Today, I Play.

I took a break from doing stuff and ran a train.

I enjoyed watching it go around. Enjoy the clip below.

Until next time.

Oil Depot and Bakery?

Here's the oil depot ready to paint. The door that I cut out is a bit rough but I reckon that I can hide that from view with a bloke moving oil drums. I'm not sure what colour it should be.

And here is the start of the bakery.

The old Dapol parts were soaked in hot water and then flattened but they are still a bit lively. They may need further bracing. I'm not sure whether a bakery is the right industry for this building though. I might need a rethink.

Until next time.

More Painting

From yesterday's list, items two and three are done. The mystery industry and the dairy shelter are painted.

The rear doors still need painting for the mystery industry.

I painted the trunks of a couple of palm trees to hide the plastic sheen. I'm wondering about a fence on the edge of the layout where my swagman and coolabah tree are going. The fence may crowd the scene. At the moment I've plonked a a sheep and a dog where the swaggy will go.

Until next time. 

A Little Shelter

This weekend I had two goals. The first was tidy up the shed a bit. Sadly I am a messy worker. Not matter how hard I try, I don't seem to keep it neat.

The second goal was to work out the covered loading area for the dairy. This is a 3D print kit off eBay. It wasn't very much so I thought that I would give it a go. With a little modification, it works out perfectly. The piece of wood will need to be shortened and covered in brick card and painted. Once in place I can then put down some grass.

The other image is of the buildings to come. I'm not sure that the green tree needs to be that tall. It also sticks out a bit and will be too close to the trains. You might also notice the purple tree on the right. It's my attempt at a jacaranda. 

I found setting goals for the week handy. This week I would like to:
1. Start on the oil depot building.
2. Paint the ends of the engine sheds which will form an unknown industry.
3. Paint the covered roof of the dairy.
4. Install lights under the dairy covered roof and run the wires through some copper tubing to under the layout.
5. Paint the oil depot building.
6. Glue the dairy, oil depot and mystery buildings into place.

These things will be hard as I know that I have an AGM on Tuesday evening from 7 until ???, Wednesday is a work event until 8 pm and Thursday is the rerun of the work event until 9 pm. Friday night I want to head up to my club on the coast as I won't have been for a couple of weeks. So, the 15 minutes might be hard to come by this week.

Tomorrow is looking okay though.

Until then.

Gardening and Other Business

I finished off the other greenery around the marina. In the efforts of sustainability, I planted a lemon tree near the Fishy McFishface fish and chip shop.

The interior of the kiosk can wait for a while. 

I also started on a couple of more industries. I have two Dapol engine shed kits with the idea to use them for the bakery which is on the back of the layout at the other end from the oil depot. I wanted something that wagons could be shunted into and under part of the main layout but could be sealed of if being used as a stand alone layout. The swinging doors of the engine shed seemed like a good idea. I could use the side walls to make a two storey building with a loading platform and have the front of the engine shed sticking out from the edge of the scene by a couple of centimetres. I probably could have done this with one kit but I had an idea to use the rear of the buildings as the rear of buildings on some more very low relief. I made a start tonight.

Until next time.

Nothing Much To See Here

Today's efforts aren't that exciting. I put the glazing in the boats and I put some static grass on the inside of the track next to the marina. That's task 5 done and task 3 done. I've moved the marina items until I can recover the excess static grass and put down some other shrubbery.

Here's a picture.

Until next time.

Fixin' Typos

I put the photo from yesterday on Facebook and was told the correct spelling of McFishface was not quite right. Today I fixed it. I also added a couple of menu boards. I made these in Publisher, saved it as a jpeg, inserted it as an image and scaled it to the right size.

Now job two for the week is complete.

The next task will be add some greenery.

Until tomorrow.

What would you call a fish and chip shop?

That's what I was thinking this morning as I drove to work. I thought that I could ask colleagues for suggestions. I knew someone would suggest this so I didn't bother.

I'm not sorry at all.

That is task number two taken care of.

Until next time.

Picture It

I'm not sure if yesterday's title is more appropriate for today's post.

