David Holman

Continue to enjoy the story telling, which bring the photos to life. As for backscenes, sometimes 'less is more's and a lot depends on what you want to convey. Portrait and close up photography often uses a large aperture to make the background out of focus, so a plain backscene can do the same, with the eye being drawn to what is in the foreground - which may well be the trains. A very pale or white sky backscene is very easy to create of course. Vestigial scenery can be painted on, or a decoupage technique could be used by cutting and pasting to add features on a low horizon.

Sorry Mick, dont know what ACC is and when I tried looking it up got everything from Aberdeen City Council to Automatic Cruise Control and many places in between! The thing about PVA is that it doesn't stick to cling film - or more likely it is the other way round - so guess that if you do a test with say a couple of bits of wood clamped together, with cling film and ACC, that will tell you.

Attempting a bit of subterfuge Attention has turned to the baseboard join area. Only the one, so it makes sense to try and hide as much of it as possible. Step one is the ballasted track, where I've used a trick taught me by Gordon Gravett. As with the baseboard surface itself, a sheet of clingfilm is sandwiched between the boards, which are then done up as tight as possible. A couple of teaspoons of ballast are then mixed with undiluted PVA and spooned over the join, then pressed into place, either side of the clingfilm. Allow to set overnight & then separate the boards and remove the clingfilm. Step two involves the platform. For this, I've created a removable section. The platform wall has been made of a subframe of 'greyboard', which is twice as thick as mounting board. I've also used strips of greyboard as the foundation of the platform itself. The platform wall is covered with a layer of Wills stone sheet. Intended for 4mm scale, I find it looks ok in 7mm. My supplies are running low, but managed to find enough pieces to cover the wall - albeit in a range of finishes! The removable section is about 7cm long and I then glued a slightly longer length of mounting board to this, which forms part of the platform surface. Coping stones have been made from 20thou plastic sheet, with a piece of 20x30 thou micro strip glued to one edge to make it look thicker. More 20thou was cut to represent paving slabs, then likewise glued to the mounting board and like the coping stones, arranged to overlap either side. This then forms a single removable piece which [hopefully] will disguise the baseboard join, by breaking up it up across the whole width. It may be necessary to add a couple of heavy white metal figures on each side to hold it down, but fingers crossed, that shouldn't be a problem.

Amen to all of that Phil. Gauges are the only items to make track building different in 5'3 compared to 'standard' gauge, or any other for that matter. Rail and sleepers can be bought from any number of sources and you don't even need to do much soldering either, especially if you go for C&L. They do kits where the vee and blades are already machined, so all that is needed is to slide the chairs on to the rails and fix them to the sleepers with Daywat. On the other hand, it only takes an hour or so to file the rails (bull head easier than flat bottomed) and a complete point can be done in a couple of hours or less. Very much looking forward to seeing how you get on and hopefully to see others follow too.

Make mine a C class, in 7mm scale, 36.75mm gauge

Interesting - always wondered what the numbers meant! In 7mm narrow gauge, No5 seems to be the one to go for, though most narrow gauge stock doesn't have any buffers, of course.

While I applaud anyone willing to use P4 standards, I also fear it is the biggest barrier to more folk going broad gauge. Irish EM, or similar is as Mayner says, a far more pragmatic approach. You can do 4mm fine scale, without needing P4 wheels or clearances, as Andy Cundick has shown with Valencia Harbour. My Fintonagh model, though 7mm scale, used 21mm track and 4mm, finescale clearances, which means one millimetre flangeways in the point frogs/crossings. In other words, exactly the same clearances as on Peco code 75. I use standard 4mm wheels too. EM gauge track is less than 0.7mm narrower than 'dead scale', but looks so much better than 00, especially using code 100 rail. Irish EM, which Templot has track plans for on line, is 20.2mm, clearly light years better than 00, even with code 75 track. I can certainly understand why folk would want to stick with 00, especially if there is lots of stock and a big layout already available. Equally, with new models, especially diesels, easily converted to 5'3, along with innovations in 3D printed track bases, the time has never been better to convert - especially if you are planning a new project. Come on in - the water's lovely!

Fabulous pictures in their latest RM advert. No wonder they are so popular.

Great to see such high quality rtr models in the correct gauge! Now you need to tell everyone how you did it.

They certainly look better in 4mm than 7mm, Ken!

So, now into the multiple phases of detailing the track work. Never entirely sure which bits go first, so as usual, will probably end up doing some parts more than once... This time, decided to paint the track first & began with an overall coat of Precision 'track dirt', which is a sort of a, well, dirty brown colour. Followed this by painting the rails & from here on, my much thumbed copy of 'The Art of Weathering' comes off the shelf. Hard to believe it was written by Martyn Welch nearly 30 years ago, but with its mix of exceptional observation and experimentation, together with which Humbrol paints to use, makes life [fairly] easy. The rails were therefore treated to his 'sidings' mix, which is bauxite [133], gunmetal [53] and matt black, using a fine pointed brush and not worrying overly about fully blending the colours. Hence you get a bit of variation. I then painted the sleepers with a mix of chestnut brown [186] and matt black, plus some gunmetal again, which helps to give the faint silvery sheen you see on well weathered, creosoted, sleepers. Once dry, this was dusted with grey weathering powder, though some areas will be dry brushed with gun metal later too. Martyn also suggests using a very fine brush to add small dots to suggest knots. At this point, used some stone coloured DAS clay to create an impression of the yard surface immediately beyond the ballast, while a thicker layer of this is going to be used to form the stone blocks of the inset track later. And so to the ballasting. Every time I build a new layout, am reminded just how tedious this process is to get right, especially as I generally use Woodlands Scenics 'fine ash', which is probably a bit lightweight, but nevertheless, for me, matches the size of ash ballast in 7mm scale. The first step is to carefully spread it between the sleepers. It gets everywhere of course, so a combination of fingers and fine paint brush get it off the tops of the sleepers. A mixture of PVA, 50/50 with water and the usual drop of washing up liquid is then dripped on to the ballast with an eye dropper. It still tends to form small balls, but these soon dissipate, after which you got round again and drip more on. Finally, I use a small screw driver to poke and flatten the ballast around the sleepers, dipping it in water from time to time, which seems to help. There are probably easier ways, but it is what I do and once the whole lot is dry, further treatment will be needed with weathering powders and so on. Told you it was tedious!

