Digging Deep

There's been more work done on establishing the profiles for the scenery and the trackbed on the new board towards the back of the layout that I featured here a couple of days ago.

It includes what, I think, will be one of the most impressive bits of Bron Hebog as the line passes through the depths of Cutting Mawr right at the back of the layout.

I've placed an old wagon where the trackbed will run to give some perspective and demonstrate just how high, and steep the sides of the cutting are here.

The wagon, incidentally, is an ancient attempt at kit-bashing a freelance four-wheeler into something that looks like one of the FR's old covered vans. It's not as tall as the modern WHR stock but it does at least give you some idea of what it might eventually look like when this section is finished.

(You can see a shot of the real location taken from the footplate of an NGG16 in a recent post titled Cab Ride.)

Cutting Mawr is at one end of the 180 degree bend behind Beddgelert station, most of which is on a prominent embankment.

Below is the profile which as now been cut at the other end.

I hope to have more pictures of this section to post later this week.

A Messy Business

This is what a workbench looks like when you're busy resin casting.

That's a new batch of DZ wagons in preparation in the picture above.

I'm about 25% of the way through after a couple of days work.

The most important tool you can see in the picture is the humble cocktail stick.

This is what you use for chasing out as many air bubbles as you can before a slice of Perspex is laid over the top to get a flat back to the casting.

The trickiest parts of these kits are the lumps and bumps on the bogies and the door castings which go on the inside of the wagon.

There is a fine rim, about no more than 0.5mm thick around the outside of the casting which is a magnet for minuscule bubbles.

So far with this batch of DZ's I've had a success rate of around 95% which I'm pretty pleased with.

B Is For...Back In Stock

I've spent most of the last few days casting an packing another batch of B Wagon kits for the FR shop in Porthmadog.

They should be arriving in Wales at any moment and will hopefully be on the shelves in time for the 1863 And All That vintage weekend event.

While you're marvelling at the sight of Prince and Palmerston in action remember some of the proceeds of the sale of these kits will be donated to the appeal to return Welsh Pony to steam.

This delivery will be followed up by a new run of DZ wagon kits which I have just started work on.

When they're done I dare to hope that I might be able to find the time to make a model for myself again.

Plugging Away With The Peckett

Although he's ever-so pleased with his new luxury 'Grandad Cave' Himself does come up for air every now and then and puts in a shift in the rolling stock construction centre upstairs.

Close examination of the clocking in machine reveals that he has spent an hour or two of the last week working on our RT Models Harrogate Peckett kit adding the handrails to the saddle tank.

This is a bit of the locomotive where form clearly had precedent over function.

To look at the saddle tank you would think it is rather capacious, but in fact the front portion, above the smokebox, is just a dummy and carries no water at all.

I think it certainly would have looked rather odd without it.

From this angle you can also see clearly what an outrageous overhang there is at the front and the back of this beast.

Had the FR ever got around to restoring it then it surely would have been given a very radical rebuild as a 2-6-2 or perhaps even a 2-6-2T with a Blanche-style tender cab.

Track Plan

Himself likes to keep things traditional and simple in the Grandad Cave which is why he's adopted a typically low-tech solution to planning the trackbed on the next two boards which will take the line around the second 180 degree bend and through Cutting Mawr at the very back of the layout.

It's a very three dimensional process because not only does he have to plan out where to lay the tracks but also work out the gradient and the topography of the surrounding scenery.

Here in this picture you can see how he's drawn the profile on a sheet of wood at the end of one of the boards and the clear outline of the embankment the trackbed sits on.

To the left of the picture you can see the existing part of the layout with Beddgelert station on it and how much higher this new section of track will be.

I do not know if it is a prototypical ascent - I most certainly don't have the mathematical skills to make that sort of scale calculation - but I think it will look impressive enough to someone watching the layout in action and that's all that really matters to us.

For this next picture the camera has been moved around to the front of the layout - where the punters usually stand - and here we've got a large piece of paper used to sketch out the big bend.

One of the decisions we will have to make here is how faithfully to replicate the degree of tree cover?

The real railway is lined on both sides of the curve today, but of course this bend was famously open and exposed in the early days of the WHR.  (I was going to write heyday for a moment, but then I realised that would be contradiction in terms! Today is arguably the WHR's heyday.)

The thing is though, the mind plays tricks, and I suspect a lot of us still believe there is not so much tree cover as there really is at this spot.

If we were to model the foliage faithfully I wonder if a lot of people would think we've got it wrong? Also there is the another consideration which is that this bend is going to be one of the best places to view the full length of a train on the layout. Would it not be a shame to hide it almost completely behind the trees?

As ever we will be guided by the Artistic Director. Much as we hate to admit it, he's usually right on these matters.

Deconstruction

Himself has been lifting track off the layout in a classic case of taking one step backwards to go two forwards this week.

I'm being a little misleading on purpose here, because in reality what he's been doing is dismantling the temporary fiddle yard we had at the Rhyd Ddu end of the layout for the show at Dinas last month to turn it into a proper scenic board.

As you can see the plywood top has been removed in one piece and he's left the tracks in place in case we should need it again.

This all depends on whether Bron Hebog will next show its face in public in a 'finished' state or as a 'work in progress' once again. (I use the commas because no layout is ever truly finished, of course.)

And so another virgin baseboard has been brought out of store and set up in the new, luxury 'Grandad Cave'.

You'll see that this one sits at a right angle to its neighbour. To help you get your bearings the next picture (below)  is taken as if you were hovering above Goat Tunnel looking towards Rhyd Ddu.

The new board that is nearest the camera will show the trackbed where it makes the second 180 bend on the embankment behind Beddgelert station and Cutting Mawr will be somewhere up against the wall on the left of the picture.

Do you know where you are now? Good.

The first task will be to profile of the sides of the board and then draw the shape of the trackbed on a sheet of plywood, cut it out and fix it at the correct height on rises.

Updates to follow soon I hope.

In The Pink

I had hoped to be able to take a wee break from almost continual resin casting and do a little modelling for myself, but it seems it is not to be.

No sooner had I delivered a consignment of new the NGY ballast wagon kits to John of the FR shop than he placed an order for another run of the B wagon and DZ wagon kits which are selling well at Harbour Station. (A slice of the profits from each kit go towards steaming Welsh Pony remember)

The first task was to run off a set of moulds. It's a little different this time because my supplier has changed to a different brand of RTV rubber. The new stuff sets in a rather fetching shade of salmon pink.

It is not the silicone which is pink (it comes as a slightly off-white gloop) but the catalyst which is bright red as opposed to the previous stuff which was clear.

It's a quite a bit easier to use on account of the recipe calling for a 10% dose of catalyst instead of 5% which means on a 30g mix you're aiming to measure out 3g of liquid rather that 1.5g and so on. Unless you've borrowed some scales from the local laboratory its always going to be easier to accurately measure out a larger amount on the el cheapo catalogue shop digital scales I use.

The other advantage is you can see how thoroughly the silicone and the catalyst have been mixed together - if there are still any pale streaks in the pot keep stirring.

The test will be how well the moulds stand up to production line casting.