The First Signs of Spring

Now that I'm happy with the concrete block the next stage is the greenery. I've started to work on this around the concrete block as this area is partly under the bridge and will be very difficult to get to, with the static grass tool, once the bridge is fixed in place. I'd done a number of small experiments before I started but this is how it looks at the moment; it's not a perfect match to the real location but I don't think it's too far off.

While it looks fairly simple it actually takes quite a while as there are a number of different stages involved. Firstly I applied some War World Scenics 1mm summer static grass. Once the glue had dried I dribbled on some more PVA and did a second application of the same grass to help build up a bit of depth. I then stuck a single mixed green Gamer's Grass tuft into the corner of the abutment. At this point it looked reasonable but I wanted a little more variation so I added some Woodland Scenics medium green static grass. I didn't add this in the normal way though, I used the "cigarette" approach described by Giles Favell in Model Railway Journal No. 238 to give clumps of grass.

Looking at the photo I could possibly do with reducing the size of the grass tuft slightly but in general I think that looks pretty good so I can now move on to adding grass to the rest of the diorama and fixing the bridge into place.

Convex Falls

So having added some surface texture to the water I decided that I still wasn't happy with the stream, specifically the small fall.

The main problem I had with the fall was that the water was following the rock surface, which doesn't happen in real life. In reality water erodes the rock from the top of the fall downwards resulting in the rock having a conave surface, i.e. it drops down before going outwards. Water flowing over the rock though forms a convex shape as the momentum carries it out before gravity pulls it down. With my water following the rock it didn't shoot out enough.

My first thought was to try and build up the water using the Woodland Scenics water effects but I decided I wanted something that naturally had some colour to it and the water effects dries clear. My solution was cotton wool.

So I took a small piece of a cotton wool ball and gently teased it out trying to keep the threads all running in one direction so that they could represent individual falls of water. I then gently tapped this to a bit of folded metal to make it easier to hold before gently wafting on some matt varnish. Once the varnish has dried the teased out cotton wool keeps it's shape remarkably well but still looks nothing like water so the last stage is to paint on a thin layer of the Woodland Scenics realistic water. Once this dries it goes clear leaving a thin film of water with white highlights inside it rather than being painted on the top. A small piece of this is then cut to shape and essentially glued in place using small amounts of water effects which then add more turbulence to blend in the edges.

I think this looks much better than the old falls, although in retrospect I should probably have used a couple of small strips to match the lip of the fall rather than shaping a single piece but I'm not going to try changing it now.

Textured Water

So having said in the previous post that I was going to leave the water alone, I've gone ahead and changed my mind. After more thought I decided that the smooth surface was just way too smooth and almost any texture would be an improvement. So I took the approach that worked best in my experiments (a cotton wool bud to apply the Woodland Scenics Water Effects) and attacked the stream.

Once the water effects had cured I re-applied the extra details on the fall etc. and dry brushed on some ivory paint to highlight certain areas. It's not perfect but I think it looks a lot better than the very smooth surface. Hopefully you all agree?

Realistic (Blacketty) Water

It's been a while since you last saw the actual diorama as I've been slowly adding the water for the stream. I've lost count of the number of layers I've poured (I think six but I could be wrong) but it's finally at a reasonable depth, both in terms of resin and how it looks.

Rach layer was very thin (about 5ml per layer across the entire scene) and then painted with thin washes of black and burnt umber to try and add depth. I also had the model resting on an angle for the entire duration so that the stream surface was kept horizontal. This means that now that it is dry it looks like it's flowing downhill. The main problem of course is that the surface is too smooth and looks like slow moving water rather than a fast flowing stream. Hopefully some Woodland Scenics water effects should solve that problem though.

Peaty Water: Take 2

Whilst initial experiments with adding peat brown ink to Woodland Scenics Realistic Water looked promising, the more I looked at the mockup I made the less convinced by the colour I was. Where the water was thin it was very purple, and even the deeper batches showed shades of purple in certain lights. Now the colour of peaty water can vary a lot, but it's never purple, so a rethink was needed.

