Helston Revisited

[Andy Keane]

5 minutes ago, Graham T said:

I think I used a piece of plasticard as a leveller for the textured paint on the platform, to avoid the ridges that you mention.  Obviously best to test on some scrap first!

 

Yes I can cope with a platform and indeed the goods platform and roadway up to the main station building are both Tamiya textured paint. Concrete on the road, which I am using as the basis for a macadam road - when its all down I will wash it over with some pale colours. Asphalt on the goods platform, which I have already toned down with washes.  But as the width gets bigger I find you need a bigger and bigger spreader and as it needs to go between tracks as well, I am just not confidant enough I could do it without a mess. I think with glue you have much greater control by masking etc before spraying.

[Neal Ball]

1 hour ago, Andy Keane said:

Things are slowly improving at Helston. I soon need to take the plunge and decide what material to lay down for the yard surface. My current favourite idea is to lay spray glue and sprinkle very fine wood / coal - ash / dust into the glue but an alternative is textured paint. I plan to try this out on some test boards at the club one evening. At the moment Helston yard is just cork sheet primed with pale mud coloured emulsion. I have been focussing on getting the levels correct with 1mm deep indents that each building sits in. The buildings for the station area are all nearly finished and the 6 ton crane is well into development. And if you look closely you can see both point rodding and signal wires!

Hekston has come on very well Andy, it looks great.

[MrWolf]

I used chinchilla dust stuck with PVA and then coated it with a thin mixture of PVA and powdered filler to which I'd added a grey brown mixture of acrylic artists paint.

I followed up with washes of varied greys and browns, keeping the colour muted, which I can see you are making an excellent job of.

The buildings are exquisite BTW, I fancied a large goods shed for my own layout but it would have been overpowering.

[Andy Keane]

1 hour ago, MrWolf said:

I used chinchilla dust stuck with PVA and then coated it with a thin mixture of PVA and powdered filler to which I'd added a grey brown mixture of acrylic artists paint.

I followed up with washes of varied greys and browns, keeping the colour muted, which I can see you are making an excellent job of.

The buildings are exquisite BTW, I fancied a large goods shed for my own layout but it would have been overpowering.

Thanks for all this - making the buildings is I suppose my first love in this hobby and I am sad to be getting near the end of Helston's set. Not sure what buildings I will make after that but I doubt I will stop.

I think your advice on layers for the yard is timely. One thing I don't want is too uniform a look - real yards are quite a patchwork of tones, even judging by old B&W photos.

Andy

[BWsTrains]

3 hours ago, Andy Keane said:

Things are slowly improving at Helston. I soon need to take the plunge and decide what material to lay down for the yard surface

 

Andy,

 

This was my solution; literally "dirt cheap" (If you can find it in the UK, garden centres here sell it by the 10kg bag)

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/173620-upper-hembury-east-devon-a-gwr-sr-branch-line/?do=findComment&comment=4916437

 

and following posts for more details,

 

Colin

[Andy Keane]

6 hours ago, BWsTrains said:

 

Andy,

 

This was my solution; literally "dirt cheap" (If you can find it in the UK, garden centres here sell it by the 10kg bag)

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/173620-upper-hembury-east-devon-a-gwr-sr-branch-line/?do=findComment&comment=4916437

 

and following posts for more details,

 

Colin

Colin

Very interesting - am I correct you laid down glue first (PVA?) and the sprinkled the fine gypsum particles on top? It looks like you perhaps "combed" the particles at some point? The final effect is not far from the AK TEXTURE PRODUCTS TERRAINS CONCRETE paint I have used elsewhere, but as you say gypsum is dirt cheap (the textured paint certainly is not).

I think I will aim for a slightly finer texture - I am aiming for a rolled macadam (not tar-macadam) with 40 years of debris on top. So to my way of thinking these yards probably started with a quite noticeable texture that slowly got packed out with dirt, ash and cinder. I think somebody somewhere said that cinders were deliberately rolled into the yard surfaces. I think this also allows one a deal of latitude on colour - a freshly laid yard might be quite pale while a dirty one would be increasingly darker.

