Strange Shapes

This odd looking collection of parts are the blank outer wall pieces for the other half of the latest house I'm building.

The shape of number 20, like many of the Oberon Wood houses is, complicated enough with the combination of  inset porches, dormer windows and those distinctive long galleries.

But this one is even more so because it sits on a plot where there is a considerable change in the ground level front to rear.

That is what accounts for the uneven shape along he bottom of the biggest piece.

It needs to be cut like that because there are three rows of brickwork visible between the ground and the render.

The way I'll do that is to mount another section of styrene inside, all around, which will extend below the bottom of the house forming a nice, flat foundation.

I'll then be able to bond a layer of embossed brickwork pattern styrene on top to complete the effect.

Double Yellow Lines

They're always a cause of trouble, aren't they?

In this case it's the lining on Conway Castle which is causing the headaches.

This diesel emerged from the works at the start of the 1990's with a rather intricate tri-tone livery to match the new push-pull carriage set - intricate for a narrow gauge diesel, that is - and Himself has been trying something clever to get the ultimate definition between the colours.

He has been making his own transfers by cutting very thin slivers of waterslide transfer paper and then painting them with both the shades of green used on the model.

Then he's applied them give a perfect break line either side of the cream band around the middle before adding on the straw lining.

The problem is that the lines are too thick.

(I suspect I wasn't too popular when I told him that after he asked my opinon.)

The first time he was using a 0.5mm wide straw line but there is a 0.35mm available so he's going to take a little break, give his tired eyes a rest, strip it all off and try again.

Twenty's Plenty

I've begun work on what must surely be my last model of 2015, another house for the Oberon Wood estate scene.

These buildings come in a variety of shapes - all of them very complex - but the trick I've found is to break them down into simple units.

So I've begun number 20 with the square two storey wing which sits at the western end of the building next to the railway cutting.

As always the most challenging bit was hacking the window apertures out of 0.60" sheet, especially the long narrow one on the gable end.

A String Of Barns

The two new carriages have had their brass bits and pieces added and given a coat of varnish.

The shot above shows 105 (the one with the bog in the middle) and below is 106.

Barn aficionados will be able to spot many differences between these carriages which were built more than 35 years apart.

(The real ones, not the models)

Even more variety can be seen in these snaps of the new carriages posed with another couple of carriages from our collection of Barns posed on the spiral.

For those who are interested the other models you can see here are 104 and 107, all the Barn saloons in one train.

Mileniwm

So, at last, our 1000th post!

It was more than five and a half years ago that I started this blog.

I've never been one for keeping a diary so it feels like quite an achievement to have kept it going.

In more recent times I have tried to keep the discipline of posting every other day.

That hasn't always been easy, especially when there hasn't been that much actual modelling going on, but fortunately I am able to call upon the skills developed in the day job to make a little sound like a lot more than it actually is.

Waffle would be another word for it.

One of the challenges of blogging is to be able to illustrate your posts which sometimes requires a little lateral thinking - hence the pictures of 138 in its rather lurid livery during a spell when its identity was being prostituted to please one of the major sponsors of the WHR rebuilding.

Apologies if you'd forgotten all about this and I have traumatised you anew.

Before writing this post I took a look at what I was working on when I wrote the first few entries.

In some ways a lot has changed and in so many others it hasn't.

Back in 2010 the layout was not even one third built.

We had the station area and that was about it.

Anyone who's been with us from the start will have followed the periodic spasms of construction leading to the the completion of the layout - in trackplan terms at least - last year.

Other things do not seem to have changed that much.

In the early posts I was building my first Super Barn,a model of 103, and we're still knocking them out - the new 117 and 118 are on the agenda for 2016.

I notice that at the time I started blogging I had already built the collection of farmyard buildings at Cwm Cloch and it was something of a jolt to realise that it's taken best part of 6 years to get round to doing the farm house itself.

It's been pleasing to watch the page view counter clicking up - we should easily pass 400,000 next year - although you have to be careful not to become too obsessed with these things.

By my reckoning it'll be another 3 years before we reach 2000 posts. I wonder if I can keep it up?

House Building Again

I've spent most of this week contemplating the challenge of the next row of houses in Oberon Wood

We've reached the top left corner of the scene, as you look from the front of the layout so in this view below they are the houses on the left hand side of the picture.

If you were to stand where the operators do then the first one I'll be tackling is at the right hand edge.

The railway line is running in a hidden cutting in front of them if you were struggling to place the viewpoint.

Once again these are very unusual buildings and I think this row might be the most challenging yet.

I'm hoping I'll be able to start cutting styrene at the weekend.  Strictly's on again on Saturday night.....

Farmhouse Outhouse

I chose to blog at the weekend about the two new carriages which are virtually finished but I should point out that I did manage to achieve my goal of completing 2 buildings in 7 days.

Admittedly they are very small and relatively simple but still I'm rather pleased to have made so much progress in a short space of time.

The outhouse took three sessions to complete - it was scratching out the stonework which took most of the time.

Now it's back to something with fewer stones but mind-boggling complexity.

Yes, I'm going to tackle another one of the Oberon Wood houses!