So I've now put together a second mockup using the rock painting technique I settled on along with a new approach to the water.

Personally I think this looks an awful lot better. It's not perfect, but it's better. It's a bit more complex to produce but I think it's worth it.

Firstly the bottom of the stream is painted brown. I actually used a thick wash of burnt umber along with some black to paint over the rock so that there was variation in the colouring. Once this had dried I sealed the surface with scenic cement before pouring a thin layer of Realistic Water. Once the water had cured I then used the burnt umber and black washes again to paint the surface, focusing on adding more in the middle of the stream to make it look deeper. I then added a second layer of water and washes and then a final layer of water. The Realistic Water is actually quite runny and getting it to stay on the different levels was tricky. As there were no nice straight surfaces I could add masking tape to to hold the water I used water effects to add a small lip to hold the water in place. As these are designed to go together you can't see any joins once everything has cured.

At this point I have very still water so the next stage is to use the Water Effects to add turbulence to the surface, especially over the drops. I need practice to get this looking more natural but in general I'm happy with what I added. The problem though is that turbulent water tends to be white(ish) but the Water Effects dries clear. So the next step was to dry brush some ivory onto the surface features to make them stand out. I decided the ivory was a little bright though so toned it down with yet another a wash of burnt umber. The colours now looked fairly good but had dried fairly matt and looked wrong against the very shiny water. Fortunately this is easy to solve by painting a very thin layer of Realistic Water over the painted areas to give the final result.

Personally I think this looks a lot better, but do tell me if you think otherwise.

Also sprach Zarathustra

As the sun rose over Duchal Moor a random estate worker had to find a rock to sit down on when, after discovering a large randomly placed concrete block, his head was filled with strange brightly coloured visions of advanced technology.

Back in reality, while one end of the bridge over Blacketty Water is supported by a large rock outcrop the other end rests on a large concrete block. I think, by taking measurements from the photographs, that the block is approximately 5 feet tall, 1 foot deep, by 3 feet wide. Now I'm sure there are many ways I could model this block but I decided to try and make it from the same casting plaster as the rocks. So I built a small rectangular mould from plastruct stuck to a sheet of plastic. I used 4mm square section for the sides (which gives the 1 foot depth) but left one short side loose so that I could remove it after the plaster had set to help get the block out of the mould.

Once I had a suitably sized block it was then coloured using diluted Woodland Secnics concrete liquid pigment and a thin wash of the stone gray, before these were sealed with scenic cement and then a thin black wash applied to dirty the block a bit more. It will clearly need more weathering once it's bedded into the diorama but I think it's worked out quite nicely, although due to a few bubbles in the casting I might make a second block for the actual diorama.

Rocks, Rocks, and More Rocks

While yesterdays rocks were an improvement I decided that they were probably too uniform in colour, so I've had yet another go. In fact I had two castings to hand so I've used the same approach to paint two new rocks (at the front) in the same way to check the process is repeatable.

The two new rocks were both painted by first randomly covering areas in stone gray and concrete. Once dry a thin wash of stone gray was applied to the entire rock to both darken the colours and to blend the areas together. This initial base coat was then sealed using scenic cement before a thin black wash was run over the rock with extra black added to highlight obvious cracks and features.

This seems to give a similar overall impression to the rocks I painted yesterday but with a more natural looking variation across the surface. I think they look a lot better and hopefully I won't change my mind again tomorrow.

Rocky Road

After feedback, both here and on a thread on NGRM Online, I've had another go at painting rocks.

