One Week To Go

My personal and professional lives are currently dominated by the countdowns to some momentous events.

Here in Scotland we're all going to be taking a rather fundamental constitutional decision in the referendum on Thursday and my job is to tell the nation all about it on the wireless.

Then on Saturday we'll be unveiling the completed Bron Hebog at the exhibition in Woking - full details are on the Exhibition Diary page if you haven't already seen then.

The layout will complete in terms of the track layout and the full extent of it but it's by no means finished.

However I'm very pleased that Himself has put in a lot of hard work over the last few days to complete the basic scenic layer of wild grass on all the new boards so at least the layout won't have any big, glaring sections of brown painted plaster.

This is the view of the Rhyd Ddu end taken from the operators position behind the layout. The big brown expanse you see in the foreground is part of the fiddle yard which has yet to be hidden behind a backscene.

I only wish I could be there in Woking myself to see it, but duty - and democracy - calls! I'm going to have to wait a few weeks more until our second show of the year in Hull.

Carriage Update

While you've been entertained by such fripperies as decorated mugs in the last few days I've been busy getting the bodyshell of our latest carriage put together.

The roof is still a 'rough cut' at the moment.

The skin is oversize and needs to be trimmed and shaped at the sides and the ends and, of course, fixed into position but that won't happen for a while yet - certainly not until the interior is in place.

I am considering casting some seat and table units again like I did with the last back of all-resin Superbarns I produced.

It won't be possible to use the same seat casting because the seat backs are a different shape and I suspect they may be set slightly further apart in the more generously proportioned WHR carriages.

Making a new master may be the next move, or possibly the boxes and bits which hang down from the floor.  I haven't made my mind up yet.

A Mug's Game

I've taken an executive decision that we're going make an attempt to look vaguely professional and corporate when we take the layout on the road this autumn.

Some go in for the team clothing look but I'm not sure that's for us.

Exhibition halls can get quite hot and sweaty so if you go to the bother of getting some jumpers embroidered they soon get shed, and as a militant scruff bag I wouldn't care very much for having to turn up in a shirt and tie.

T-shirts are another option but some members of the crew don't care for them much.

And even though I may joke about Himself's age sometimes,  he's certainly not old enough for a blazer yet!

So my compromise is to have a properly branded tea break.

But there's a problem.

It's likely that some people will desire tea while others prefer coffee, and as the mugs generally don't get washed and dried before they are refilled how are we going to stop them getting mixed up?

This is my solution.

That should prevent any confusion!

In case you're wondering where I got them from, and as I'm always happy to recommend suppliers who provide great service, it was an outfit called Printster.co.uk.

I found the website really easy to use. The prices seemed reasonable to me and the mugs turned up within 48 hours of placing the order - and that was using standard delivery rather than one of the express options.

Thanks are due as well the FR's Roger Dimmick for kindly supplying the crest artwork which keeps us 'on message'.

Building Site

A little bit more landscaping has being going on in the Oberon Wood area.

There will be no new houses appearing between now and the exhibition in a fortnight but Himself has carried out the tweaks to locate number 24 properly, reducing the height the garage sits at and building up the driveway.

From this other angle you can also see that the outline of the road through the estate has been cut out of plywood making it look like the early stages of a new housing scheme.

There are two more houses - the first I built - which will be placed on the far right of the picture but they're currently with the Artistic Director who (hopefully) has been painting them.

They will be liberated - by force if necessary - ahead of the trip to Woking.

Twenty Forty-Six

I've been working steadily on our new WHR carriage 2046 in the last week with most of the component parts made up now.

The main side sections and the entrance doors are made separately because they are set back on this design of carriage.

They've all had their second layer of beading detail added. The carriage ends are mostly done but I still need to make up the corridor connections which are rather fiddly and a bit of a pain.

 It's nice that for once we're actually keeping pace with the railway because 2046 is the latest new carriage to enter service also We will soon be in arrears again because there's a new, revised Superbarn due to emerge from Boston Lodge very shortly.

Himselfie

Don't ever say that we don't keep up with the social media trends on this blog.

While working on the layout the other night Himself was moved to attempt his first selfie.

Unfortunately he hasn't quite got the hang of holding the camera at the correct angle (yes, he's using an actual camera to take a picture, not a telephone - it'll never catch on) but his photographic malfunction did result in a rather nice portrait of the latest Oberon Wood house I've built being fitted in place on the layout.

A more conventional view from the front shows the base needs to be cut away to allow the garage to be sunk to its correct position.

I'm very pleased with how this corner of the layout is looking.

All we need now is for the Artistic Director to produce some more designs for the neighbouring properties.

Just remember, I've warned you before about holding your breath where he's concerned. We don't want any accidental asphyxiations among our readers.

Layout Recycling

It's all very well building all these extra boards to complete the layout - in terms of track layout - in time for the exhibition later this month, but it still leaves the question of how to store and transport them.

And that's where the racking system comes in.

It's probably more accurate to describe it as a pairing rather than racking system, because we fix our boards front to front for transportation, as you can see below with two of the fiddle yard boards.

The eco-friendly bit is that the L girders Himself has used to make up these latest end plates come from the baseboards of our very first exhibition layout, a OO preserved branch line terminus called Wickford.

In one of his more ingenious moments Himself engineered these so the transport pieces are attached using the same clips as the ones we use to connect all the boards of the layout when it is erected.

(Although Himself being Himself he's also drilled a hole and inserted an extra bolt as well because he doesn't trust the clips not to come apart in transit.)

He also tells me that he's invested in our own personal sack barrow so we can wheel the sections between the van and the exhibition space rather than relying the team carrying them one by one like pall-bearers at a funeral though the hall and out into the car park.

Given that this is not exactly a lightweight layout this may prove to be a very shrewd investment indeed.