Turned Out Nice Again

I've made the first casts from the mould for one of the Super Barn sides and I'm delighted with how they've turned out.

Unlike the doors and end pieces, where I couldn't seem to chase out all the tiny air bubbles from the surface details, the first side - all 130mm of it - tuned out almost flawless.

Unsure whether it was a fluke I tried a second, and a third, and they too have turned out perfectly satisfactorily.

So now I shall crack on with making the master for the other side - which is a mirror image of this one - and before too long I should be able to start assembling my first resin Super Barn body.

Cork And Culverts

On the two new boards Himself has begun to lay the cork cushion the track will be laid on.

He has also started planning the culvert retaining walls where the stream pops under from the big embankment with the aid of some of hundreds of research pictures we have taken over the years around the Beddgelert area.

The model of the culvert is made using the embossed plastic coarse stone sheets produced by Wills.

However, to make them look like slate blocks - and I think this is rather ingenious - Himself has sanded them down so all the mortar joints are still clearly visible but there is none of the rough stone texture left.

I think it looks really effective and will be even more so after the Artistic Director has performed his magic with the acrylic paints.

Getting Alongside

It's been a while since I made a carriage side using my styrene strip 'ladder' technique. I'm glad to report - somewhat immodestly - that it appears I haven't lost my touch.

The first stage is to create the basic outline of lower bodyside and window pillars on a sheet of glass with a scale drawing fixed beneath.

I use 20 thou styrene for this.

Once that's done you can remove it from the glass and fix on a second layer of detail to represent the beading.

Straight after taking this snap I took the side and glued it onto a piece of 60 thou styrene which will form the base of the moulding box.

Left to their own devices these bodysides will soon curl up like a banana due to the effect of the solvent on the plastic so it was important to fix it down as soon as possible and ensure that there were no gaps the RTV silicone could find.

To do this I brushed a generous amount of limonene onto the sheet, placed the side onto it and buried the whole lot beneath a pile of the heaviest books I could find.

It seems to have done the trick but I'll only find out for sure when the mould rubber is pealed off.

Chicken Run

The first stage in transforming random wood shapes into a slice of Snowdonia has begun with chicken wire laid and attached over the plywood formers on the first of our new boards.

You may have noticed, as well, how the flat area for the level crossing in front of Cutting Mawr on the board nearest the camera has been adopted as a perch for the essential cup of builder's tea.

Himself suggests to me that you might also like to see a snap of the underside of one of these boards.

The clips which we use to connect them, in conjunction with metal dowels for locating the boards horizontally, are prominent but there doesn't appear to be a lot else of interest.

Unless, that is, you are a carpentry tutor, in which case please be assured that all feedback will be passed on to Himself.

Glass Half Full?

The first casts with the Super Barn door moulds have not been a complete success.

They haven't been a complete failure either.

In fact, taking the two sets I've cast so far 50% have been acceptable and 50% not.

I can't decide whether or not I should be satisfied with this - bearing in mind I'm accustomed to something more like 85% with the parts for my wagon kits.

Here's one lot that I am happy to use which I will deploy in my prototype.

The problem has been tiny air bubbles becoming trapped in the beading and droplight details.

I can't be sure yet how much of this is because the details are finer than my wagon masters or whether it's just new mould syndrome (the first ones can often turn out badly for whatever reason) or just one of those things.

Either way it hasn't filled me with confidence about how well the sides are going to turn out.

They are very long (about 130mm) with a lot of beading detail.

I'm unsure of whether there will be enough time to chase out all the bubbles with a cocktail stick before the 90 seconds of working time with the resin is used up?

I suppose there's only one way to find out which is to press ahead with making a master, forming a mould and seeing how I get on.

But this is the reason why I'm being a little cagey with all the people who've been getting in touch asking me if I'll be doing Super Barns as a kit?

If I can't manage to cast the components at more than a 50% success rate then it's not a very productive use of my time and the answer will probably be a no.

And in any case I would only be able to offer sides and ends because doing the roof and chassis are not going to be practical, flat back casting projects.

The one advantage of having a few rejected casts at this stage means I have at least been able to glue a couple of them together as a test to see how well the vestibule section goes together.

I'm very pleased with how it all fitted - now I've just got to learn how to cast them better.

A Use For Old Relics

Himself has been shaping the scenery formers and 'adding lightness' in the style of the late, great Colin Chapman, to the latest board with the big U bend on it.

If you assumed that the old relic in the title referred to Himself you are firstly very cheeky and, secondly, wrong.

Because if you look carefully in the left hand corner of this picture you will see that there is a very special weight being used to hold down the plywood trackbed.

It is, in fact, a track chair we recovered from the depths of the bog in Cutting Mawr on one of our first research trips to Beddgelert and took back for careful conservation. (Lest any of you think that we just nicked it!)

Not being experts in such ironmongery we don't know whether it is a genuine lump of original WHR track which had been lying there since the 1941 demolition or whether it is of more modern provenance and appeared on the scene in the 1960's when track components were taken to Beddgelert in one of the early revival attempts.

All expert views on the matter would be welcome, but you're not getting it back because, as you can see, it happens to have become rather useful!

Boxed In

The first Super Barn masters are ready to be covered in rubber.

You'll see that as well as the two sets of ends - single and double door style - I've also made a master for the end of the carriage, which is fortunately a mirror image so I only have to make the one.

The only part I can't include on the master is the corridor connections which I don't think would be possible without using a two part mould and that's beyond the scope of my casting abilities at the moment.

They should only take a day or two to set so I may able to show you the first casts soon.