finish the pens off, I made a couple water troughs from 0.010" white plastic around a base of 0.040" black plastic. The white parts were painted light grey to represent a zinc trough, and the black bit given a touch of gloss varnish with some brown mixed in it to represent the water.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

Finally coming off my workbench is the 4th 6 wheeled coach that I had PPD etch for me from my own artwork. This one is another 1st/2nd composite with central luggage compartment, this time a diagram U21. As usual, the door furniture was sweated on before painting and scraped back to bare brass before a protective coat of satin varnish was applied, the black mouldings being "painted" with Rotring black ink from a Rotring 0.1mm nibbed pen.


Cruel close up of U21 1st/2nd Composite


The set of 4 coaches - U21 (1st / 2nd Composite), U28 (1st / 2nd Composite with clerestory roof), S6 (All Third), V13 (Van)

I have finally got around to fitting the Association's Mansell wheel inserts to the wheels which I think improves their look considerably - I really need to retro-fit same to my 4 wheeled coaches too!

Eventually I intend to add to this rake with a further S6 (which is mostly built, but with Oil lamps) and a brake 3rd, but for now they will do for a second rake of coaches ready for Modbury's next outing to Stevenage in January.

Ian

 

[Wagonman]

Lovely models but I am perplexed as to why a almost 'brand new' van body has been grounded in the goods yard...