Under Construction - Birmingham UK


Hi All

A bit more progress, namely painting a couple of walls and the lower floor of the staff building - weathering next!

central%20wall%20colour%201.jpg

staff%20building%20paint%202.jpg


Cheers

Jim
 
Thanks Jim

A cruel close up of the staff building! You wont be able to get anywhere near this close when its on the layout. The wood was done with a dark grey base with a light grey/tan dragged through it while still wet. You could do this in 1 stroke by loading opposite sides of your brush with different colours if you wanted to.

It doesnt show up that well but some of the bricks have been picked out with a pink marker to provide variety.


Cheers

Jim

staff%20building%20paint%203.jpg
 
Not for the feint of heart

Ok, so your favorite road recently took delivery of some 40 ft Trinity hoppers, but nobody makes them in HO. What do you do?

Step 1) Goto Trinity's website, locate drawings of said car and print, rescaled for HO
Step 2) Go purchase an Athearn Genesis 55 ft Trinity hopper (used) and disassemble completely.
Step 3) Cut 15 feet out of it. Glue remaining halfs together, reattach ladders and frame
Step 4) Go to LHS and order roofwalks, decals and hatches
Thats where I'm at now, here's a photo of the carnage after cutting, before reassembly!!!! The wounds are healing, and a new roof built. I'll post more once its finished!
 
Jim, that brickwork looks outstanding. The wood beams are a nice touch even if you are the only one who knows they are there. :)

Karl, I'd decide I didn't really need 40' Trinity hoppers that much. :D Of course, you know, as soon as your done, Walthers or Atlas will announce thier new freight car...the 40' foot Trinity hopper. :eek: Nice kitbash jobs so far though.
 
Hi all

While I am in a road vehicle mood I have made further progress on the 4 TPM cars from earlier in the thread. Enjoyed these kits a lot so far! :thup

TPM%20cars.jpg


Cheers

Jim
 
Also I have installed a stop light in the loco dock. A simple surface mount LED mounted onto a tube (plus a resistor and diode) was all that was required.

BNS%20stop%20light.jpg


Cheers

Jim
 
Hi All

While etching more stuff I made a bit more progress on the staff building with the window frames. I didn't etch these with the arches as it would have been way too thin. Even now I have doubled up the etch to get the thickness I want - I suppose I could have used thicker material but then I think the fine central lines wouldn't have worked.

Staff%20building%20windows.jpg


Also I needed some road signs so they went on the sheet too

street%20names.jpg


Regards

Jim
 
The arches and street signs look like they came out fine to me, Jim. That whole wall area looks very realistic.
 
Thanks Jim

Even if I do say so myself I am pretty pleased with how my street signs came out. A couple of pics of then 'in situe' (with, you guessed it, more of THAT lorry!)

street%20sign%202.jpg

Street%20sign%201.jpg


Now this really dates the layout to 1987 or after. Because 1987 was the year that 12 metal horses appeared between New Street and Wolverhampton. They were done by a Sculptor called Kevin Atherton and were entitled the Iron Horse (I assume that relates to the early name for trains). Anyway theres one on New Street so I stuck it on the last etch, 47088 provides the background.

Horse.jpg


Regards

Jim
 
Jim, those street signs are very classy. Ours are a lot more prosaic, just some aluminum with reflective paint. The roads and markings came out great, right down to the sewer grates in the curb (kerb?) I like the iron horse. Our station decorations are usually bums sleeping on the benches. :)
 
Hi Jim

Most of ours are similar although the colours depend on the area. These ones are left overs from the industrial revolution when Birmingham was regarded as "the workshop of the world" or the "city of a thousand trades".

I know this looks like something out of 28 days later or something but a bit more progress. I wonder if during the 60's Birmingham had a job lot of triangular concrete stuff? Not that the stuff on the walls to the left match the sizes of those used in the signal box - that would be too easy.

road_new%20walls.jpg


Construction of these walls uses a card base overlaid with Balsa. The tops were cut to shape with a scalpel once in place (there is the same structure on the other side of the wall). This is then sprayed with a couple of coats of Games Workshop rough-cote (I needed the texture to be rougher than the texture on the roads). And light dustings of tan, light grey and black as per the 'Nevard method'. The wide angle shot makes it look bigger than it is, the end of the road being a shade over 4 feet away.

Regards

Jim
 
Hi All

Aside from windows I also stuck some doors on my last etch too. If you look at the pic you can see how most of the window frames and doors have been modified one way or another over the years.

staff%20building%20doors.jpg


Cheers

Jim
 
Jim, very nice job on all the different detail modifications. As for the concrete walls, I don't know anything about Birmingham in the 60's but they certaily weren't common here. The type of construction that went into them doesn't seem to have a practical use so I assume they were meant to be, at least to some extent, decorative. I guess it all depends on how much money Birmingham was spending on decorative concrete walls back then but I suspect not much.
 
