Pragmatic Pre-Grouping - Mikkel's Workbench

[MikeOxon]

mange tak! Mikkel.  That was the thread that persuaded me that I should change my station windows.  I shall have to leave it on the 'to do' list

[Edwardian]

That technique also works well to represent 'leaded light' windows (is that the right term?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Crittall windows

 

 

 

 

It's definitely a method I would recommend

 

Some very impressive modelling there.

[Donw]

I use strips of labels in 7mm. In that scale I think the score filled with paint might be too thin. However in 4 and 2mm it would be both difficult to cut thin enough strips and they would tend to be too thick anyway. My experience of old cottages has been that the glazing bars used to be thinner than the modern windows around inthe 70s. UPVC windows have much thicker frames etc. When I replaced some old cottage windows with UPVC ones I made the window a single pane but included some thin plastic strips between the glass (they use them for the Georgian style upvc windows) to replicate the thin glazing bars of old casement windows). THe relevance of this is that our impressions of windows could well be tempered by looking at modern ones.

 

Don

[Mikkel]

I agree with that Don, these past few days I have been paying attention to glazing bars around me, and the historic buildings we have here in Elsinore have even thinner glazing bars than I would have thought.

 

I would agree that the scoring method probably won't be so convincing in 7mm. More generally speaking, the method is of course a compromise. Eg it cannot replicate the 3D relief of real glazing bars, which is sometimes quite prominent even on a building such as the on that inspired my merchant's warehouse. 

Edited October 5, 2016 by Mikkel

[BG John]

I would agree that the scoring method probably won't be so convincing in 7mm. More generally speaking, the method is of course a compromise. Eg it cannot replicate the 3D relief of real glazing bars, which is sometimes quite prominent even on a building such as the on that inspired my merchant's warehouse.

This is my first attempt in 7mm with my Silhouette, cut from 10thou plasticard. It's a copy of the windows from the Scalescenes Low-relief Factory, that I've scaled up from 4mm. I assume they are supposed to be Crittal type metal windows, so have very thin glazing bars. They are about 0.5mm, which is about the thinnest that I think is practical to cut. As you can see, one is missing, although I've done better with others. Still got lots more to cut though, then I've got to assemble them!

 

[Jim Bob]

They look the business to me; the things haven't changed over the years. Back in the 1980s, I fitted a lot of pallet racking for Banbury Tea Warehouses at Crewe, and had to move hundreds of the things. After emptying at the blenders, most were sold on to removal companies and pot-banks; they were the preferred container to send ware around the country from Stoke, so would crop up at locations far from wholesale tea-merchants.

As a member of an RAF family, I well remember moving house every three years and tea chests were always provided for packing (going back to the '50's now). Wish I could remember the names printed on them!

[Rail-Online]

Would not some etched ones be the best bet?

Brassmasters do quite a range for the scalescenes downloadable buildings and there may be some that fit or can be adapted.......

http://www.brassmasters.co.uk/etched_windows.htm

 

Tony

[Mikkel]

Would not some etched ones be the best bet?

Brassmasters do quite a range for the scalescenes downloadable buildings and there may be some that fit or can be adapted.......

http://www.brassmasters.co.uk/etched_windows.htm

 

Tony

 

I agree that the Brassmasters etches are really good. I used them in my goods depot as seen below. But as with other ranges, I feel there is not so much choice for small, plain windows. I' ve sometimes thought about using 2mm windows, but am not sure if it would look right?

 

Edit: Argh, sorry, those below are scalelink windows (and layered, with perspex in the middle). I used to remember such things well!

 

Edited October 7, 2016 by Mikkel

[Mikkel]

My traders's warehouse will belong to an agricultural merchant. Such merchants originally sold their goods directly to farmers, who either picked up the goods at the warehouse at the station or had them delivered.
 
Inspired by the excellent "Goods and not so goods" website, I've decided to decorate the merchant's warehouse with enamel adverts for agricultural products. There were a number of suppliers of such products of course, but only some (the biggest?) seem to have advertised via enamel signs.
 
This included Thorley's, who were established in Hull in 1853, but later moved to London where they seem to have developed a strong liking for enamel adverts, judging by the many different designs they produced! Another company was Cooper's, who originated in Berkhamstead in the 1850s. They later merged with McDougalls and became a global player. 
 
Using Google I found a number of signs and worked with them in Paintshop Pro. This usually includes correcting the perspective, toning down colours etc.
 
Below is a selection, the individual images are accesible in my Flickr album: https://flic.kr/s/aHskJhgVak. The images are not downsized to scale (in case 7mm modellers see a use fror them) but I'm working on that for my own purposes.
 
