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. 

More Ballast

The heading sums up the work today. I thought that I could ballast all the points but one was being a bit tricky. I tamp the ballast down with an old paint brush and carefully glue the ballast down. I change the points to check that it is all going well. It did for most but one jammed. I spent a bit of time on that point trying to free it up. Eventually I did but I called it quits after that. It will give me something to do tomorrow. 

Now the main platform is complete it can now be ballasted too. The plywood in the distance is awaiting Das cobblestones.

This week isn't as busy as last week so hopefully I can get some more done. One job that I would like to do is to hook it up to the main layout. The static grass I ordered is due in a couple of days so there could soon be quite a change.

Until next time.

Saturday is train day.

My apologies to ripping off Chris Lyons' tag line from his YouTube channel. (He says, "everyday is Train Day.")

I spent the day at a local public school fete with a model railway display. I took along a couple of kits to build and paint. The station building took a lot longer than I thought. Not having instructions didn't help. After I finished putting it together, I worked on the platform. I covered it with Scalescenes tarmac and brick to match the loading dock that I had covered earlier. 

Here it is at the fete. 

Until tomorrow. 

Rinse and Repeat

More ballasting...

...and more cobblestones. 

This shows the blending of the first lot of cobblestones from Saturday with this evening's effort. I hope it works well or I'm going to have problems. 

Last night's ballasting is dry and looks it. 

The great thing about matte Mod Podge is that when it dries it doesn't make the ballast look shiny or wet as PVA does. 

I'm busy tomorrow night but Saturday should bring some kit building time. I'm hoping to finish the station and the station building. At some stage I should paint the frames of the base board. 

Until next time. 

Bombo's Finest

Yesterday I was able to pop into Hobbyland in Hornsby to check out what ballast they have and picked up a couple of bags of Bombo ballast. My mate's father in law used to work there. The colour is a real dirty brown and just perfect for old dirty ballast that you would find on old branch lines and sidings if they were ballasted. They had a really fine grade which was even better. 

Tonight in my fifteen minutes ( more like half an hour), I ballasted a short section of track.

The point took the longest as I needed to make sure that I didn't get grit or glue in the wrong places like my last ballasting effort. For the glue I used a 1:3 ratio mix of Mod Podge Matte to water with a couple of drops of detergent and applied it with a 6 mL medicine syringe from the local chemist, except with the ballast inbetween the point blades. Here I used the handle of a fine paint brush. I dipped it into the glue and touched the ballast. As the glue is "wet", it runs freely off the brush and through the ballast.

I have ordered some static grass so it will be able to fill in the ply bits soon. I probably should spend fifteen minutes soon testing my static grass applicator. 

Tomorrow night I will put down more ballast and Das clay on the wharf front.

Until then.