The two new rocks are at the front. Both were painted with a less diluted mix of stone gray and a thinner wash of black. The one on the left I used a much thinner black wash and focused it in on the details much more carefully. I think this works much better than the previous attempts as there is a nice base colour and plenty of variation. It might not be a perfect match but I think it's close enough to what I want and anyway lots of it will be covered in lichen, moss, and other gunk.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

As well as water one of the main features of the diorama I'm planning is the rock outcrop that supports one end of the bridge. Now I have cast and painted rocks before but on that occasion I wasn't trying to match the rocks to a specific spot, so I decided some more experimenting was in order; yesterday I cast a bunch of rocks and today I've slowly painted up a few small pieces to get a better idea of what colours might work.

While there are five rocks I've used just four different, heavily diluted, Woodland Scenics liquid pigments to paint them; four used just a single colour for the base coat, while one used a mixture of two colours. Starting at the front we have a small rock painted with black. Behind it on the left the rock was painted with concrete, while the rock on the right was a mixture of stone gray and black. At the very back on the left the rock was painted using just stone gray, while on the right I used earth undercoat. Once the colours had dried they were sealed with a thin layer of scenic cement and then a wash of black to help highlight the details.

I think the rock at the front that used just black is probably the closest to what I need although it needs lots of lichen and gunk adding. I'm not convinced by the two tone rock (second row, right) and the concrete is way too light. The stone gray looks good but I think even with dirt added etc. would be too light. The rock I coloured using earth undercoat is obviously very wrong for what I'm currently modelling, but if I wanted a sandstone outcrop I think it would work quite well.

Water Under The Bridge

Having decided that adding peat brown ink to Woodland Scenics Realistc Water showed promise I set about doing a slightly more in depth experiment. The plan was to generate a small test piece of plaster covered scenery where I could pour some water and see how it looked.

Annoyingly I forgot to take photos at a number of important stages but you can at least see the piece before I added the water and when I'd finished. The colours of the rock and ground aren't great (they were what I had to hand) plus I don't think I let the plaster dry for long enough before painting so it's a bit of a mess. Either way you can see what works and what doesn't regarding the water.

Basically if there is sufficient depth of water then it looks great, but if it is too thin the colour goes wrong. This is easy to work with on the actual diorama as I want a fairly even depth of water. The flow effects were done by adding Woodland Scenics Water Effects. I added some on it's own, but also some with a bit of Woodland Scenics snow mixed in. This did add a little sparkle but not much so most of the ripples were then dry brushed with ivory to make them look more like churned up water.

While not a completely successful experiment I think I'm fairly happy with the approach it just needs finessing slightly rather than totally rethinking. I'll probably have another go shortly but I'm fairly happy that I should be able to model the water well enough for the diorama to be believable.

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Having really enjoyed my trip to the 009 Society AGM back in April I've made the decision to attend the other big narrow gauge modelling show of the year, ExpoNG, at the end of October. As well as going to enjoy the modelling on show and to socialise I'm also hoping to have the kit for the Hudson-Hunslet ready by then as well which if it's a success will help with the expense of getting to Kent for the show.

ExpoNG presents a number of awards each year for layouts but they also have an open modelling competition, the Dave Brewer Memorial Challenge. Unlike the 009 Society competition this isn't just about locomotives or rolling stock and in fact the rules change every year. This year the competition is all about building a bridge. Specifically the rules are:

1. The model bridge may use any scale and gauge combination, as long as it represents a narrow (ie less than 4 ft 8.5 ins) gauge, with a maximum gauge of 45 mm.
2. The model can be any type of over or under-bridge and should be complete with abutments and track.
3. The model may be wholly scratch-built, or use parts from kits or commercial models, but no unaltered kits or commercial models can be entered.
4. To ensure we can fit entries into the available space please use these maximum sizes:
1. 50 cm by 25 cm by 35 cm high for gauges 32 mm and above, to a maximum of 45 mm.
2. 40 cm by 20 cm by 25 cm high for gauges 14 mm and above, but less than 32 mm.
3. 30 cm by 15 cm by 20 cm high for gauges 9 mm and above, but less than 14 mm.
4. 20 cm by 10 cm by 15 cm high for all gauges below 9 mm.
5. The model should not have been entered in any previous competition.
6. To be eligible, completed entry forms must be received by 31st August 2015.
7. To be eligible, models must be presented for judging at Expo Narrow Gauge 2015.
8. A prize, including one year’s subscription to Narrow Gauge World, will be awarded to the winner.
9. The judges’ decision is final.