Edited to fix various issues. Sometimes I feel the interweb is lagging behind the ever evolving ways we are using it 
 
 

Edited October 8, 2016 by Mikkel

[Compound2632]

My traders's warehouse will belong to an agricultural merchant. Such merchants originally sold their goods directly to farmers, who either picked up the goods at the warehouse at the station or had them delivered.

 

Inspired by the excellent "Goods and not so goods" website, I've decided to decorate the merchant's warehouse with enamel adverts for agricultural products. There were a number of suppliers of such products of course, but only some (the biggest?) seem to have advertised via enamel signs.

 

This included Thorley's, who were established in Hull in 1853, but later moved to London where they seem to have developed a strong liking for enamel adverts, judging by the many different designs they produced! Another company was Cooper's, who originated in Berkhamstead in the 1850s. They later merged with McDougalls and became a global player. 

 

Using Google I found a number of signs and worked with them in Paintshop Pro. This usually includes correcting the perspective, toning down colours etc.

 

That's a brilliant resource, Mikkel. I take it the online images are all of surviving signs - or are any of them recoloured from b/w photos? I had a quick Google on "Thorleys enamel signs", so for many of them there are either sizes given or a background e.g. brickwork from which one can scale - as I am sure you are now doing! The killer question is, of course, date...

[bgman]

Hi Mikkel

 

Hope all is well with you and yours.

 

Just spent the last half an hour or so catching up and as ever a crackin' read.

I do enjoy your work as you doubtless know and somehow you manage to catch the understated items so well when put into your layouts.

Looking forward to more.

 

G.

[MikeOxon]

I remember, as a kid, driving past the various local farms, with signs like these at their gates.  One that fascinated me was 'BOCM', which I thought must be some strange foreign word! (now, I know it was British Oil & Cake Mills, founded in 1899)

 

There's an excellent website for all sorts of lineside industries, including agricultural products, on the website by Mike Smith that he assembled to help support a small charity Disabled Access to Computing   which provides IT support for disabled individuals and charities supporting disabled people.  It;s a brilliant resource.

 

[EDIT following comment from Stationmaster]

Edited October 10, 2016 by MikeOxon

[Mikkel]

Thanks gents, glad if this is of use. The commercially available enamel adverts from Tiny Signs etc are very nice, but rarely feature agricultural products.
 
I assume the signs are all survivors rather than recoloured ones. Many of them certainly feature rust spots etc, but I find that doesn't matter much when downsized in scale (could be edited out though, if anyone is so inclined).
 
Yes, datin them is an issue. Frankly I think it would be very hard to date most of them exactly, unless we are lucky to find a photo which features them. For my own part I'm selecting some of those that somehow appear most "Edwardian". Normally I would associate the most detailed, quaint and complex signs with earlier periods - but I suppose that could be a trap (eg the more advanced technologies become, the greater the level of detail).
 
In any case, this one is my favourite   

[Ian Smith]

Mikkel,

When I was looking for some suitable enamel signs for my waiting room, I stumbled across this website http://www.advertisingantiques.co.uk.  What was quite nice is that some of the signs have been dated (although how accurate the dating is I have no idea), and equally if not more importantly sized.  I chose a few that were suitable for my 1906 period, popped them into Inkscape and re-sized them to 2mm scale before printing them onto photo paper on my Inkjet.  The photo paper had the backing carefully torn off to reduce the thickness, and the edges touched up with a rust coloured felt pen before being attached.

 

A couple of photos of my effort below :

 

 

 

Regards,

 

Ian

[Edwardian]

Mikkel,

When I was looking for some suitable enamel signs for my waiting room, I stumbled across this website http://www.advertisingantiques.co.uk.  What was quite nice is that some of the signs have been dated (although how accurate the dating is I have no idea), and equally if not more importantly sized.  I chose a few that were suitable for my 1906 period, popped them into Inkscape and re-sized them to 2mm scale before printing them onto photo paper on my Inkjet.  The photo paper had the backing carefully torn off to reduce the thickness, and the edges touched up with a rust coloured felt pen before being attached.

 

A couple of photos of my effort below :

 

DSCF1609.JPG

 

DSCF1612.JPG

 

Regards,

 

Ian

 

Stunning little building, that.

[Mikkel]

When I was looking for some suitable enamel signs for my waiting room, I stumbled across this website http://www.advertisingantiques.co.uk.  

 

Lovely building indeed, and what a useful site, thanks very much Ian.

 

I like this one from 1902: http://www.advertisingantiques.co.uk/Default0943.html?tabid=998&ItemID=1855. I wonder who the target group for such an ad is though. The site has it listed under "farm machinery", but it would have to be quite an enterprise to afford something like that. Most farmers at Farthing would have a coughing fit if they heard the price 

 

The dimensions given for some of the signs is very useful. A sign such as the one linked to above is 2x4 feet, which would be 15.9 x 7.9 mms in 4mm scale. There were many different sizes of course, but I've always had a suspicion that the commercially available signs for 4mm are a little larger than they should be - or that they only choose large prototypes, in order to show the detail. 

