Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
I always continue hoping that whatever I post on WT might be an encouragement for others to have a go... but I have also found that such a detailed record of past effort is ever more frequently a vital memoranda resource - as I keep forgetting more and more how I ever managed to do anything!

Looking forward as ever for your next instalments!

Pete.

Good evening Pete, nice to have you along.

I often find that life gets in the way of making stuff, so there's often big gaps between working on bits of the layout. Like others I also jump between projects.

A big part of the reason I post step by step stuff is that it helps me remember how I've previously done things. Or even why I've done things and what I was thinking.

To be honest I find these days that the brain is trashed after work, so the breadcrumbs I leave myself are needed. :))

If others get help along the way, that's great too.
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
I'm coming to the conclusion that the station building and porters offices are completely different stone to just about everything else in the station area. Still different colours in different photos don't help. To my eyes there's too much of a red bias in some photos, but some I feel are either over exposed or faded.
 

40057

Western Thunderer

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
And the lamp post is different too, the base varying between red oxide and dark brown. So if you knew what colour the lamp ‘brown’ actually was, you could base the stone colours on the photo that most accurately represents the lamp?

Martin

Hi Martin, yes spotted that too. I assume it's a WR colour, so more brown than red?

My gut feeling is that this is probably the closest rendition for the station buildings.
Screenshot_20260224-231812.png

Strangely it almost looks like a modeller has painted it!
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
Humbrol 173, track colour might be a good match for the faded chocolate paint. Or, Tamiya XF-90, red brown.

I used it here and added further fading with Humbrol red oxide weathering powder.

View attachment 258494

( looks a bit dark in the image )

Rob

There will be no WR brown on this layout. Regional boundary changes never happened. Green is the colour.
 

Yorkshire Dave

Western Thunderer
I'm coming to the conclusion that the station building and porters offices are completely different stone to just about everything else in the station area. Still different colours in different photos don't help. To my eyes there's too much of a red bias in some photos, but some I feel are either over exposed or faded.

You would have to use these as guides given the variations caused by lighting conditions, different film stock used e.g. Agfa/Kodak, exposure, processing and printing. Let alone the additional variations introduced when reproducing for publication.

Using photos taken today of any remaining structures would be even more difficult as there has been 60+ of weather beating and fewer airborne pollutants since the 1956 clean air act.

As alluded to by yourself earlier you'll have to return to your original colour palette for a degree of consistency otherwise it'll become discordant.
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
Been quiet on the modelling front for a few days but the above posts have given me food for thought.

Somehow this morning I've ended up getting plastered... I picked up the wall I was working on last week and placed it on the layout to check colour and fit. I then decided that the next logical step, rather than finishing off the painting, was to spend a few hours doing scenic work.

I had a small pot of Wickes lightweight filler kicking around with an inch in the bottom. Needed using up before it set in the pot. So made a start on the area around the wall...
PXL_20260228_105521006.jpg

PXL_20260228_105528997.jpg

Having used that up, I remembered that I had what I thought was another pot with some in the bottom. It just shows how light this stuff is when I was shocked to find the tub was full and I couldn't tell by the weight.

Work therefore continued along the frontage.

PXL_20260228_111221326.jpg

PXL_20260228_110709848.jpg

PXL_20260228_120319428.jpg

PXL_20260228_120325695.jpg

One bonus of doing this is that the foam will not stop shedding bits everywhere any time I go near it.

Right, back to what I was going to do...
 
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Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
Having done the above this morning and really enjoyed it, it's led me to contemplate my modelling "happy places". I've concluded they are:
  • Planning / research
  • Scenics / landscaping
  • Making buildings
Given that list doesn't include stock or operating layouts, I'm beginning to wander if I should just drop the railway aspect :)).
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
Next on the list is the porter's building. The paint finish wasn't complete and parts of it jarred. There were areas that were too black and too white and too red compared to the reference photo. I also decided that there was too high a proportion of dark colours.

Starting to fix it by over painting the unwanted colours, a grey wash and then adding more dark cream colour.

Getting better...
PXL_20260228_151428339.jpg
 

Pencarrow

Western Thunderer
I'm going to be honest. The wanton destruction that followed last night's realisation that I had screwed up and overlooked how the Modelu guttering was going to fit left me somewhat down hearted.
PXL_20260301_120509008.jpg

Thankfully the building was robust enough to take some serious grief from heavy duty tools and a channel was cut for the guttering. The other option could have been to thin the 3d printed guttering but I suspect that would have ended in tears.

But here we are afresh this morning with the guttering going in. It's looking much better...
PXL_20260301_111957205.jpg
 
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