ROTY - Part 1

It's always interesting in the last few days of December to look back at all the modelling - and blogging - we've done over the course of the year.

I'm always surprised by both how little and how much we've achieved.

Often I'll look back and see that a model that we've only just completed was started in January and in other cases we've finally finished off something that has been lying part-built in a drawer somewhere for years.

So here, then is the first part of the Bron Hebog Review of the Year.

January

Himself began 2015 by getting down to work on painting our 3rd Garratt, 138.

We'd chosen the colour of the red together at the the exhibition in Hull a few weeks before (he's never been good at reds) but at this stage I had a few doubts about whether I'd got the shade quite right.

I was getting started on a project I'd been thinking about for many years, to make a replacement pair of models of FR carriages 11 and 12 in their current condition.

What finally spurred me into action was the recent death of legendary FR GM Allan Garraway.

During FR Vintage events these carriages run in what's known as the Garraway Set and so I felt it was really time I got around to making them as a little tribute to him and his huge contribution to making the FR what it is today.

February

Turns out I really didn't need to worry about that shade of red at all!

Himself finished painting and lining 138.

It looked truly magnificent!

He also began on one of the Christmas presents he received.

This was my not-very-subtle way of ensuring that another of my long-term projects - an updated Conway Castle - got started.

March

Some things never change - I was building houses for the layout!

This was the early stages of a row of houses that run in front of the cutting into Goat Tunnel.

As spring sprung it became warm enough for Himself to venture into the 'Grandad Cave' again and he began filling the Afon Cwm Cloch with fake water.

April

As you can see, I was making good progress on the houses this month.

All of the houses in the Oberon Wood scheme are different and not one of them is what you would call a conventional house design.

On the other hand, with over a dozen of the to make, at least I could never complain that the task was becoming repetitive, even if it did involve a lot of head scratching some times!

April was show time again!

We took the layout to a show at Crawley and 138 made its public debut.

Apologies if this sounds a little conceited, but it doesn't half look good!

We'll look back at May - August next time.

Merry Christmas

Grateful thanks to the artist Frederick Lea and FR Company for this image

Window Gallery

As I predicted progress on the house has slowed but that's because some of the work that remains is rather intricate, like fabricating the long gallery window frame.

Theses are a distinctive feature of the Oberon Wood houses.

Not all of them have them but those which do all have it included in a similar fashion with the window set back under the eaves.

You get a better impression of how it fit together when you have the slate sheet cut to size and positioned below it.

I've also done a little bit of work at the front making up the sides and the top of the dormer window.

That's probably about as much as I'll get done to the house before the New Year what with all the festivities and the small matter of my work room being occupied by guests!

Under Cover

You may have noticed a big opening in one of the front walls on the new house I'm building and perhaps assumed it was going to be filled by a garage door.

Nothing is ever obvious in Oberon Wood, though.

It is, in fact, a very substantial porch leading to what we must suppose is the front door.

This little section too a wee while to do because it was a little fiddly adding all the footings on.

There probably wasn't any point in going to all that effort because almost all of it will be hidden below ground, but that's no reason to cut corners, is it?

3 Courses Before Dinner

A quick glance at any of today's photos will confirm that the two halves of number 20 joined up very sweetly.

Of course, there was never any doubt.....

Once again progress has been pleasingly rapid.

With the two bits of the building fixed to each other I could get on with bonding on the extensions below ground level to help seat the building on the layout.

Once those were in place I could then add a strip of brickwork, 3 courses deep, all around, except for one corner at the front which has stone cladding which was scribed onto thin styrene sheet and glued on.

I'm probably approaching the point where the pace begins to slow down a little, or at least progress is not quite so obvious, but I've enjoyed the last week watching this house come together so quickly in such a short space of time.

The East Wing

The building has taken a big jump forward since I last posted about it two days ago.

Not only have I added all the window frames and completed the fiddly door details but the five pieces have been glued together in position.

You'll have noticed there's a big gap in one wall.

That's because the this eastern side of the building overlaps the smaller, taller western half.

(Nothing's ever simple in Oberon Wood-land)

The idea is that when he two halves are offered up the western half will sit neatly within the jaws of the bit you see above.

I'll keep in in suspense about whether that's what happens in practice...

Cutting Windows

It doesn't look like it but this was most of an evening's working cutting all the window and door holes in the pieces for the 'east wing' of number 20 Oberon Wood.

The ones in the main side piece (the big funny-shaped piece) were challenging because they are quite small overall and in the case of the ones on the top right quite narrow as well.

The doors are going to be fun to make.

One piece, as you can see, has an extra-wide doorway with a much thinner one next to it.

The thin one is, I believe, a refuse cupboard and is filled with a slatted wooden door.

The large one to the right is divided in half down the middle - one side is a fairly standard glazed door with a thick bar in the middle, but to its right is a panel - I assume a fixed one - with thin vertical glazing bars.

I don't have a photograph to hand so you'll have to accept that description for the moment and I'll post a picture here when I've done it and you can judge me on it then.