[The Stationmaster]

I remember, as a kid, driving past the various local farms, with signs like these at their gates.  One that fascinated me was 'BOCM', which I thought must be some strange foreign word! (now, I know it was British Oil & Cake Millers, founded in 1899)

 

There's an excellent website for all sorts of lineside industries, including agricultural products, on the website by Mike Smith that he assembled to help support a small charity Disabled Access to Computing   which provides IT support for disabled individuals and charities supporting disabled people.  It;s a brilliant resource.

 

Sorry to be a pedant but it was British Oil & Cake Mills Ltd, they used to have a  very large mill on the Downside at Barlby (north of Selby swingbridge) where one of my great uncles worked for almost his entire working life.  Their initials were at one time a fairly common site on the small advertising posters which were allowed on railway wagons as they were major manufacturers of cattle cake which was widely sold in England.

Edited October 9, 2016 by The Stationmaster

[MikeOxon]

Sorry to be a pedant but it was British Oil & Cake Mills Ltd, they used to have a  very large mill on the Downside at Barlby (north of Selby swingbridge) where one of my great uncles worked for almost his entire working life.  Their initials were at one time a fairly common site on the small advertising posters which were allowed on railway wagons as they were major manufacturers of cattle cake which was widely sold in England.

I saw my mistake after I'd posted - should've known I wouldn't get away with it

Edited October 10, 2016 by MikeOxon

[Mikkel]

 on the small advertising posters which were allowed on railway wagons

 

That's interesting Mike, I hadn't heard of that before. Can you recommend somewhere to look for details/images of that?

[ChrisN]

Ian,

Those signs are really helpful and will come in very handy.  I am not sure about the dating but as I often say, if someone comes and says, 'I was there in 1900 and that sign was not there', I would take note.  However, and I have not checked other signs but firstly the Robin Starch 1890 is probably correct as it is called a 'new starch' and guess when it was first made?  Yes 1890!  (It is on the tilt though so has to be straightened up.)  However, there is a coat by Aquascutum labelled 1880 and the lady is wearing fashion that is probably post 1900.  (Lovely coat though.)  Depends on how fussy you are and most will not matter but it is worth checking for obvious mistakes.

 

There are not that many pre 1900, and I would dare anybody, modelling in less than 7mm to print of one of the finger panels.

 

Did I say the link to the site was brilliant?

[Nelson Jackson]

 

 

The timber staging (is there a better term?) was built from stripwood, while the main deck is from model shipbuilders' sheets.

 

 

 

Sorry to bring up something which is kind of old but where can I get some "shipbuilders' sheets." From? Looking good btw.

[Mikkel]

Sorry to bring up something which is kind of old but where can I get some "shipbuilders' sheets." From? Looking good btw.

 

Hi Nelson, I have checked up on this and it seems the UK has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to these.

 

We have them here in Denmark from a German company called aero-naut, see eg: http://www.modelskibet.dk/category/plader-faerdige-daeksplader-509/

....and there are variants in the US too, eg these pre-glued ones: http://www.micromark.com/SearchResult.aspx?deptIdFilter=0&searchPhrase=decking 

...or these very expensive (!) laser-cut ones: http://deansmarine.co.uk/shop/product_info.php/products_id/2253

 

...but I cannot for the life of me find an online UK trader which has them!

 

They seem to go by different names - eg "decking" or "deck sheets". Sorry I can't be of more help.

Edited October 11, 2016 by Mikkel

[bgman]

Hello Nelson,

 

In the past I've used this company http://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/index.html for various materials which can be adapted to our needs in railway modelling. It may be worth contacting them, and even if they don't stock this planking they may well be able to help.

[Quarryscapes]

Hello Nelson,

 

In the past I've used this company http://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/index.html for various materials which can be adapted to our needs in railway modelling. It may be worth contacting them, and even if they don't stock this planking they may well be able to help.

 

I've used these too, very useful bits and pieces. 

[Mikkel]

Work continues on the merchant's warehouse. I'm now decorating the sides and ends:



 

The lettering was put together from plain Fox waterslide transfer sheets. The Cheeryble brothers are a couple of sympathetic merchants in Nicholas Nickleby.





I'm still experimenting with the agricultural adverts. Those currently fitted are scaled to sizes that suited my liking, printed on ordinary paper and varnished. Soft colour pencils help add colour to the edge and soften the corners.





I'd like a better solution to the adverts though. One problem is that my printer isn't good enough. The dotted impression on the left hand one isn't visible to the naked eye, but close-ups with the camera picks it up. On the right is an attempt to print on transfer paper. Looks OK from some angles but ctaches the light too well from others.