Today I added the back scene. It is a panorama photo which I had resized to be 145 cm (5 cm too long which I found out today - I thought that I had made it shorter). I chunked it into four images which were 40 cm long and 23 cm tall. This will fit onto an A3 sheet. I printed them off on a photocopier, trimmed and glued using a UHU glue stick.

The image is a bit pixelated and I think that the background is a bit closer than may be it should be. However, if you've ever stood on Henry Parry Drive at Gosford, you know how close Rumbalara Reserve is to the town there. I reckon that it passes the one metre rule as well.

Here are the pictures.

Job one for the week done.

Until next time.

In the background.

My hope for an easy week filled with lots of 15 minutes failed dismally this week. I'll ramble on about the stuff that I have learned later. However, a couple of 14 hour days and urgent changes to reports made the work week longer than I thought.

Monday's time was spent painting benches for the fish shop brown. That was job number one from the previous post.

Tuesday's 15 minutes was spent painting the fish and chip kiosk blue. 

I bet you all wish that you had such awesome painting skills huh? Job two done? I don't think so. It wasn't the colour that I had envisaged but I had run out of my Floquil light blue and I can't buy that again. Humbrol was the next choice.

That was pretty much it for the week. Thank goodness for a quiet weekend. Here's the blue that I was thinking of for the kiosk. By the way, the fence was glued in place with Mod Podge on Saturday morning.

After a trip to the hobbyshop here are the blues that I finished with.

The two tins on the left were new on Saturday morning. The left tin went straight into the airbrush as it was really thin. The middle tin, which was to be my base colour, was gluggy as gluggy can be and required a 1:1 paint to thinner mix. The tin on the right had already been thinned. Here is the result.

Job two done.

I turned my attention to the back scene. I tried a couple of painting studies again but they didn't look that good. Another alternative is to use photos. It was a good afternoon on Saturday so I hopped in the car with the camera and headed to the nearby national park picnic area and created a panorama photo. A quick tutorial in Youtube and I was able to produce part of that back scene.

It is printed on plain copy paper. I have darkened the image a little bit and I am working on making the image to be printed in sections onto A3 paper as I have access to an A3 printer. I could get it printed to size but the cost may be a bit prohibitive. What you can't see as it is covered by the fence is the boat on the water. I reckoned that water in the foreground was the best way to put distance between me and the hill that I was photographing.

Other things to consider may be to try and create some depth between fences and the back scene. I have moved the dairy fence a bit and poked a tree behind it. I carved up an old Athern container to put behind the fence. I also thought of stacking a pile of oil drums between the oil depot fence and the back scene. eBay and an Australian seller provided me with lots of Kibri oil drums really quickly. Recently I have developed the belief that kits should be painted to loose the plastic sheen. In this case the sheen will be covered by the painted plastic fence. I was thinking about a third layer of drums but I think that two layers are not WHS approved. They are just a stack of empty drums waiting to be filled and then shipped off by rail. The fence was modified but has not been glued in place yet.

Just poking out from the left of the frame is a tree which I made - sort of. Years ago I bought a set of Hornby tree kits from as toy store on the coast. They were cheap as the shop was getting rid of its model railway stock. I still have most of the trees. A couple I put together, one I broke trying to bend it and the rest I left. They are very two dimensional. Perfect for what I want here. There should be another, smaller tree going in on the other side of the dairy. A bit of Mod Podge, Woodlands Scenic under brush foam and some store brand hairspray and the job is done.

Plans for this week?

1. Print and glue the back scene.
2. Make a sign and menus for the fish and chip kiosk.
3. Add some greenery around the marina.
4. Pain the oars for the row boats.
5. Put the windows in the boats I put together last weekend. This will be an achievement but not a noticeable one.
6. Start modifying the oil depot building.

Here are some other pictures of the layout so far.

Until next time (which will hopefully be tomorrow).

Messing About in Boats

Many thanks to Ratty from Wind in the Willows for today's title.

Work and paperwork that goes with it has got the better of me this week and restricted the daily update.

However, there was still some 15 minutes a day of model work going on. 