Given that I still find producing effective scenery a lot more challenging that building wagons etc. I thought building a small diorama (with a bridge) to a deadline would be a good idea. I had originally thought about building something in O14 so I would have somewhere to display the Clayton battery locomotive, but as I'll be travelling down on the train I'm thinking a small diorama would be better especially as it's going to need a sturdy box to transport it.

I have decided what I'm modelling but for now I'm planning on keeping it as a surprise for the day. I will, however, blog about the build as I go along as there will be a number of experiments that I'll need to make before committing to the final version. Without describing the bridge in detail I can say it's fairly decrepit looking and crosses peat coloured water. This means that I need to be able to model (among other things) peaty water and sleepers that have been weathered almost to a silver colour.

Having never tried to model water before I decided that this was likely to be the main problem I'd have to overcome. There are a number of products available for modelling water but they all seem to produce crystal clear water which isn't what I wanted. Asking around on the forums and most people suggested that I'd be best using a number of layers of yacht varnish to create the effect I wanted but I've never had much luck varnishing furniture so I didn't really fancy this route. The other option was to add colour between layers or into the water products, but again I couldn't find many people who had done this to model what I was after; the one exception being the stream on Tom Dauben's Dunbracken layout (a good photo of the stream can be found here). Tom told me that he'd used the Woodland Scenics Realistic Water and Water Effects products to create the stream with colouring applied to the stream bed and between a few layers. Armed with this information I set out to do an experiment or two.

My original intention had been to paint the stream bed (in this experiment a bit of white card) and then pour the water to see how it worked, but while browsing in WH Smiths I discovered that Winsor & Newton do a peat brown ink. So armed with the ink, some paints, and the Realistic Water I did an experiment. I first painted patches of the ink and burnt umber acrylic paint on the cardboard. I then coloured the water using a few drops of ink before pouring it onto the cardboard (the weird chunk at the top I'll come back to). The colour looks better in real life and what I've found is that the ink works well not just for colouring the water but helping simulate depth where I used it to paint the cardboard. the burnt umber patch seems too dark and different from the water to be believable, although that could just be because you can see the edges so clearly. The weird chunk is because I had a little bit of the mixture left so added a bit more ink to make it darker and then left it to dry in the pot. Once dried I removed it from the pot and decided it was way too dark. Unfortunately I then put it down on top of the experimental pour and left it there overnight. The following morning it was stuck. Anyway I'm really happy with this first experiment. Obviously I'll need to repeat it using some proper scenic materials (i.e. plaster) for the stream bed, and probably multiple layers of water to get more depth but it certainly appears to have promise.

As some of you may remember it took me quite a few attempts to get a well worn wood effect sorted when painting wagons and they are a very different colour than exposed sleepers would turn (or at least I think so looking at photos etc.), so I wasn't looking forward to coming up with a new approach, but I think I've found something that works reasonably well.

The sleepers aren't the right size as I just chopped up and distressed some coffee stirrers but hopefully the painting will work regardless of the size. I started by soaking them for a minute or so in a 10:1 mixture of isopropanol and Indian ink. This doesn't turn them jet black but allows the ink to settle into distressed bits of wood quite well. I then painted the sleeper using the peat brown ink used for the water. The black sections show through giving a nice variation and depth to the cracks etc. I then followed this by dry brushing with dark sand, ivory, and finally gun metal. This approach seems to work nicely as close to you can see lots of the grain and colour variation, yet when viewed from a distance, especially with the light falling on them, they look very light in colour which matches what I was hoping for.

