KNP

The viaduct was a couple of Hornby ones I found second hand on e-bay, they have been repainted and tweaked to look like what they look like now!! Posted a picture for a closer view. There is one funny incident that happened, the backscene is glued with wallpaper paste to a 2mm MDF boarding fixed to the wall. When going over with a wall paper brush my thumb caught the sheet and ripped it.......a few choice words where said like - Oh bother!!!. You can just make it out to the right of the large single tree behind the viaduct, I managed to conceal it quite effectively as it was a very large hole? I had no intention of trying to remove the section so I went out and bought a very large tree and planted it in front of it.......I suspect even this tree will be felled as I will probably replace it with a new prime tree. This part of the layout was the first bit built as a 3 foot x 18 inch module and then added to the framework when that got built.

Many thanks for that comparison but I just model what I see and can visualise (most of the time) what it will look like in my minds eye before I start.

Thank you. The roof sheeting was added to the former by working out the circumference length, making it out three pieces to form the central lap. This was then glued at just the ridge line and when set each side was bent over the former gluing with super glue and an accelerator as I went along until the section was fixed. Then just making another and gluing and lining up and so and so till the roof was cover. It was then carefully trimmed. With regard to the netting it came from a model boat website - Modelling Timbers, where most of the items for Misty came from but I have just looked and they seem to stock it at the moment. A search on the web will find another stockist no doubt.

Same here I was brought up with dingy sailing (Heron) down on the Thames at Cookham from the tender age of 5 and then onto a yacht based in Chicester basin for more years then I can remember. Haven't for a number of years now but the memories are still fresh so mooring a boat will be second nature involving fore and aft lines, I might even treat the harbour as tidal and through in some springs as well....... Thanks

Thanks, the drifter isn't finished yet so I need to be able to remove her to the work bench but once that final stage is reached she will be moored correctly complete with boarding ladder. I have the running rigging to do, deck clutter to add and some navigation lights to finish. As the picture shows the mooring ropes are ready!!!!!!!!!

Since posting that earlier picture where I used the sunlight to cast a shadow over part of the layout I have been messing about trying to copy it with my lighting rig. Basically the room and pelmet lights where switched off and I had one 125w daylight continuous light on a tripod with the diffusing umbrella removed shining to one side at the height of a setting sun. I think I can do better so I will carry on tweaking once I have got the camera tripod out of the loft so I can use different slower camera settings etc. The camera was handheld and on the standard program setting for this. The effect is quite different and it wasn't until I posted that old picture that it made think of this again. Here is what I think is the currently the best one and will be trying to bring more shadows into my pictures from here on in, after all every time the sun is out we have shadows around so why not on a model...... One thing it made me notice is that the slates on the store roof have lost there relief in places as I got the roof to deflect by gluing the card slate strips onto a card sub base which turn was then glued the model and pushed down to get the deflection until set.

Thanks for the comments and hopefully inspires you to crack on with your layout. With regard to what to put on your baseboard how about a model railway!!!

To be honest no I haven't as I feel I'd need to work on them as a production line. I tend to work on one thing say the steam drifter, get fed up, move onto to something else and then come back to whatever I put down a week or two later. My worry would be I'd let people down plus the cost of getting the armatures from the states has gone up and up. I luckily had a good friend going to Florida about 15mths ago so she able to pick up some for me and bring them back in her luggage which made them cost effective. This the site I got mine from is http://modeltreestore.com/ and as you can see even a 5" to 7" medium version is currently $15 for 5 plus postage, I picked mine up for around 20 for $10 so quite a difference in that relatively short space of time.

Well, I was being conservative with the numbers so it would take a while...ha.ha. So I will continue to check but here is an older one taken unbelievably 6 years ago with my Nikon D5100 when it was newish using the afternoon sun streaming in through the window to form real deep shadows. Much work has been done on the Harbour Masters house since then......

It's based on an actual one I saw in an old B&W photo, can't recall where I saw now as I built it a couple of years ago.

