Monday 8 February 2016

Pots of paint to paint a shed.

Well normally painting a shed would mean I  would be in the Garden and a pot of B&Q's finest green. It would be Summer and a beer in hand. Here ,on the other hand , yes , a beer in hand but indoors , whilst Britians longest downpour in memory continues unabated. Time to ponder about how do I try and recreate the look of the stone finish to this shed?
    Many years ago I managed to persuade the family that a summer holiday in North Devon would be a good idea. A certain railway station was visited and a close photograph of the stone wall construction at Woody Bay was taken ( the trip also enabled me to study Barnstaple Town by the way).



 I've started the painting by an under cost of Halfords plastic grey Primer. After this a quick wash with acrylic white ,which was quickly then rubbed off leaving only white in the mortar coarse. Using various acrylics I've tried to copy the colours of the walling. Surprising to me is the high level of reds and Browns. I started the painting on the unseen side of the shed ( North) in case of drastic alterations.
Now , to be honest the jury is out on the finish I've managed and I'm looking over what has been achieved . To me it still looks too bright and fussy?  Perhaps more subtle use of the acrylics is in order and also a weathering afterwards.....let's see what more beer and pondering will deliver.







Engine shed progress

A little more work and the engine shed begins to take shape. For the benefits of the picture the shed is held together here with good old Blu Tac . Compared to my previous model of the shed this now looks correct and with the right proportions.
The next job will be to add the poster rails that hung vertically on the station side. The whole construction sits on a plywood base so that it can be a stand alone diorama.


Wednesday 3 February 2016

Running in board

The running in board was made with a photograph of the actual board and here it is shown in-situ on the platform. Please ignore the unfinished ballast and the water pipe not yet bedded in. All the ballast was ripped up during the recent modifications , which gave me the opportunity to do some repacking under the sleepers. The reason for this was that unfortunately , as I built the layout using Sundeala, it tends  to warp a little. So this means a little bit of TLC to the track work is required on occasion, "just like the real thing" as they say.