So I might not have actually modelled anything but hopefully I now have a good idea of most of the techniques (although not all) that I'll need to complete the bridge for the challenge.

Dry Stone Walling

Some of you may remember that back in March I built a couple of short sections of stone walling using brick papers from scalescenes.com. The first attempt was wrong as the stones were too big, and while the second attempt was better, the wall was just too flat with no relief. Having now abandoned brick papers for full structures in favour of embossed plastikard I decided I needed to have another go at building a stone wall. The result is this little test piece (using the driver from the Brian Madge Quarry Hunslet kit to give a sense of scale).

Personally I think this looks an order of magnitude better than my previous attempts. It did, however, taken an order of magnitude longer to produce as well. In fact that short piece of wall took all day, although some of that was waiting for DAS clay to dry. What you are looking at is a wall where each stone was cut and laid separately to produce a dry stone wall; albeit with PVA to keep the stones in place.

The technique I've used is based on Ian Nuttall's description of how he built dry stone walls for his layout (February 2013 edition of Railway Modeller). The idea is to create 6mm wide strips of DAS clay of varying heights that can be cut to make individual stones and used to model a 1' 6" wide wall. Rolling, measuring and and cutting DAS clay to the right sizes would be a pain, which is where the plastic tagliatelle comes in to play.

I built a jig from a sheet of 2mm plastikard and various sized square sections of plastruct. I used 1.5mm, 2mm, 2.5mm, 3.2mm, and 4mm sections to give five channels 6mm wide allowing me to model stones 4 1/2", 6", 7 1/2", 9 2/3" and 1' tall by simply pushing DAS into the channels of the jig. The problem is removing the DAS from the jig. The trick here is to place one of the plastic strips at the bottom of the channel, then add the DAS, and then just lift the plastic strip to remove the clay. Once the DAS has dried the plastic strip peels off easily and can be reused.

Once the clay strips have dried (I should possibly have left them a little longer but I was getting inpatient) they can be cut into individual stones; I found my track cutters worked really well for this bit. The wall is started by laying down a thin ribbon of PVA and placing the first course of stones. Small dabs of PVA are then used to add the further layers trying to avoid any leaking out the side of a join. I aimed for a level topped four foot high wall, before then adding the capping stones, which were slightly rounded, to give a wall approximately 4' 6" high. This seems to look about right next to the figure.

I painted the wall initially with RailMatch weathered stone (#2426) before giving the whole thing a black wash making sure to get the wash deep into the cracks where the base coat hadn't necessarily flowed. I then lightly dry brushed more weathered stone and some khaki (Model Color #988) to add a little variation. The final touch (which is mostly hidden behind the greenery) was to dry brush a little brown sand (Model Color #876) along the bottom of the wall to represent dirt having splashed up.

While the wall looked good at that point (I forgot to take any photos) I thought it was worth adding more scenery to see how it would look in the context of a layout rather than in isolation. I used some cheap burnt umber acrylic (I bought a large tube ages ago from WH Smiths) to provide a base colour and to hide the white cardboard. I then used Woodland Scenics green blend blended turf to provide ground cover before adding various shades of Woodland Scenics bushes and foliage clumps for bushes around the wall edges. The final touch was a little bit of yellow flowering foliage to the right side to add more colour.

Hopefully you will all agree that this looks a lot better than my previous brick paper attempts at making walls. Having said that it still isn't perfect, mostly as I think the proportion of large stones in the wall is too high; locally the walls are mostly small stones rather than large chunks. Changing the proportion of stone sizes though is easy so I think this is another scenic technique that I'm now happy with so another piece of the puzzle falls into place.

Canopus: A Riveted Footplate

So having shown you the kit of parts yesterday I was eager to get cracking on building Canopus. The first step is to punch out the rivets on the footplate before folding it to shape.

