A Hard Life

The 'scrapped' wagons are ready to be sent off of their new owner.

They obviously look far too clean and well presented right now but I'm sure he'll have fun weathering and further distressing them.

The Strangest Ones Yet

The next pair of houses I'll be tackling for the Oberon Wood scene will look very different.

While no two houses that I've built so far have been completely identical there are at least some common themes at work.

In the row that leads down the hill at the left hand end of the scheme - the Porthmadog end, if you like - there are these two in the middle which stand out from the rest.

As ever, the Artistic Director has prepared a great set of hand drawn plans for me to work from.

He gives me a full set of elevations marked with all the relevant measurements, but with shapes as complex as these it's also very useful to have these three dimensional sketches to give me clues about how the whole thing is supposed to fit together.

This is one of the sketches of number 18, the house on the right in the picture at the top of the post.

It should be an interesting project and I'll be able to get cracking on it later this week I reckon.

Any Old Iron

Generally I'm pretty satisfied with the success rate with the castings for the wagon kits but there are always a few which for various reasons emerge from the mould with flaws.

Fortunately they don't all go to waste.

I have a customer who is also happy to decorate his South African-themed layout with scrappers as well as runners, and all those rejected bits are perfect for the job.

So far I've made up a battle-weary B wagon and a DZ that's seen better days.

Waste not - want not, and all that.

Goodbye Mr Postman!

The big news this New Year is that almost a quarter of a century of long distance modelling is about to come to an end.

Himself is migrating North to join me on the west coast of Scotland in a few weeks time.

Aside from the joy of having family within 'popping in distance', as opposed to full-scale visitations once a quarter, as far as this blog is concerned it's going to transform our modelling opportunities.

Quite a lot of what we produce is a joint effort. The carriages are a prime example.

I will scratch build the bodyshells from styrene and make an interior, then, until now, it's been posted down to Himself to complete any aesthetic and mechanical fettling before he does the painting, varnishing and final assembly.

It's amazing that in all that time nothing has gone missing or been damaged in any of these 400 mile trips.

So thank you Mr Postman for being so reliable and careful all these years, but it's going to be wonderful not needing your services any more.

The only downside is that Bron Hebog and Dduallt will have to go into storage for perhaps as long as a year until they find a permanent home, but I'm hoping it will be a case of short term pain for long term gain.

Open House

One of the good things about this time of year is that friends come visiting, and sometimes, when it's a women-only gathering that means the men of the house are free to go and put in a few hours uninterrupted at the workbench.

That was all I needed to get number 20 close to the finish.

The remaining sections of roof have been cut out and fitted.

The one with the dormer window at the front was particularly tricky with cut outs for the window and the small overlap between the two halves of the building which required a lot of very accurate measuring and a good does of educated guesswork.

I've also completed the chimney - which is always fun to get perpendicular - and made a start on the ridge tiles.

So basically, it's just the guttering to go.

Seasonal Slating

I hardly got any modelling done during the Christmas / New Year break - mostly on account of my work room being pressed into service as a guest bedroom.

The little I was able to do was fix a couple of roof sections onto number 20.

I could probably have found the time to do a little more but I've run out of Wills slate sheets - or at least bits that are large enough to make up the missing sections.

While I wait on fresh supplies arriving I'm toying with the idea of cutting out some of the walls for the next house.

A Tonic For ALCO-holics

Himself has added another string to his bow - that of movie director!

Recently word got out that back in the early 1990's he shot quite a lot of video footage around the railway and now this archive has been digitised and he's given permission for it to be used and sold as the latest edition of Jon Marsh's DVD series.

Now as far as I know he's not getting a cut of the profits (or least if he is he's keeping it a secret from me!) so I have no ulterior motive for promoting the DVD here.

I do so because I believe a lot of FR enthusiasts will appreciate some of the footage, in particular those who are still pining for the Alco Mountaineer.

Without a doubt my favourite scene out of all that we shot those summers a quarter of a century ago was a down train leaving Tanygrisiau.

Mountaineer stormed up the bank with the driver making good use of that amazing chime whistle which was echoing around the mountains.

Here's a still I took from that moment.

Don't buy this DVD just for the pictures - buy it for the sound track!

Other highlights include footage of Conway Castle in main line service and, in the light of recent news about a re-assigning of carriage 111 to the departmental fleet, the disc includes some nostalgic  sequences with the push-pull actually set being pushed!

Himself was also there with his camera when DLG made one of its first forays along The Cob in an incomplete state.

All in all this DVD comes highly recommended. You would expect me to say that, wouldn't you.