Andy

[BWsTrains]

2 hours ago, Andy Keane said:

Very interesting - am I correct you laid down glue first (PVA?)

 

Thx Andy,

 

I must remember to put important such as this info in before the photos so it doesn't risk get missed.

Later in my post I noted that.....

"Particle size is 0- 0.5mm, here attached to some spare board by first applying a very light cream shade of a thick acrylic exterior paint."

 

In my case I used undiluted Dulux Weathershield exterior acrylic paint # which has great surface adhesion and an underlying colour which it transfers by capillary action onto the fine particles. Adjustment of required shade best done after the initial application of gypsum has been shaken on ( I use an old plastic spice shaker jar) and then the excess vacuumed off after it's dried.

 

No rolling is required, the end result as I showed it came out very even, not perfect but much as might be expected.  I just let gravity, surface tension and capillary action do all the heavy lifting 😎, it is yard dirt after all.  

 

As to particle size, I checked with Stoke Courtney's John (@checkrail) as his results the the Goods Yard were my Gold Standard and he kindly confirmed that my particle size was very much the same as his material. My close up perhaps over-emphasises the coarseness of my finish.

 

# aside my own leftovers, our local Bunnings sells mis-tints of various paints at bargain prices and I keep an eye out for "opportunities" on offer.

 

 

Edited August 3, 2023 by BWsTrains

[MrWolf]

Take a look at the goods yard surface colour and texture on Little Muddle, that's a very convincing rendition.

[Andy Keane]

On 27/07/2023 at 20:56, Andy Keane said:

I have just gotten back the 3D prints for the array of buildings belonging to the Gweek Co. Ltd to go with the wooden parts I am also building.  They are photographed on a bit of ply as the extreme end leg is longer than the rest to allow for the fall in the ground there. 

Track side:

Road side:

Entrance with sign board above:

Close up showing deliberately non flat roof and walls:

And finally doors for the garage based on the photos from Didcot kindly taken by @Mike_Walker:

All  need a visit to the paint shop etc.

I have put on the base rust / galvanised paint coats on the various Gweek tin sheds and next need to decide what colour the sides might have been painted when erected. Of course I have no real idea and anyway the plan is for heavy weathering with much rust and galvanising showing through and plenty of dirt on top. My current think is Humbrol matt duck-egg blue. This will contrast with the light stone of the GWR sheds next door without being too strong. Being Cornwall, however, there is no saying they were not originally pink of course.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Andy Keane

[Andy Keane]

No action today at Helston as took a trip with the youngsters to see the real thing. Did not expect to see a GWR 2-8-0T though.

 

[Andy Keane]

The Gweek buildings and motor shed have had their first paintjob applied. The Gweek Co clearly did not maintain their sheds as the Railway. Have also installed LED lighting in various places. Windows and weathering to go. 

[Harlequin]

That's a wonderful collection of buildings, Andy.

 

They really show the instant character that you get from modelling a real prototype location. It's so hard to create the same sense of place in freelance layouts.

 

I just remembered you asked me about a sign for the Gweek Co. Sorry I haven't had a chance to have a look at it yet - one or two other things have been taking up my time... 😉

 

[Andy Keane]

24 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

That's a wonderful collection of buildings, Andy.

 

They really show the instant character that you get from modelling a real prototype location. It's so hard to create the same sense of place in freelance layouts.

 

I just remembered you asked me about a sign for the Gweek Co. Sorry I haven't had a chance to have a look at it yet - one or two other things have been taking up my time... 😉

 

Phil

This is my attempt at the sign using PowerPoint - enough to make an expert cry:

[checkrail]

Superb buildings and beautiful trackwork too.  I feel this layout's going to be exceptional.

[Andy Keane]

3 hours ago, Andy Keane said:

Phil

This is my attempt at the sign using PowerPoint - enough to make an expert cry:

Like this, with font slightly stretched to better match the photo:

Edited August 15, 2023 by Andy Keane

[Graham T]

That looks pretty fine to me Andy.

 

[Neal Ball]

1 hour ago, Andy Keane said:

Like this, with font slightly stretched to better match the photo:

 

1 hour ago, Graham T said:

That looks pretty fine to me Andy.