Finally some black card was placed behind the windows of the dairy. The tanks for the milk were painted white (this took a couple of coats over a couple of days) and the tanks for the fuel depot were painted silver.

Friday to Sunday saw some time messing about in boats. I dug out the boxes of boats from the harbour kit and did some painting. Here's the result.

I haven't finished all the details and if you zoom in you can see the blue tac holding people in place. In the marina area there is still a heap of things to do:
1. Paint the benches brown.
2. Paint the kiosk blue. I was thinking two or three shades. Maybe some fish if I get excited.
3. Stick a sign on the kiosk.
4. Put a menu board on the kiosk.
5. Deck out the interior of the kiosk.
6. Install lights in the kiosk.
7. Pain the oars for the row boats.
8. Install lights on the marina (and the platform).
9. Add some greenery around the marina.

I was going to build a boat shed (roughly underneath where the blue rail tanker is in the top photo) but I think that would crowd out the space too much.

I'm about to start week seven of the 15 minute a day challenge and I reckon this list will give me some ideas for my fifteen minutes.

I reckon that this week I should try and run a train or two on it as well.

Until next time.

Sign Writing

What you can't see is the glazing added to the windows from Peco points packaging. As soon as I find the black cardboard, I'll place that behind. I still want to try to paint the backscene so the building will be blue-tacked on until that is done. However, today's effort is the sign. It was made using Publisher and printed on photo paper and sprayed with a matte varnish.

I bought a couple of structures of eBay which I hope will be a good cheap solution to the awning. 

I was also thinking of what I could do in my spare siding at the rear of the layout. It has the potential to store a few wagons underneath the higher levels of the main layout. If the layout is moved then it might need something to stop the wagons from falling off. I reckon that I might be able to do something with a Dapol engine shed.

I should be able to get 15 minutes tomorrow. Thursday and Friday will be a different kettle of fish. Saturday and Sunday should see some time caught up.

Until next time.

Sometimes Progress Moves Quickly, Other Times, She Snoozes.

It was mentioned to me that the post hasn't been updated since Monday. I've had to be a bit liberal this week with my fifteen minutes. Tuesday was spent in a hobby shop buying paint and styrene. The paint is for the diary doors and the styrene is for the fish co-op which is on the same side of the harbour as the dairy.

Wednesday was spent with another coat of paint on the windows and I started the doors.

Thursday was much the same. But i had to deal with some over painting issues. I used the same tin of paint that I use for my bricks to paint over the wrong paint and noticed that the paint from the tin was darker. The reason was that when I painted the dairy ages ago, I purposely left some white paint in the airbrush to tone down the bricks. Check out the difference below.

I painted a few patches on to see if I could blend them in a bit. I decided to repaint he whole brick work again. The top floor and left section was Wednesday night. I finished it on Thursday. Below it is in place on Friday.

Saturday was a busy day and this morning I am tackling bits that you probably won't see. It's those little bits under the top of the window frame.

There was a bit of retouching and retouching to do. I know a bad workman blames his tools. I normally blame the lack of skills and knowledge for myself but in this case my top quality paint brush sadly no longer cuts the mustard. It has served me well. It's now as shabby as an old toothbrush. Next time instead of buying one, I'll buy two or three. In the meantime, the paint work on the dairy is done. I need to put up a sign for the Sapphire Coast Dairy Co-op and start work on the tin roofed awning. And paint the fence. And paint the tanks... and the back scene maybe...

Until next time.

More Painting

Another coat of paint on the windows of the dairy was applied today. I have change my mind with the doors and I will paint them brown. A job for tomorrow.

Yesterday I had a trail of painting the back scene. I believe that artists call this a study. I found the idea on Chris Lyon's YouTube channel CNLVN. I didn't have the right yellow but I had a crack at using yellow ochre instead. I used a bit of grey cardboard as a canvas. I might try some lighter art paper next time. An other thought is taking some photos and stitching them together in Photoshop and printing them of on paper. I'll need to look at my photo collection or go for a drive and take some new ones. 