Got all his books!

Chinchilla dust, from your local petshop, JB. Very fine, and not made from pulverised, freeze dried chinchilla either. The more I look at prototype photos, the more apparent it is to me that, scaled down, surfaces are much smoother than we think. DAS clay is actually paper based I think, but dries in an hour or so when spread thin. To be honest, Polyfilla powder, or Artex, especially when mixed up with a bit of pva, also works well, and you can add cheap water colour paint to it so it is precoloured. And, indeed chinchilla dust or find sand, ballast etc if you wish, though probably best to add such things after it has set.

Thank you! Order just sent - not surprised as they are very popular and pretty forgiving, while (set up properly) can provide delayed action including on the move. I have thought about S&W couplings more than once, but somehow they look far too like tension locks to me, while I've never liked the versions where a wire is soldered across the buffers. Indeed, don't really like the visual aspect of anything other than screw/three link couplings. The latter are just about ok in 7mm scale (though the former are the spawn of Satan!), but of course not really appropriate on a front operated exhibition layout. If only buckeye couplings had been used from the start of railways, because we'd all just be using Kadees.

Well done you!

Ordered a pack earlier this week, along with the excellent solenoid uncouplers. Therefore saddened to get my letter and cheque returned today with a note from Trevor Shaw's wife to say he had ceased trading due to ill health. A real shame, not least because have standardised on Dinghams for years. The solenoids are built around an M6 bolt, so easy to screw into the underside of the baseboard and now need to find an alternative, I suppose - unless someone else takes over.

Funnily enough been doing the DAS this afternoon too. Got some in stone colour, which should help the painting process. Report tomorrow.

Just goes to show how much fun and satisfaction can be had from even a small project like this. The inset track has turned out well, likewise the freighter. Lots of inspiration here for my project too.

Thank you both! I especially like those large section stones at Donaghadee, not least because they would be easy to scribe. The colours of the stones, drying out after a shower make a nice effect too.

Interesting! Many thanks.

Bought them from Marcway as 18" strips: 6mm for plain track and 7mm for point timbers. Marcway do ready cut ones, but only 8'6 lengths, I found and I wanted 9'. Not sure wire brush would work - the copper clad is surprisingly tough and even the craft knife scoring is disappearing under the paint. To be honest, the treatment is a bit over the top, but on a small layout like this you can indulge things to some extent, because there aren't masses of anything to do.

Took a deep breath and decided to move on from construction and wiring. The next steps in model railway construction often cause a few furrowed brows, though I tend to follow the artistic route and start with the background and gradually move forwards. However, model railways being three dimensional things, it is just as apt to work from the bottom up. On Northport Quay, that potentially could mean the water level and harbour walls, but am continuing with the track for now, which means painting, detailing & ballasting. Copperclad sleepers tend to be rather plain, angular things, so have used a craft knife to score their surfaces in places to represent cracks in the timbers. There are some nice photos around of SLNCR lightweight, flat-bottomed, track, including ,'Riley in Ireland', which have been trying to emulate. Have also added representations of the track spikes, using small pieces of 10x20thou micro strip fixed with cyano. Tedium personified! Before starting all this, I added check rails to the two sidings and headhunt to the pier, all of which will feature inlaid track of some sort, as yet to be decided. There is a question about this on the site. Since then have given all the track a coat of spray primer - this is because without it, the copper clad sleepers can easily show through their shininess with wear and tear.

Having been poring over online photos of harbour settings, but this far not very successful in identifying inset track. There is quite a bit in the Historic Dockyard, Chatham, but much of it is embedded in concrete and tarmac. Hence am wondering if you good folk out there can offer anything? Wills Scenic do some quite nice setts/cobbled sheets I might use, but what was the situation in Ireland, particularly at the end of the 19th century? Could concrete have been used? Or what about bricks? Am happy to do scribed DAS for the latter, but scribing irregular cobbles might be a nightmare!

As others have said, depends what you want an iron for. If it is just electrical connections, then a 15-25 watt iron and 240 degree multiple solder will do you fine. However, if you are starting on kit building, then a 40 watt iron, flux of some sort and a mix of 140 and 180 degree solder, plus the 240 is required to cover a variety of tasks.The As ever, start simple, and build up your skills. There are plenty of online tutorials that a quick internet search will help you with.

Someone's having fun again - and quite right too. Thanks for sharing, JB.