David Holman

The scenic work has proceeded well & must admit to being pleased with the outcome thus far. Indeed, the layout is now fully covered - though that does not mean finished, as there is a lot of detail work to do. However, will have to wait till after Christmas to add wild flowers, rushes etc [the latter along the ditch] as supplies of coloured scatter are out. So, what next? At the Reading Trade Show last week, got various castings, including street lamps [s&D models], plus a range of W irons from ABS. Also ordered some new moulding silicon, so have made a new mould from my GNRI van masters. A while ago, mastered the side and end of a semi-covered van, so did a mould for these too and have been casting enough parts for 3 GN vans and a couple of semis. With the Christmas season upon us, it is my habit to move the modelling to the living room. A workboard on my knee and a few basic tools mean I can be creative while keeping half and eye on the TV, just in case anything interesting comes on. Also planned are a Sligo parcels van, plus another brake, though will have to retreat to the workshop when painting and weathering is done. Acrylic and enamel paints, to say nothing of weathering powders are dangerous things to have on the sofa... In the new year, the two main modelling projects will be to built Railcar B & before then that wonderful 3 arm signal on the Sligo that protected 3 different level crossings. Wizard Models do all the bits and though fiddly are fairly straightforward to put together. My 3 way will be as a starter, plus two arms for entering one or the other side of the loop. Wizard do a nice operating mechanism, though fitting 3 could well be tricky. Expect rude words. The other work needed is to make the layout ready for exhibition. I already have a set of trestles and longitudinal beams [as per Iain Rice's idea], plus 10 spot lights, so the plan is to make some more gallows brackets for the Clip Spots. The outer ends of these will be used to hang a full length pelmet, with the layout name, while a folding fascia at the front will have photos of the prototype, as am sure there will be more than a few who are unaware of this delightful line, while even those in the know will question that it had a branch terminus. A fair bit to do then and that is without the all important running tests. No point in having a model railway if things don't run properly, especially when people are paying to see it at shows. However, a simple branch terminus must, of necessity have periods when nothing runs, so the trick is to keep people interesting with the scenery, buildings and little cameos. A 3D painting in fact. Hopefully, will be able to post new pictures of these [and the new stock], from time to time.

Well, here he is. Don't think the cap is 'standard', but the black uniform bit certainly not difficult to paint. With the harp logo being no more that a scale 1mm and the wrist bands a mere 0.1mm, am thinking nobody will mind me missing them off.

Who would have thought a request of what colour to paint a 40 mm high figure could produced such a response. The very best of what this forum is about.

Will have a go with my S&D models postie and let you all know. Might not get the wrist band in though, even in 7mm.

Many thanks for the kind comments. The bufferbeam is indeed wood, rather than brass supplied in the kit. However, must admit to serious error as loco is Hazelwood, which should of course have a different cab. Gawd knows how many hours I spent checking photos to miss that! At some point will have to add the extra bits... Fingers crossed, Arigna Town will make its debut at the Chatham Show in early June. After that, open to offers. Would love to take it to Ireland eventually. One day perhaps.

Though there is still a lot of detailing to do, much of the layout is at least now covered with scenic materials, so here are some views of areas that have not been seen for a while. The sharp eyed among you will notice that the butter factory is now Leitrim co-op - an ideal [if fictitious] source of van traffic both in and out of Arigna. There are people too, while the view across the field to the station and yard is enhanced with the last bit of greenery filled in. See previous post and the workbench forum for more details, plus the buffer stops post for close ups there.

One more tip is to use talcum powder to tone down colours. especially good with stock, but works almost everywhere and if you don't like it, can easily be removed. The two pics show where I needed to touch up a section on the level crossing. Stick out like a sore thumb at first, but the addition of a bit of talc blends it in nicely

The final bit of groundcover on Arigna Town has been the field in front of the station and yard. As a proportion of the layout, it is quite large, so needed a variety of colour and texture to look right. Started with a layer of PVA, on top of which went a scattering of Woodlands 'fine medium green' scatter. Then wetted it all [with a water spray from the kitchen] and after a couple of mins for the glue to wick up to the surface, got to work with the Grasstech. A mixture of several different lengths and colours went on all in one go, then it was left overnight to dry. The second phase involved adding more Woodlands scatter onto the tips of the grass fibres, having first put a light smear of PVA on with the tip of a finger. Postiche, teased out and fixed with spray varnish went next, with more scatter material sieved on. Spent a while doing this & then the next day added some longer dry grass stems [sisal], glued into the grass. finally, more spray varnish was added in various places where the grass was a bit thin, to thicken and lengthen the cover and while still wet, some more fine scatter was sprinkled on. Would still like to do another pass, with fine scatter mixed with yellow & white crumb to suggest buttercups and daisies, but have run out at the moment, so will have to wait till the new year. Hopefully the pictures tell the story

Here is my take on an Irish buffer stop. Needed one for the other end of the turntable and eventually went for an ABS kit of whitemetal castings. Ditched the rail built beam [too short for broad gauge], in favour of a sleeper, though suspect the corners need clipping. My usual faffing around with the Grasstech and scatter material completes the scene.

