MERG research mostly

This week's evenings have been mostly busy with non-modelling related stuff (unfortunately!). There was probably two nights were I was able to progress a bit more with the Scalescenes terrace houses. These are going to be a lengthy project. ANZAC Day was on Wedneday, so I took my sons into Brisbane City to watch the March. While walking past Roma Street Station, we were pleasantly surprised to see a NSW Class 442 (44211) pull in with the Aurora, which was on a special excursion. In the afternoon I was able to get to the Club for a few hours and sorted out some issues with the HO layout. This weekend was completely a write-off for getting anywhere near the shed and the our layouts. The upcoming week is looking pretty similar. However the upcoming weekend is the Brisbane Model Train Show for the last time at the RNA showgrounds. The Club is exhibiting HO, N, T-Trak and styrene modelling. I should be able to get a day in helping out but this will be dependent on how my boys are behaving for their mum.

The only other thing I have been doing is accessing the MERG site now that I have my online accesses approved and researching what they have on offer (CBUS, TCC, RPC, etc) for layout automation and control.

Until next week, ciao.

Backscene photos

As expected not much time this week to do anything in the shed or at the hobby table. However on Saturday afternoon I was able to touch up the painting on the backscene. The missus came out and as the resident artist her comment that "Your trees are looking really good" was much appreciated. This was followed by "You need to tone the tree trunks though". Huh!
"How do I do that dear?"
"Add a darker brown"
"I don't have a darker brown"
"Add some black to the brown"
"I can do that, thanks"
So I did and dabbed the trunks.

Sunday arvo I placed some more fencing into position that now separates the goods yard from the village.

The other thing I did through the week was to join MERG - Model Electronic Railway Group, a UK based club that promotes electronics and computers into the operation of the hobby. Something I am interested in learning more about.

This week coming up isn't looking much better timewise. Let's see what happens.

Backboard scene not quite finished

Saturday arrived and with it iffy weather. The missus had taken the car for a few hours which clashed with the Club meetings. So between showers the boys and I got to the club via our treadlies. I replaced the brakes on mine through the week and this made a vast improvement to my stopping ability with the extra weight of the trailer and Matthew on the back. Lachlan did well riding the distance which is a few kilometres one way. The Club was a hive of activity on Saturday but we had a couple of productive meetings, afternoon tea and a general chit chat before making the return trip, once again between showers. After getting home I spent about an hour in the shed. I also took the monumental step in painting the trunks of trees behind the retaining wall via brush this time. The idea here being an 'avenue' of trees to break the distant scene I painted over Easter with the foreground scene of the retaining wall. Sunday afternoon I painted the foliage. Taking a step back probably not quite to scale (first attempt and all) but hey trees grow to all sizes! I removed the masking tape and newspaper protecting the retaining wall from any stray paint drops and found I will have to do some touchups on areas not quite flush with the top of the wall.

On the subject of painting, re the compressor drain outlet problem mentioned last post, it took me four visits to various Supercheap stores to find any in stock. I am hoping this isn't a sign that this part commonly requires replacing! I replaced this today and pumped up the compressor, no leaks and no shearing off of the valve (this time anyway!).

This week is shaping up to be pretty busy most evenings but I might be able to spend a bit of time on the terrace houses.

A bit tardy with the blog update, but modelling nonetheless!

Sorry a bit late with this update but the Easter weekend was very busy and the post Easter week has been busy as well.

So before Easter I was able to make a serious start on the Terrace Houses for Kensington Hills. I glued the various Scalescenes plans to the applicable cardboard sizes (0.5, 1 and 2mm thick) during the course of the week. Then on Thursday and Friday nights I was able to make a start on cutting them out for assembly. That's were this was left.

Over Easter, mostly an hour or so each afternoon, I was able to do a bit more on the KH side of things. This entailed using the airbrush in anger for the first time. I did the mountains behind the retaining walls (distance effect) in a combined two shades of green colour. The missus came out and said the shading was not right if I was trying to match the foreground Hill landscape grass colour. "Lighten it up a bit more!". So the following afternoon was spent doing just this, but still not enough. I might have to use a bit of yellow/green in the mix to see what this does. I was also able to add some gray scudding clouds to the blue sky to break this up. On Monday afternoon when I was cleaning up, I did my usual thing of letting the air out of the compressor and the release valve sheared off! I will have to get a replacement before I can use the thing again.

One night over the weekend I was also able to fix Lachlan's Alaska RR diesel which has a dodgy universal joint.

