Tuesday 26 January 2010

Tunnel Portal


At some point over the New Year I agreed to make a tunnel portal for Steve's quarry layout. This is where I've got to so far. Wings may or may not be added: it needs trying out on the board first. I'll then paint as per Pendon Cottage Modelling. The walls at the back will follow the curve of the track (to the left on entering the tunnel).


The detail shows the 4-brick archway. I think if I were to start again, I'd make the archway first and cut the facing to match, rather than the other way around as I did. I wouldn't use English Bond brickwork either, except as a source of headers for the arch.


Monday 18 January 2010

Board Construction [2]

A quick view of the damage possible to the top board when it sits within rather than on top of the side members. This is now supported underneath by a glued-in piece of ply, and the surface covered with cork underlay ready for the test tracks.

Wednesday 13 January 2010

Board Construction [1]

Long time no see ... but at last I have started building something. The pictured frame was to have been the base for a diorama of Cabourg. Making it was meant to be a practice run at Barry Norman's baseboard technique (as per RightTrack DVD, rather than his book Landscape Modelling) as well as to provide a test track for rolling stock.


In the end I scrapped this version (it warped because I didn't construct it well) and did another. In both cases I made the inner and outer plywood layers different heights in order to provide a 'lip' to contain the top sheet. This wasn't a good idea, as it meant less of the side frames were in contact with the top sheet.