After much discussion with my son it has been decided that the stabling point will become – a fuelling point!

This is not a big change and it does not require any track relaying. We have obtained a Scenecraft  Fuelling Point and a Hampton Hill platelayers hut to add to the layout. Actual placement will be decided later but the modifications required are being planned.

We have also added a 1″ square piece of softwood to the front of the layout to enable a curtain to be hung at exhibitions.

The layout also now has a name —— Ashwell Moor FP

This layout was a plan developed my son and myself to enable him to run his O gauge diesels in a relatively small space.

As I am half way through making my late 60’s station layout, any work needed to be done relatively quickly. I decided that it could be done in a fortnight, at least to a runable stage. Any scenic work would/could be left until a later date.

Two 4′ x 15″ laser cut baseboards were ordered and after arrival we put them together on Sunday 11th June. It is now Saturday 24th and I am pleased with the progress,  everything is finished to the point I wanted apart from the isolating sections. only the lack of on/off switches has stopped me from completing the challenge.

The layout will hold up to five shunters and nine mainline loco’s. Any two shunters can be substituted by one mainline loco.

I hope we can finish the layout scenically within three or four months, but that very much depends on the progress with my other layout.

This is another attempt at distressing a Laser Cut Wood Kit. Again it was painted with acrylic brown paint and weathered with dilute enamel black. I then used the same method as the previous platelayers huts. This time the planking runs across, so the scalpel was used in the other direction. a couple of coats of wood stain then followed.

Again not quite finished, this Coal Merchant’s has been made this week using a Laser Cut kit, but a card cut instead of my preferred wood.

I find the laser cut card kits more difficult to distress and I usually revert to my usual weathering methods with enamel over acrylic.  I also find my method of doing mortar using poly filler harder to do with Card Cut Buildings.

I always use real coal for O gauge projects, although I have been known to use O gauge ballast, painted black and flicked with gloss varnish. The number of times I see layouts with coal merchants with just one grade of coal, Realistically most had at least two or three. I went for Lump, Household and that horrible Nutty Slack!

To keep the weight down on my models, I used balsa wood for forming the coal mounds.

When the Model is eventually planted on the layout it will be blended and sacks and a coal weighing machine added.

Although not quite finished yet, I thought I would share these laser cut kits I have built and painted this week.

I have tried to give the wood a distressed look rather than a straight weathering. This was achieved by firstly painting them in acrylic brown paint and them scratching a lot off with a scalpel, coating with wood stain and then varnishing. The chimneys were painted and then the bricks picked out with poly filler for the mortar, this was also stained.