On Monday morning I hitched up the bike trailer to my old treadly (ex Father-in-Law's) to take Matthew for a ride down to the Club to see how long it would take. The reason being that this Saturday the missus has the car and I might need to find alternative travelling arrangements to the Club. The usual 7-8 minute car trip took 20 minutes by bike, so not that bad. Mostly downhill and flat. The only problem is the uphills! PK and one of the Bobs were down at the Club so we spent 30 minutes having a chat about the N scale exhibition layout's progress before heading back home via the butcher's (yes I had packed a small esky in the trailer). Discovered on the way home that I need new brakes as I couldn't stop on the downhills without using my joggers as brakes. It was fine on the way to the Club but obviously enough rubber had been lost to make it unsafe on the way home to go downhill with the weight of the trailer behind me causing a bit more weight to pull up. On the flats were OK. The new brakes were put on last night.

The few days following Easter has been spent collating and analysing the couple of surveys I have been running on behalf of the Club membership, one for the modelling competition and one for the HO Layout features. I will present the findings at the Saturday Monthly Club meeting.

Nothing much to write about this week

As the title states I haven't done much of anything modelling wise this week as I have been on Carer's Leave and looking after the offspring while the missus was recuperating. I thought I might have had a chance to get to the shed for a couple of hours each day but I had to do the running around chores that the missus usually does as well as the school runs (didn't tell me about these did she?!). The only model train related thing that did happen was that Lachlan's birthday present (Hornby Railway train pack that he wanted) arrived from the UK in record time.

Hopefully this week is better with the long weekend (Easter) coming up but two of the four days are already booked out for social events? 

Retaining wall photos

Here are some photos of the retaining wall mentioned in the last couple of posts.

Retaining wall along the backboard. I will add some more painted trees and scenery I think to break the sky-wall boundary.

Further down towards the road which will give the impression of going up the behind the wall. The paper plans show where the terrace houses and shops will more than likely go.

Close up of the wall. Not bad in my opinion.

Through the week not much happened apart from glueing down some of the Terrace Houses plans to thick (2mm) cardboard. I was intending to do the Medium and Light card plans as well but didn't have enough 1mm and 0.5mm in stock, so I had to wait for the weekend to buy some more. So hopefully this week I can get around to this but time will tell as I have a few other things to attend to.

One thing I failed to do and Lachlan reminded me was that the previous weekend his Alaska Railway diesel started to have running troubles. I was going to look at this but forgot. So another maybe!

Talking about Lachlan, I have taken a couple of photos of his recent addition to his layout so go on over to Beaver Springs. The other thing I did through the week was to order a Hornby Railway Train Pack (steam loco, open wagon, closed wagon and brake van) that he wanted for his birthday. So hopefully this will arrive before his birthday in early April.

Thats all from me this week.

Wet weather = Shed Time!

During the week there was no modelling due to the aforementioned busy evenings but the weekend was another story. After the usual Saturday morning running around between shops (not model shops mind you!) so that the missus could use my Mastercard, the afternoon arrived as did the wet weather. After a little nap with son #2 after lunch we adjourned to the Shed as the yard was too wet to do anything and the odd skudding shower making things even more wet. I glued up the remaining 3mm MDF retaining walls around the skyboard on the Kensington Hill side and added the rubble wall paper sheeting from Scalescenes. A quick spray of Dullcote finished the day's modelling. Sunday arrived and with it a phone call from a mate who we were going to catch up with over BBQ lunch. The lunch was off due to illness in his family. This freed up the afternoon to do something else. With windy showers scooting through there was only one thing for it and that was to take the boys to, you guessed it, The Shed!

I spent about an hour with Lachlan on his layout. He had scrounged some old buildings that were being thrown out at the Club. I had soaked these in a bucket of water a few weeks ago to separate them from the chipboard they had been glued on. One of the buildings was an old style American hardware store with a loading deck. We cleaned it up and looked around where it could be placed. Near the small siding would be perfect. So I scraped out the grass to add a road to the loading ramp which also went alongside the siding. I then glued the building into place. Doesn't look to bad! I then did some minor repairs about his layout.

I then spent the remaining time in the afternoon putting the capstones onto the retaining walls, spraying Dullcote, painting the wall end edge black, as well as painting the internal edges of the rail overpass black. Looking good! It certainly breaks the monotony of the sky blue backboard. If I get a chance this week I'll take a photo or two to show what's been going on.

I even had twenty minutes to take my Class 47 for spin to keep everything working.

Oops forgot to mention that although there was no modelling through the week, I have been researching NSWGR station buildings, collating the Club's modelling competition survey results, and getting ready to run another survey on the HO layout's suggested features.

So this week isn't looking that busy (except for Wednesday night), so I might be able to continue with the terrace houses which have been sidelined for the last two weeks.