 

That looks great Andy….

 

Although of course, you might want to distress it a little bit.

[Andy Keane]

5 minutes ago, Neal Ball said:

distress

Indeed, the whole run will get sprayed with dirt and soot, followed by powders. I need to glaze them first and then fix them down. Also then add some moss and the odd weed. There is also space for a couple of semidetached houses and three large private sheds / outbuildings that were on land next to the railway.

Edited August 15, 2023 by Andy Keane

[Andy Keane]

The very last major building I have to make is this rather fine villa that sat on the corner of the goods yard entrance and Godolphin Road (it seems to have lost its three chimney stacks at some point):

And this is how Godolphin road used to look in 1905 - not quite the bit I need but a very similar house on the left hand side - note the road has gas lamps and seems to be metalled with proper pavements and gullies:

[Andy Keane]

i am just finishing of my lever frame, which attempts to model the one at Helston in the 1930s. Many thanks to @Harlequin, @5BarVT and @The Stationmaster for all their help in my struggles with understanding how these things worked, the correct lead labelling, the subtleties of the Helston signalling and the business of checking frame interlocking. This one is powered by an Arduino and I plan to write a short article on it for the MERG Journal when I get a moment. To provide a relatively realistic setup, DCC Concepts levers are used to provide SPST switches connected to the various digital input pins of the Arduino. In addition to the main frame levers, and the additional A, B and C levers for the points with local levers, a set of warning LEDs are provided for the interlocked main frame levers, while the push-button switches are user configurable. The bell can be struck by a solenoid operated from an instruction placed on the DCC bus (so that this bell can be operated by anyone anywhere else on the DCC bus and thus provides the possibility of sending bell-codes to the signaller using the frame). If a lever is pulled that would in reality have been mechanically locked, its LED lights up and a buzzer sounds until the mistake is corrected. While not as nice as a properly mechanically locked system, it keeps me amused.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Andy Keane

[Harlequin]

Superb work, Andy!

 

[Andy Keane]

Just beside the station goods yard and behind the Victorian villa there were four or five sheds of various sizes and styles in what was no doubt the forerunner of a trading estate. It had access from the goods yard approach road so I plan to kit-bash various things to make up a mix of buildings. One I plan to adopt is the Bachmann 009 loco shed. Also the Wills garage kit and some commercial resin casts and 3D prints. This is the kind of look I am after:

[Graham T]

On 22/08/2023 at 14:42, Andy Keane said:

i am just finishing of my lever frame, which attempts to model the one at Helston in the 1930s. Many thanks to @Harlequin, @5BarVT and @The Stationmaster for all their help in my struggles with understanding how these things worked, the correct lead labelling, the subtleties of the Helston signalling and the business of checking frame interlocking. This one is powered by an Arduino and I plan to write a short article on it for the MERG Journal when I get a moment. To provide a relatively realistic setup, DCC Concepts levers are used to provide SPST switches connected to the various digital input pins of the Arduino. In addition to the main frame levers, and the additional A, B and C levers for the points with local levers, a set of warning LEDs are provided for the interlocked main frame levers, while the push-button switches are user configurable. The bell can be struck by a solenoid operated from an instruction placed on the DCC bus (so that this bell can be operated by anyone anywhere else on the DCC bus and thus provides the possibility of sending bell-codes to the signaller using the frame). If a lever is pulled that would in reality have been mechanically locked, its LED lights up and a buzzer sounds until the mistake is corrected. While not as nice as a properly mechanically locked system, it keeps me amused.

 

That looks great Andy - top notch!

 

[BachelorBoy]

On 15/08/2023 at 19:21, Andy Keane said:

Phil

This is my attempt at the sign using PowerPoint - enough to make an expert cry:

 

I'm not an expert, but I am trying to hold back the tears.... :-)

 

The typeface is anachronistic ... like putting a Ford Sierra Cosworth in the car park. 

 

 

[Andy Keane]

This is my little collection of huts on the land next to the goods yard. Not sure what to do to the Bachmann loco shed except extend the doors down to the ground.