Well, he is called Pat!

Many thanks everyone and especially Boskonay for the fabulous painting. A picture is certainly worth a thousand words!

As the budget is tight, then a Grasstech or other static grass machine may be a step too far as they can be anything from £30 to £100, plus you will need to get the fibres too. However, a Noch puffer bottle works well in small spaces [with fibres] and is worth having a go with if you can get one. With Woodlands, suggest sticking to the fine and medium scatter and sieve it on via a kitchen implement for more even cover. For hedges, I use rubberised horsehair [see the tutorial and workbench sections]. Even without fibres puffed on, covered with scatter it looks good. Also very effective is pan scourer type material, but make sure you tease it out really thin before adding scatter. For bushes and hedges, your local model shop may well do pack of lichen. Often in lurid colours, it benefits from being toned down - either spray can or brushed - to an even grey brown. Then once covered with scatter [diluted PVA painted on], makes very effective bushes and shrubs. The front garden of the Georgian house on Arigna Town was done this way. In smaller scales can even pass for trees, especially at the back of the layout. Not that long ago dyed lint, teddy bear fur, plumbers hemp, sisal etc were the basics for all scenic work and [especially in the smaller scales] are still valid today. For larger trees, I use the wire skeleton method, with Woodlands matting for foliage. Well worth a go and any wire will do, though the soft iron [paper covered] stuff sold for flower arranging is easy to work with and a pack only costs a pound/euro or so. Covered with filler mixed with PVA for a strong but flexible bark. Fences are indeed a problem, not least because they are so fiddly. I have a big bag on matchsticks and often use these for lineside fencing - often not bothering to put in the wire strands and nobody seems to notice! Overall, it is easy to spend a fortune on bits and pieces, when we really want to save our cash for locos and stock. That is why a bit of DIY and creativity comes in with the scenic. Most of my buildings are made from card and when I worked in 4mm scale, much of that came from cereal packets and the like. The biggest impact on scenic is colour and texture and the moral is what my art teacher always said. 'Paint what you see, not what you think', though when modelling scenics, toning everything down a shade or two always seems to be more effective. Keep going with your project - a look back over all the postings shows how well things are developing.

One for the historians! Can anyone remember what colour the postmans uniform was in Eire in the 1950s please? Have a figure I want to paint.

Nicely weathered stock, but if I may offer mild criticism the ground cover is a very bright green in some scenes. Commercial scatter materials often do not help with this, though of the main suppliers Woodland Scenics palette is much more subtle.

Am fairly sure somebody does laser cut sheets for roofing, though not sure what sort. Howard Scanics, Freestone Models, does a 7mm scale embossed sheet for roof tiles. This is a thick cartridge paper and still needs cutting into strips. Might be worth checking out the Wills sheets too. Though 4mm scale, I use their corrugated ones in 7mm and they look fine. I just bite the bullet and measure/draw out a grid on copier paper ( for slates) and card for tiles. Could do it quicker on a computer methinks. Then cut into strips and then use scissors or craft knife to cut the strips half way to give the gap between each tile or slate. Use random lengths of strip (anything from 3 to 15 slates) and build up the roof from the bottom edge upwards. Another tip is to stick the strips with double sided tape. Works surprisingly well. Would never suggest doing a roof one slate at a time, but using strips gets it done fairly quickly. A good tip in any scale is to use micro strip for guttering. Make it thick enough and deep enough to glue to the wall, but round the front edge first. Nobody notices the gutter is not hollow. Check out Arigna Town pics to see what I mean. Downpipes are plastic rod, with masking tape to suggest the joints.

They look like ABS castings. bought a 7mm scale set at Reading Trade Show yesterday. They do a range of styles. S&D, also Springside do buffers too. As prototype pics show, there are many different types and for absolute fidelity, one needs to be careful or you could end up with [heaven forbid] GWR buffers on a Highland Railway layout... Me, I've used Peco in the past, because they are very good value and easy to put together. The ABS ones are in the paint shop at the moment, but will hopefully appear on the Arigna Town turntable siding next week.