Today's work was boring so here are a couple from yesterday.

Down at the Dairy

I spent a bit of time today with the Walthers Interstate Fuel and Oil kit open. I think by the end of the kit I will have used it in at least three different industry sites. Two of these will be on Billabong Marina. The fuel depot is an obvious location  and I will be using the ends of a couple of tanks and a wall of the depot building here. I have already used the two standing tanks on other layouts and will recycle them on the main layout. The last venue is the dairy. While looking at dairies I found that they have large tanks to store milk. At least I think that is what they are for. A good example of this is at Casino in NSW. I have been past that dairy a couple of times and it can be seen easily on Google Earth's street view.

While I could have built a couple more tanks for the dairy, the extreme low relief means that they won't fit. The solution was to cut the parts in half and put them together. Here they are with the fences propped up. 

A bit of off white paint and they will look the part. It wasn't too difficult, just time consuming. I am beginning to think that similar treatment with silver fuel tanks, but not as tall, might be a good idea to give some height to the fuel depot.

Tomorrow night I will carry on with some more window painting.

Until then.

Desk Work

At what stage do you call it quits on a project and start again?

The operator's station has had a couple of coats of paint. Don't zoom in too much. The paint work is hideous. However it may have to do for now. I have some thin ply that I can use for another attempt later.

Apart from a couple of busy days that have knocked out my fifteen minute schedule, I have been painting the dairy bit by bit. I've a couple more coats of paint on the windows. 

I reckon that I have a two or three more coats to go. I have picked up a couple to fences recently. The may provide a bit of depth in a narrow space.

Tomorrow will see another coat of paint on the windows and doors and may be a sign on the top.

Beginning Week 4

I stopped and had a review tonight before I started.

This is week 1, right at the start of the 15 minute challenge.

Quite often I think that I'm not achieving too much but realistically I am.

I took a few photos with my proper camera and not the phone. However, I've changed my laptop and have not been able to transfer certain imaging software across to my working device. (That's the next job tonight.)

After the pics, out came the vacuum cleaner. The layout looks much cleaner now.

Here's the section I did yesterday with the excess grass removed. It's a good example of before and after the static grass, with my swagman sitting on a rock. I have better rocks which look more appropriate. I want to add some fallen branches and a campfire too. And I'll need to paint him. The swaggie is a figure from the Preiser range and originally is a cyclist, however, I've bent his arms and legs.

The next image is the station building in place. My main layout is in the background. My aim for the station building is to stick some LEDs and interiors into it. People could peer through the doors and windows to the inside.

Yesterday I said that I would focus on the rear of the layout before the front. However, I couldn't resist seeing what I could do with some of the static grass areas which I put down last night. Out came my old box of scatter material. There are a few different shades of green here.

This is the head shunt for arriving trains. It also doubles for the cattle yard. The loading platform will be built later. To the right is a bit of a throw back to the days of old. I have used lichen. Is that still fashionable? I don't think that it looks bad. It's a nice colour and hides the edge of the cliff edge. I also need to paint the framework and sides of the baseboard to make it look prettier. May be this weekend.

The last image is of the dairy. The paintwork needs finishing. It needs glazing and behind the windows I will stick black paper. Signs need to be added and then it will be glued to the back board. But before that happens, I'm not sure if I want to paint a back scene across the back. I'm feeling that I will need to create a study of this. A couple of fences around the industries might help too.

I also want to create and shelter which will protect the loading platform and go across the track. I could put a light or two in the shelter for night time shunting.

Tomorrow's plan? Finish the paintwork on the dairy.

Until then.

Slowing things down a bit.

Thursday was a right off and we had guest around on Friday. Saturday was looking good for a couple of hours work but a last minute distraction came along. 

The same thing started today but I was able to get to the layout.

The first task was more cobblestones. The second rail for the crane was put in as well.

I repainted the work station for the operator too.  I thought that blue might be nice. I was wrong. No photos of that bit of scariness. Brown will be my next attempt.