Hi All

I thought a little tutorial on how I do droppers might be helpful so here goes (Other dropper based options are available! :tongue )

Right then requirements before we start.

1 - each rail or rail assembly must have 2 droppers to the power supply
2 - if the solder joint between the rail and the dropper were to fail then the dropper must not be able to fall through the baseboards
3 - the rail must not be secured to droppers at both ends so that its free to slide in the chairs
4 - it has to be quick and simple

droppers%20a.jpg

Stage 1 comes when laying the sleepers as consideration need to be given as to where the droppers are going to be. As I use plastic sleepers I use copperclad for those than need droppers - if you use wood then you can probably stick with wood throughout.

The sleeper marked A is not for power droppers but for droppers that hold the stock rail in place. The slide chairs in this area dont actually hold the rail.

droppers%20b.jpg

Each sleeper is drilled and a brass lacemakers pin dropped through. Where there are 4 droppers together this provides an electrical connection between the stock rail and switch rail via the copper clad. Only two of these droppers actually need to be wired to the power supply.

droppers%20c.jpg

The rail with the chairs already threaded on is then glued in place. The droppers are now trapped between the rail and the sleeper.

droppers%20d.jpg

A touch of solder and the job is done! Dont forget to 'gap' the sleepers. A cosmetic chair can be added later. I tend to leave them off the non viewing side so that I can see where the dropper is if I need to know later.

droppers%20E.jpg

As an aside, one compromise I take is to use as long a piece of rail as I can. I really don't like short pieces of rails as I think they are asking for trouble. You can nick the tops and add cosmetic fishplates when its all tested. On a normal point there are only 2 'proper chars between the slide chairs and the rail end. While plastic track is strong I do feel that relying on these 2 chairs to hold the rail on thier own is asking a lot so my solution (purists look away now) it to continue the rail onto normal track bases. I always try to have rail joints in the middle of a 'panel' for ease of alignment.

Hope this helps

Jim
 
Hi All

the sticking point of handbuilt track is generally perceived to be the good old Vee. After all all points need them and a layout without them isn't really that much fun!

In reality though theres nothing difficult about building them its just a cast of right tool for the job and knowing what to do - the final element being practice. After all without practice no amount of wishing is going teach you how its done.

There are many ways and what follows is mine, theres nothing new or original about it but it works for me.

building%20a%20vee%201.jpg

If you are not going to build a lot of pointwork then you can just buy your vee ready assembled. If you are then the filing jigs available from the EMGS will pay back their initial outlay many times over. This is the larger one and I am using the 1 in 9 angle (it will go up to 1 in 12). Simply put you just pop your rail in and file off the bit that sticks out. You are supposed to file bend then file again but I dont bother as you cant see the end result anyway.

building%20a%20vee%202.jpg

The same jig can be used to hold the rails at the right angle while you solder them together. As I am using plastic sleepers mostly I solder the Vee to a base plate of Nickel silver for ease and strength.

building%20a%20vee%203.jpg

Again you can use the jig to set your angle for your checkrails, Once you have built a lot of points you tend to get very good at bending angles by eye! This angle was my initial bend with flat nosed pliers, not bad hu? It was a smidge out though so a gentle tap with a small hammer brought it spot on. Alway over bend and tap the bend to get it back.

building%20a%20vee%204.jpg

Using a ruler for the alignment of the rail and a gauge to set the check rail gap the check rail is soldered to the baseplate.

building%20a%20vee%205.jpg

The ruler cant be used for the other rail as the vee in in the way. I line this rail up buy eye. By using a base plate you can always unsolder the rail if its wrong and try again. Theres a lot of metal here and heat will sink away pretty rapidly so you will have to really go some to accidentally unsolder the vee

building%20a%20vee%206.jpg

Finally the excess baseplate is gut away with a slitting disk in a minidrill. Holding the drill at an angle helps to hide the baseplate. I also gently tidy the vee itself with the minidrill so that there are no jolts on the sides. Dont forget to give it a wash so that any left over flux is removed. These views show the front and back.

One thing that crops up from time to time and seems to get overlooked by those who know how to build track is the orientation of the rail. With bullhead rail the fat bit is at the top not the bottom.

Including taking the pictures this vee took half an hour to put together. (well 32 mins actually!)

Hope this helps someone.

Jim
 
Jim, very nice tutorial on handlaying track. After I get it translated into proper US English, I'm bookmarking it. :)
 
Whats wrong with original English Jim? LOL

Made good progress today. This morning this picture consisted of the sleepering and a single piece of rail in place. Quite pleased really!

north%20end%20progress%201.jpg


Cheers

Jim
 
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