There was interest in weed infested track on the Bord Na Mona layout earlier this week, so here are a few pics of what I do. When knowing I want weeds between the rails, I am less careful with ballasting, at least in terms of coverage; then any bare patches become home for the weeds. Hence first pic shows a piece of track like this on the cattle dock. The next shows it with blobs of PVA in the bare patches, then comes the effect of puffing short fibres on to the glue from a Noch puffer bottle. Also reminds me that I only painted the outside face of the rails, so another job added to the list. Eventually, will add more fibres and once 'set' will smear further PVA on top of some areas to add fine scatter to make weeds, as per elsewhere on the layout. The last couple of pictures show the final area to be covered with 'grass'. This is the field in front of the station. At the moment, this is only the first stage, for though it has been dressed with a mix of 4 different coloured fibres [using an electrostatic Grasstech], you can see how plain and featureless this patch is, especially compared to even the partly done section next to the turntable. Spray varnish, scatter material & postiche, as before, will be used to build up the variety of both textures and colours, as per the real thing.

Also seen it on tour and it is every bit as good in the flesh as the pictures suggest. 3mm is also a lovely scale, requiring only half the space of 00 - or much more in the same area. Like S, a bit of a niche, but for those who enjoy building rather than collecting, has so much to offer.

Deep joy today as have at last got a copy of Neil Sprinks History of the SLNCR. And very interesting it is too. Many thanks to the web and especially Buffers Books, where I at last tracked down a copy in very good condition for just a tenner. Not bad considering it was published in 1980. However, in my internet searches on the Sligo and now getting some odd results, in that they increasingly bring up pictures and stuff that I have produced myself on this site! Most strange was finding the maps I drew of my Arigna Town branch, as a basis for the layout. Totally fictitious, but now masquerading as reality. Art imitating life or what? Anyway, quite Possible that the maps will be re-drawn anyway as the Rinks book is making me consider the proposal for a line south from Dromahair and through Drumkeeran. The orientation of the station will then be reversed, which will better suit my back scenes. At exhibitions, it is nice when folk think you are modelling at actual place, but when the Web starts to suggest fact to your fiction, who am I to argue...

Assume.by the 8x4 you want a tail chaser. However would question whether this.is a good size for either operation or visual effect. Key problem with 8x4 is that you are looking at 18inch curves, 21 at best and unless short wheelbase stock is used then stuff will not look right with big overhangs on the corners. You will also be pushed to fit in siding and storage space because the longest straight will be four feet six at best. At least consider a terminus fiddle yard before doing a tail chaser. You can avoid sharp curved and build a station that can run to a proper timetable or sequence. Equally, if a tail chaser is really your thing, then go for it, but as others have suggested, keep the track work simple and maybe try to find space for additional storage sidings to increase the number of trains you can run. Iain Rice's Mainlines in Small Spaces has some good ideas, though nothing under 8x6. Check out Cyril Freezers layout plan booklets too (Peco), which do cover your available space and some of his ideas are very clever.

Not bad at all! Trying to build up that sort of gunk on a tanker is not easy. How did you set about doing it? Humbrol gunmetal [53] is a good colour, as is Metalcote gunmetal, as this has a bluish sheen useful for oily bits anywhere

A mixture of fibres and/or ground foam [crumb] works well for grassy track. Goes without saying that anything too long will get in the way of wheels, pickups etc, though battery power could obviate that perhaps. Have used 6mm fibres & a static grass machine without problems, but 2mm also works in smaller scales. Remember to mix the colours and build up layers. Once PVA has set, a light smear of glue across the top of fibres enables fine crumb to be sprinkled on to give weed/leaves type texture. A puffer bottle works just as well but takes a little longer. One trick I have developed is to not be too careful when ballasting in the first place, so that there are random bare patches in the ballast. These then get the weed treatment, so it all looks quite natural. There again, for some parts of Bord na Mona, you could miss the ballast altogether! The building is already looking impressive, Phil. Will look forward to seeing it finished.

Though 50 years old, the Ahern books still do all the basic techniques well. Guy Williams built much of Pendon's stock - 'nuff said. Check out the late Geoff Holts recent books on loco construction too. He built much of Pete Waterman's collection and though the absolute master craftsman writes and illustrates in a way that makes you believe you can go a fair way to emulating him. Could well become the new 'bible' for such work.

Consider doing an open frame type of baseboard Sean. That way you are only taking strip wood and narrow strips of materials up the spiral stairs, rather than large sheets. Check out Iain Rice's book Finescal in Small Spaces for ideas - there is a wealth of good stuff there. Alternatively browse the magazine racks [no need to buy them all!] as bound to be some tips there too re layout/baseboard design.

Two little gems. Given the size of the photo compared to the model, that is very sharp work indeed!