The instructions suggest to use the non-pointy end of a drawing compass but my compass doesn't have a removal tip. A quick hunt around and I decided that actually a Woodland Scenic foam nail would probably do the job. Unfortunately the etch doesn't include any rivet etchings to test on so I did a test on some scrap brass I had lying around. To avoid punching right through the brass I filed the point off the nail, and then with a gentle tap from the hammer added a rivet. Success on my first attempt, shame it was on the scrap brass! I tried a few more times just to make sure I'd got the force right before turning to the kit.

Unfortunately the etched holes on the kit were too small to take the ground down point of the nail, and almost nothing happened when I hit the nail while over the hole. So with some trepidation I picked up a new nail, where the point would fit in the hole, give it a gentle tap and.... a perfect rivet! Unfortunately I slipped doing the second rivet so there is a rivet on the rear buffer beam that is a tad too large, and possibly has a hole in the middle, but I'll disguise that with some rust weathering when the kit is finished. Anyway, I moved on and added the rest of the rivets to the footplate.

Once riveted the next stage is to fold down the running plate valances and then the buffer beams. The valances are long and thin and the only way to successfully fold them is with some form of tool. Fortunately my hold-and-fold was easily up to the task; I know people think these are expensive but personally I think they are worth every penny. The buffer beams then folded down with just a small amount of gentle pressure using nothing more technical than my thumb.

While the valances had folded nicely there was a small gap (it looks worse in the picture than in real life) where the valance should join the buffer beam so I filed this with a small amount of solder. It will probably need some filler as well when I get to the painting stage, but the solder will also help to strengthen the folds so was worth adding.

The next step, according to the instructions, is the cab.

From Roots To Branches

Given that I'm not modelling a windswept Hebridean island (although there is at least one person who does) Jerusalem is going to need some trees. Now I've never been a fan of ready to plant trees. They are either conifers modelled as perfect cones or deciduous trees that look more like a green ball on a stick. Even the kits for building trees don't really inspire me; the trunk looks very plasticy and the resulting tree is still very regular looking. What I wanted was some straggly looking trees that were all different but similar.

I've recently been reading through John de Frayssinet's excellent Sceneic Modelling book in which he suggests using sagebrush to create very natural looking trees. Now firstly I don't have any sagebrush plants and secondly John models in 4mm to the foot, and so his trees would be a little big for Jerusalem. It did, however, get me thinking that maybe there was something in the garden that would work.

As this year we have had a reasonable summer we have done quite a bit of work in the garden. This has included removing a number of shrubs that had gone berserk at the back of the garden. I'm not entirely sure what the shrub is but it spreads by putting out underground runners and these runners, cut into bits, looked fairly tree like to my eyes. As the roots went into the recycling bin I cut off the bits that looked promising and left them to dry out. Once dry they were microwaved for about 30 seconds to make sure they (and anything on them) were very dead.

So, yesterday, armed with some dead roots, I set about making some trees. This is essentially a simple four step process, which you can probably figure out from these handy step by step illustrations.

Firstly you need to find the appropriate bits of root. Each root then has a pin inserted into its base to allow it to be easily added to the layout; I used some 0.6mm wire that I had laying around and drilled a 0.65mm hole in each root. The wire was fixed with a small dab of superglue and left to dry. Once the roots were ready I added them to a temporary base (just a push fit into a hole, no glue). The tops of the trees were then sprayed with a matt varnish (specifically Winsor & Newton Artists' Matt Varnish). This makes them very sticky at which point I rolled the tree in Woodland Scenics Medium Green Course Turf. I then allowed the varnish to dry before repeating the process at least once to add more body to the foliage. When I was happy with the tree I then sprayed it with varnish again and sprinkled over some Woodland Scenics Green Blend Blended Turf to add a little colour variation. If you ignore drying time each tree probably took less than five minutes to make.

Once the trees are fully dry I then touch up any areas of the trunk where the bark has rubbed off with small dabs of RailMatch acrylic Sleeper Grime which seems to match the trunk colour quite well. A small hole (0.65mm again) is then drilled in the layout and the tree carefully positioned. I'll probably glue the trees in eventually but for now they are just a push fit so that I can remove them to work on the grass underneath and around them. So here is another shot of the front right corner of the layout with the trees in place.