It does seem to be the trees that are getting the most comments. I have spent years trying to achieve something that I was happy with, the tree in question was pre-prime trees (sagebrush armature versions which I got into last year) and was made by combining three good Seamoss trunks together to form one. I found you would buy a 'forest in a box' and out of that get an average 3 or 4 good trees therefore wasting a lot and it wasn't until I started cutting them into smaller sprigs for fixing to the prime trees did they become useful : advise - never through anything away as one day you'll find a use for it. I then clumped the foliage for this tree by dunking the tree into a tray of blended flock rather than sprinkle it on. Have a go and you will see you can different distinct types As a comparison here is one of the prime trees with a light thrown onto it to make it stand out. What I like about the sagebrush is that it looks like a tree trunk straight from the bag and also when finished you can see right through it. Fiddly yes, time to build this tree around 2hrs with the larger 40 footer (scale of course!!!!) about 4hrs and to think I have now made 30+ of them..........with more planned

Few more pictures today as I go trolling through the 1200 or so I've taken to date to see what is suitable or not. Enjoy

Many thanks, as I have said to an earlier member I did actually, no word of a lie, design the scenery first with the woods, rolling hills, valley and stream all planned out and then said, right then now put a railway line through it. I must confess it has worked rather well and by some of the lovely comments I'm getting implies I hit the nail (or spike!!!) on the head so to speak. Regarding the plans still no luck in finding them, so it looks I'll have to get my level and staff out and carry out an 'as built' survey......

Its a main line to nowhere, just for decorative purposes only and to give the branch line from Little Muddle somewhere to terminate. The overall plan is to leave the RH side finishing at the backscene (unless I want to knock through the cavity wall and build over the shed of course!!! the management might have something to say on that one though) but to the LH side (Encombe Station) a 3 or 4 line traverser is envisaged - when I've no idea......one day? Thanks for the comments

Your comments are appreciated and what you have been doing all this time is building your excellent layout Hintock.

Thank you and I'll will give it a whirl. I've written 10 'how to' articles for Justin on Railway Modellers to date with another one in preparation so I'll see what I can dig out.

Thanks, I sometimes feel that the model railway is just an excuse for me to build scenery and buildings, I can go weeks without running a train and when I do it's to check it still works!!!!!

Been looking after my 2 year grandaughter today and this is how I now feel!!!!!!

Forgive me for being a bit dim but I have just realised that you can click on each picture and enlarge them to give full width. So I've answered my own question then by trial and error........!!!!

Well this is going to be a bit of an experiment to see what I can place picturewise. Using my Panasonic TZ-100 I have just taken some distant shots and cropped them to form a hybrid panaromic view. So apologies if this goes wrong so here they are taken from diferent distances and heights. The first thing I notice in preview post I can only get half a page width for each picture is there anyway you can do to get a full page width for each picture?

A few pictures of the goods shed which is loosely based on the one built at Shipton-on-Stour. The main difference is that I moved the entrance porch otherwise the building would have become to wide for its location in my yard. One of my favourite websites that gets used for information and photographs is http://www.warwickshirerailways.com/index.htm so here is the link for those of you unaware of the site.

Thanks but I wouldn't say to me it's complete as only today have I been working on signal control wire posts and pulleys - not the wires though as even I bulked at that. I have a major alteration planned for the field behind Little Muddle station where I want to bring the town around the station so it makes it feel part of the town but that's for another day, still working on the design. One reason I think I've managed to capture the effect of the countryside is that I designed it first and then metaphorically drove the railway through it rather than the other way round.

That was my aim to make the scene feel, as you put it, 'right' and as real as I could make it. Nothing was to look clean, everything is to look used and in some cases washed out and semi-derelict. I can't list the buildings I have made, scrapped, or repainted, or re-weathered - if it didn't look right to me it wasn't going on the layout which partly explains why I have been working it since 2009. Some of the early trees got scrapped (and I am talking dozens here....), remade then once I got into the prime trees saga even a selection of those where replaced at the front of the layout. Even the basic scenery has had makeovers and tweaks as I've had better ideas or techniques. Anyway thanks for the comments and I will keep adding more pictures from my stock or take even more now I've got this continuous lighting system to use. That's been an amazing acquisition something I would recommend to all of you as the more defused light you can through on the scene the better quality picture you can take.

That reminds me I must fix that leaking gutter!!! Funny how the camera makes the roof look bent, I can assure it's not that bent.....

A handful of pictures of the creamery that is run by Encombe Dairies. This building is to no particular design and as I replied to an earlier question it is purely from the old brainbox...... This is a scratch built building mainly from card with brick papers, Wills corrugated sheeting and slate tiles. Main windows are brass, doors and smaller windows are from LCut. Rest of the building is just what I had lying around, boiler flue is a protective brush cover, tank is a pipe from my son's loft when we removed a redundant water tanks, twigs from the garden for logs, etc.etc. The drive is actually an excellent product from the Treemendous - Earth Powder with grey/brown washes over to give the effect seen. The third picture was my I-phone on selfie mode so I could get behind the building and still see what I was taking hence the grainy effect, which I think was caused by striplights in the lighting pelmet overpowering the sensor.