The next thing was to think about what is going on at the back of the layout with the fuel depot. Years ago at a Hurstville exhibition, I bought a Walthers kit mainly for the tanks. The kit was never completely built as circumstances changed. Like all good modellers I hoard old kits - just in case. Today was just in case. I reckon that I can use the building as a very low relief kit and add a couple of ends of tanks lying on concrete supports. Sort of like this.

This will also give me room for a swagman and a jumbuck. Here's what it looks like with a tanker.

It's a micro layout so things are tight.

The other thing that I did today was to play around with static grass. I bought a cheap applicator of an internet auction site. The instructions are hilarious as the translation is woeful. However heed the warnings. I messed up. I have no idea what I did, except that I did not switch it off properly. The jolt was like being punched in the chest. It's hard to believe that could come from two D cell batteries. I did not get super powers.

I mixed in three different shades of Woodlands Scenics grass but when I shook them out it ended as a consistent colour.

There was a bit of spillage onto the track but that should be able to be vacuumed up carefully tomorrow so that I can collect the fibres.

I want to keep working on the rear of the layout as I am finding that I am leaning over the front too much.

Until tomorrow night. I reckon there will more grass and greenery about.

More cobblestones.

I forgot to post last night. When I remembered, I tried to use the phone app but it kept crashing when I was typing the heading.

Yesterday I spent a bit of time roasting some veggies. This gave me more than 15 minutes as they roasted. It was spent applying Das and tamping out cobblestones.

Today's work was a little shorter and I spread the Das between the tracks. I ran a screwdriver along the inside track to remove the clay before I tamped out the stonework. I made sure that I was pressing away from the tracks when I pressed down.

The top of the image is yesterday's work and the darker clay between the tracks was finished minutes ago.

The odd length of rail is for the travelling crane. There will be a matching rail on the other side of the track when hose stones are put down.

Things might be a bit tight time wise tomorrow and certainly on Friday. In sure that I'll be able to squeeze something in.

Until then.

Still more ballast and a a couple of questions.

I found out today that it takes ten minutes to ballast a point. I did three of them. There are two more and a couple of lengths of track to do. The plain track is much quicker as there is less care needed. You don't accidentally glue the point blades together.

I showed a mate from work my effort and talked about the fifteen minute philosophy. He thought that  it was a good idea as it made you take a break to do something that you want to do.

Yesterday, I tried to spray paint the car card boxes, the little shelf and the throttle holder. The results were terrible. The paint didn't soak into the wood or the MDF and too much went onto the throttle holder. As it was enamel, I don't feel confident to paint over it using acrylic paints that I have. I reckon I might have to try this again. The throttle holder could probably do with just a light sand and another coat of paint as this is made of plastic.

The static grass arrived today but being a bit of a chump, I didn't have the right batteries for the static grass applicator. 

As the layout is coming along nicely at one end, my thoughts are going to the other. However, one question I have is where can I put a swagman. Every billabong needs a jolly swagman camping in he shade of a coolabah tree. One thought is here:

However, this is in front of my oil depot which should look a bit like this:

The two tanks are acting as a visual block to hide an incredibly short siding.

Another question is what should I do here?

The point on the top left is actually for a siding on the main layout. Once this has been hooked up and tested it will be ballasted. The plywood on the right will be a concrete surface and a fishery for loading the catch of the day into TRC and MRC vans for the Sydney fish markets. the plywood sidings on the left are awaiting cobblestones. 

The siding on the top right was to be a bakery so that I could justify a BWH which would add a a little variety to the stock. One possibility is to extend the siding onto the main layout as the station going here will be a good 20 cm above the track. I could make it a warehouse of sorts. 

Having said that, the curve at the top of the top of the image should be set in cobblestones. I have thought of having warehouse frontage on this section too with the trains running through the warehouse. This would create a scenic break. The Walthers modular building kits would be perfect for this but I don't think that they are made any more. 

There may be plenty of 15 minutes coming up toying with ideas. In the meantime I want to continue with the cobblestones that I know I want, apply some static grass, weather the jetties and the pontoon,  finish the dairy, finish the fish and chip shop. These will keep me busy while I think about the other bits.