Turfed

If you remember the back story for Jerusalem started with the following mumbo jumbo

It's 1955 and little Johnny has borrowed his Dad's camera for a day of trainspotting. He isn't expecting to see much as the sleepy branch-line near where he lives isn't exactly a hive of activity. Having settled himself on a sunny bank it isn't long before the distinctive sound of a hard working steam engine echos down the valley and within a few minutes the train emerges from under the nearby road bridge and into view. A quick press of the shutter and Johnny captures for posterity the first visit of the newly built 82026 to his sleepy corner of England.

At the time I didn't even have a track plan and certainly not a working layout and so I illustrated the post with a black and white photo of the locomotive and bridge just sat on my desk. Well here is the current state of play which I think is a much better match to the description.

The photo is straight from the camera without any digital messing about, which shows how even with the slightly large clouds everything comes together quite nicely. As you can see so far I've only worked on the area to the right of the road, and even then it is only turf and so looks more like a nicely mown lawn than naturally occurring grass. It will look more natural when I bring out the electrified tea strainer!

In case you are interested all the materials, but one, used to create the grass came from the Woodland Scenics landscape learning kit, but so that I don't forget exactly what was used the full list is:

• Green Blend Blended Turf
• Medium Green Coarse Turf
• Medium Green Clump-Foliage
• Yellow Flowering Foliage (this wasn't in the kit)

Take Me Home, Country Roads

Just a quick post today to show a couple of features I've recently completed.

Firstly I've re-done the road surface. If you remember from the previous post I painted the road grey and then washed it with thinned down black paint. This kind of worked but left the road quite black, almost looking as if it had just been rained on. Having repainted it a couple of times I still wasn't happy and so I had a look for a different solution. In the end I've gone with another Woodland Scenics product; Asphalt Top Coat. As the name suggests this is specifically designed as the top surface of a road. It is quite a thick paint that produces a fairly smooth level surface as it dries, so while I'm really happy with the colour and texture I might need to introduce a pot hole or two for realism.

As you can see I've now also painted and fitted the dry stone wall, and I hope you will agree that it looks a lot better than in it's unpainted form. In case I need to paint any more matching stone work in the future (or you wish to replicate the colouring) I first painted the entire wall with Tamiya Flat Black and then dry brushed on Woodland Scenics Stone Gray followed by Model Color Flat Earth, and finally Model Color Ivory. To take the shine off I then used a little Humbrol Smoke weathering powder. Having glued the wall in place I think it does a pretty good job of hiding the join between the land and the back scene (although I won't know for certain until I get the sky sorted). In fact I've decided to add a wall on the other side of the bridge for the same reason, although that wall will in turn be hidden by some shrubs, but that is a job for another day.

Stand On The Rock

Since the last time I showed you an overall view of the layout I've added quite a number of small details and done a little more painting, although I still haven't tackled the access road yet.

The main item of painting has involved colouring the rock outcrops. Given that I've assumed there will be quite a build up of soot and smoke on everything, I've made the rocks quite dark as well. They were painted with a mixture of stone gray and black liquid pigments from Woodland Scenics, and then washed over with a heavily watered down black to pick out all the cracks and crevices. They don't exactly blend in yet, but hopefully once I add grass, trees etc. it will look a little more natural.

The main new detail is the loading dock which incorporates a small crane. The base of the loading dock is also a painted rock face, the idea being that when the railway and factory were built they simply modified the existing landscape to suit their needs. The top surface is modelled as large paving stones (remember that N gauge is 2mm to the foot so each slab is about 2 foot by 1 foot in size) and was a rather laborious hand crafted process. Firstly I cut a piece of thin cardboard to the correct size. I then covered the cardboard in air drying modelling clay. Once dry I then used a cocktail stick to scratch out the joints between the stones. The whole thing was then painted using the same slate gray pigment as the rock faces, before a wash of black paint (not the liquid pigment) was used to bring out the detail. It might have taken quite a lot of work but I'm really happy with how it looks. Of course the first thing I did once it was in place was to drill a hole through it!

