Old Barn Ready

My first project of 2017 is complete - or as least as much as I'm going to be doing on it.

The old barn, which sits in the middle of the upper part of the S bend is now ready for Himself to paint.

He's been nagging me for years about this.

(Okay, maybe nagging is a bit of an exaggeration - try regular reminders)

It was, however, one of the very obviously unfinished parts of the layout along with the rock face of Cutting Mawr and the filling the Oberon Wood estate up with houses.

The houses are what I plan to turn my attention to next.

I looks as if I shall have to design them myself this time as pleas for plans have gone unanswered.

It really is back to the drawing board.

Fence Spotting

You know things have gone too far when you start taking a close interest in the finer details of fencing - but that's the stage of advanced obsession that Himself has reached.

He is also rather pleased with his latest effort to represent the boundary along the uphill platform at Beddgelert.

He's done this using etches from Wizard models which I think look really effective.

There's also been a policy decision to take more photographs with trains posed at the work site.

I'm sure that's something we all approve of, yes?

Still Slating

It's not a fast process, but I am nearing the end of fixing the strips of card slates onto the roof of the old barn.

This side (which is south facing) is in a worse state than the first and has a whole section of slates slipping off en-masse on the right hand side.

Once these are finished I can fix them into position on the building and hand it over to Himself to paint at his leisure.

Site Visit

I probably should have done it before I'd got 90% of the way through the build, but at the weekend I took the old barn over to Himself's place to see what it looked like in place on Bron Hebog.

The reason for testing it out is because I reduced the dimensions of the building by around 15% compared to the mock up which had been made by the Artistic Director.

It's always hard to judge when a model is still in naked styrene because it will inevitably stick out like a sore thumb, but I reckon that should be OK.

In fact it will have to be because I'm not about to do all that scribing again!

Slipped Slates

This last week I've been working on the roof of the old barn - the end that still has one, that is.

The challenge with this has been to make it look suitably distressed.

On all the houses I've been building for the layout I've been able to use embossed plastic sheets but here the only realistic solution is bespoke slating.

I use strips of very thin card - or perhaps, more accurately described as very thick paper - onto which I have run through a photocopier with repeated design of rows of slates.

I cut out a row and then slice with the blade on the markings between each slate, leaving them connected by a sliver along the top edge, and then I glue them, row upon row, onto a styrene sheet using PVA.

Doing it this way I can break the row at any point to create the look of a missing slate, or one that has slipped.

In case you were wondering why there is the triangular marking at the top it's because I first created the pattern when I was asked to make a model of Minffordd weigh house as a retirement gift for FR permanent way legend Fred Howes.

Fine Lines

Britomart is edging closer to completion with Himself working hard on the fine white lining.

It's not a job that can be rushed so it's taken most of the week to get to this stage.

The nameplates and rather small  Hunslet works plates are on order from Narrow Planet.

Incidentally, if you ever wondered about the brass band which adorns its distinctively tall chimney, it's not just baby Hunslet bling.

The story goes that after the engine's arrival at the FR, following it's purchase from Pen y Orsedd quarry by a group of volunteers, it was discovered that at some point there had been a very rough repair to the chimney and the band was added as a colourful way of covering it up.

I've always thought it rather suits it and completes it's rather cheeky character.

Droning On

This is a post purely to share a photograph rather than to update you on any particular progress.

While taking some snaps of how far he's reached with the fencing Himself took a shot from directly overhead the area of the farm which looks like the kind of image you'd get from a camera on a drone.

Or possibly one of those satellite pictures on Google Earth of maximum magnification - without the pixellation, of course.

What it does show up, more clearly than a normal viewing angle I think, is the way we have used different shades and textures of scenic material to represent the vegetation - from the mowed lawn of the farm garden, to the grazed fields around the barn to the long, tufty grass elsewhere.

I reckon it looks very effective - what do you think?