Well, 99% finished, just three cars, point levers, people and ballast bins to follow. Everything else has arrived and has been planted. I feel the overall blending has gone well, but I will revisit at a later date. On the downside, one of the points seems very unreliable and I may replace it before its first Exhibition.
Well, here we are at update 19. Most buildings, trees, bushes and grasses have arrived and I have added them to the layout. I am now only waiting for a small water tower, oil huts, more yard lights, cycle shed and water cranes, so no 19 update is likely to be the one before the last update and the layout is called ‘finished’ with update 20 !
I spent yesterday using all the trees, bushes and flocks I had spare from other layouts, most of it recovered. I found a couple of new packets of foliage from a box of spares. This has really started to pull the layout together and I am pleased with the results, so much so that I have thrown caution to the wind and ordered nearly £50 worth of items off Ebay that should finish the layout off. Thanks also goes to my friend Peter who has donated a building.
And a posed Loco for – Ian Trainman
Another very busy day on the layout. I have now added a five wire fence, I have coaled the Coaling Stage, I have added heaps of ash beside the ash pit and in the stabling point. I am now at the stage that I need to purchase several buildings and other lineside items, this is going to have to wait a while as I need to get the car thro’ the MOT next week. I have some bits and pieces of hedges, trees and flocks, so a little more work can be done – then limbo for a while. There is also a few things I feel I can improve that I have already done!
Very Productive day today. I have started pulling all the blending and weathering together. All were hand painted with dilute Railmatch Enamel paints. It is like painting a 3D picture and a good colour photo helps. I used Greys, White, Pinks, Black and Sleeper Grime.
Grassing tomorrow!
When this is done I will take different parts of the layout and start to plan and create the cameo scenes.
Another busy day – it’s now all coming together. The grassing has been completed and the staining of the sawdust is also finished.
I have now cleaned the whole layout down in readiness for painting the sides of the rail and then general weathering. I have also painted the undulations and the rear of the backboards. I am now approaching the stage of the layout I enjoy most – blending and weathering.
I have now completed the undulations on the layout. Below is the sequence of the making, cardboard frame, filling with newspaper and top coat of Poly Filler, other methods are available, but I needed to keep costs are low as possible for this project. I have also now carefully ballasted all the delicate point areas.
The next job will be a massive clean up of all track and paint the undulations dark brown.
Another day and more work on the layout, this time I have filled all non track areas with cheap dyed sawdust. This will be the basis of various scenic methods from sanding down to make smooth areas to making puddles. I have also started to form some small undulations by using cardboard formers.
A long boring job, but it has to be done. Most of the ballasting is done and slowly drying, using three different grades of N gauge ballast and added sand. I have not done around the point blades yet – I always do them separately and very carefully. After that is done, ballast picking all little bits that have got where they should not be and finally a good vacuum overall.