While a loading dock would clearly be helpful at the factory I decided to give the workers a further helping hand by fitting a small hand operated crane. This crane is built from a Ratio plastic kit for a yard crane, but I've left out the supplied base and steps (I was going to re-use the steps at the edge of the loading dock but they aren't quite the right size so I'll have to build something else). At the moment it is a little too shiny and new so will need weathering in, but I think it really adds to the scene, and even rotates properly so I can move it out of the way should I have larger wagons in the siding.

The other detail item fixed in the scene is the set of buffers you can just see at the end of the siding. These have actually appeared in a couple of photos on the blog already but I haven't actually mentioned them. Again these are built from a kit, specifically the Peco kit for rail built buffers. They are glued to the track and ensure that no matter how hard I try I can't run off the end of the siding (believe me I've tried, accidentally of course).

A Green And Pleasant Land

Since the previous post I've actually achieved an awful lot of landscaping on Jerusalem. Unfortunately I forgot to take any photos while I was doing the different sections so you'll just have to make do with this shot of the current state of play.

As you can see it has moved on quite a bit. I've now finished the main landscaping tasks; painted and ballasted the track, built the hill, added in some exposed rocks (cast using a Woodland Scenics learning kit, which I mentioned previously), and painted all the plaster with earth undercoat (this works better as a paint than it did as a mixer in the polyfilla). The next steps will include painting the rocks and finishing the road and surface around the factory.

Getting Plastered

It's been quite a while since I did any work on the landscape of Jerusalem but having now finished the main buildings I have no excuses not to get on with it. The first step is to fix the track in place; it would be silly to build a long tunnel without the track being down first.

I already had the 4% risers in place but I've now covered these in plaster bandage to match the only other bit of scenery that had been done so far. On top of the plaster bandage I've now added a thin layer of polyfilla to give a smoother finish and to fill in the holes in the bandage. I made the polyfilla up 1:1 with Woodland Scenics earth undercoat. I was hopping this would dry an earthy colour (the name would suggest so), but it has dried much paler than I expected, although it isn't a bad colour. My main reason for doing this (rather than just painting the undercoat on) is that if the plaster ever gets chipped it shouldn't show up as a bright white spot. Once the plaster had dried I then glued down the track.

Gluing down the track was much harder than I expected. Making sure the sections lined up around the oval was actually quite difficult, as was sticking it to a slightly uneven surface. If I ever build another layout then I will be putting the cork on top of the risers and gluing the track to the flat surface; not only will that make track laying easier but it should deaden the sound somewhat. While my current approach may not be perfect it works okay (I've run my locomotive around it quite a bit), and any problems should be hidden by the ballasting.

I've now started to paint the track and once that is done then I'll do the ballasting using the mixture I worked out before. So after all that it will still be a while before I get to build a hill!

Better Ballast

Following on from the previous ballasting experiments I've now tried out a better mixture of the two Woodland Scenics grey ballast products I tried before. I didn't measure out precisely but I was aiming for a mixture of 90% gray and 10% light gray. Hopefully you'll all agree that this looks much better; it's fairly dark but with some subtle variation.

One thing I still have to work on is painting the rails. While the acrylic RailMatch paint works well on the plastic sleepers it doesn't seem to work so well on the metal rails. It goes on fairly well but when I try and clean the rail top (to ensure electrical connectivity to the locomotives) it peels off the sides in chunks as well. I don't really want to have to prime the rails but I might have to unless I can find a better solution. I've picked up a bottle of RailMatch enamel sleeper grime to see if it behaves better than the acrylic version so there will be more experimentation.