Finally gettiing out of my system.

Great modelling Terry. I have been catching up with your layout thread and the attention to detail throughout is great.:thumbs

Thanks Kev, very kind of you.


Terry

[user=711]col.stephens[/user] wrote:

One for Doug. Point rodding and signal wires to be installed.

Luffley! Thank you.

D

It gets better and better Terry. Great attention to detail ! Doug beat me to it with the mirror suggestion but I wonder if its worth keeping a small one on hand for when you have visitors so they can 'take a peak' 
Cheers

Matt

Beautiful modelling - very precise and the little details are great - the whole scene is developing very convincingly.  I do like layouts where the modelling has a recognisable style and yours definitely fits that mould.  I love the bicycle too - is that your handiwork too?  (painting rather than making.  If you tell me you made it I'm putting in an order!!)
Michael

col.stephens wrote:

Hi Terry.   I am uncertain about point motors/blades insofar as the “Satisfying thud” is noticeable by its absence on my planks, wether that’s good or bad is up to the individual? But I am for the quiet life.

Best wishes Kevin 

The SEEP point motors are installed.  I haven't yet thought about a control panel so operating switches have been temporarily fitted to test the point motors and ensure that trains will run  over all of the trackwork.  Having never used point motors before, I am finding it quite novel to flick the switch and watch the blades spring over with a satisfying thud!

I was quite gleeful when, having wired and fitted the first point motor, it all worked perfectly.  My glee was short lived however, as when testing the second point, the frog was completely dead, causing my test loco to come to a sudden halt.  That particular point had been recovered from my previous layout building effort so I looked at some others from the same source to try to understand why power was not reaching the frog.  I came across this…

The two circular holes in the centre of the picture appear to contain metal contacts to which the thin wire had been previously soldered, thereby providing power to the frog.  The wire obviously has become detached.  I wondered if the same had happened to the point which was not working properly.  I couldn't lift it to look underneath so I decided to take the bull by the horns and solder another wire from the side of one of the rails forming the frog, and connect it to the appropriate terminal at the relevant choc block.  Deep joy!  Power was restored.

The project grinds slowly forward.

Hello Kevin,

                   Thanks for your post.  I'm glad that you are back to railway modelling after your recent health problems.  I have always used wire in tube or rods for point control and will probably do so again in future for small layouts. However, I still find it strangely satisfying to hear the clunk of the point being thrown at the flick of a switch.  Fitting point motors on Farleigh was a first for me, but I will certainly use them again.  The Dapol signal also adds to the noise with its loud, whining motor.  However, once again I am fascinated at watching the signal move at the flick of a switch and will buy more in the future. Actually, I already have some Dapol LMS signals in stock for a future layout.




Best wishes,




Terry

I use a mixture of SEEP, Tortoise and Servo motors.

That "clunk" produced by the SEEPs - or indeed, any solenoid motor, is indeed very satisfying and, no matter where you are around the layout, you know a point has thrown.

That's not the case with either the Tortoise or the servo - particularly if, like me, you have sound locos running.

I suppose it proves nothing is perfect - the risk of shaking your precious point apart with all that violent clunking or not being sure the point has thrown with the other 2 systems I use.  That's why, where it matters most, in my hidden storage yard, I installed the LED route indicators on the control panel.

p.s. It is indeed good to see you back in modelling mood Kevin - just don't rush into things - you've been laid up a long time.

Hi Terry.    Thank you for your reply. I have a Peco 3 way asymmetric point, and I was considering electric point, whatever, motors are the best, but only to make the operation simpler.By the way I noticed that you are using catch points,are these bought as or converted from regular points, and are they worked by WIT or point motor?
Best wishes Kevin 

Hi Petermac.    Thank you for your PS. After a recent visit to hospital, theA& E doctor said wasn’t you here last week? So I must take it slowly, one step at a time. Best wishes Kevin 

[user=1801]Passed Driver[/user] wrote:

Hi Terry.    Thank you for your reply. I have a Peco 3 way asymmetric point, and I was considering electric point, whatever, motors are the best, but only to make the operation simpler.By the way I noticed that you are using catch points,are these bought as or converted from regular points, and are they worked by WIT or point motor?




Best wishes Kevin 

Hello Kevin.  The catch points are Peco products, as bought. Although they are capable of being operated I have installed them just for show, so they are not connected to any operating system.



Terry

Having been putting off all thoughts of painting the backscene, I finally decided 'to take the bull by the horns' and make a start.  Some months ago I bought online a fifteen feet roll of canvas from an art shop, for the princely sum of £20.  I estimated that I would need approximately nine feet so this was cut from the roll and nailed to a wall inside the shed.  A pencil line was drawn along the canvas at the required height to match the height of the rear scenic boards.  I armed myself with various cheap tubes of acrylic paint and made a very thin wash of cerulean blue.  I quickly applied the wash to the canvas using a household paint brush.  As the acrylic paint began to dry I wondered if it was possible to use a similar technique to that used in watercolour painting to depict clouds.  I screwed-up a ball of kitchen roll and dabbed at the blue paint and was pleased to find that the technique also worked with acrylics.  The kitchen roll removed the paint to reveal the white canvas beneath.  It is possible to make quite pleasing clouds by this method.  I touched in some runny mauve paint at the bottom of each cloud on the right side, the sun being imagined to be on the left.  A small dab of cadmium yellow was applied to the top left side to represent the sunlight bouncing off the tops of each cloud.  Unfortunately, the photos taken under the shed lights look rather drab and do not give a true reflection of the actual colour.  However, if you look closely it is possible to make out the cloud formation.

As the layout is set in south-east England, I wanted gently rolling hills in the distance.  I walked down the length of the canvas with a 2H pencil to draw the wavy horizon line.  Next, I applied a wash of sap green to the land mass from the horizon to the lower edge of the canvas.  The lower 2cm will be hidden behind the baseboard frame.  When dry, I mixed up a lighter green using sap green and titanium white.  This was applied to the horizon line to a depth of about two inches. This was all very experimental at this stage. I was basically hoping that all would come good in the end!  I hasten to add that I have no experience of painting scenes in acrylics and have only dabbled in watercolours, with no great success.  Needless to say, John Constable's reputation as a leading exponent of painting rural scenes is not under any threat by yours truly!

I have just spent an enjoyable half hour or so reading about your layout .  It is looking very good and the detailing you are adding is icing on the cake.

I like the backgrounds. Others prefer photographic quality but I think that something suggesting atmospheric perspective works just as well.

Emboldened by my success so far, out came the pencil again and the field boundaries were quickly sketched, with smaller fields near the horizon and getting larger towards the bottom of the canvas. 

Thank you for your kind comments Warren. 



Today, I decided to move things along by adding some trees to the landscape and to enhance the hedgerows.  All achieved by dabbing a sap green/black mix onto the canvas with a small hog's hair brush. Plenty of work of this nature left to do so I probably won't be updating this thread for a short while.  Here is where we are at present… (please excuse the horizontal lines caused by the shed lighting)…

That is super Terry…. Some painted backscenes try to do too much and end up looking like…. a painted backscene.  Your hedges and trees and just enough to give the right impression and you clearly have some skill with a paintbrush because it is very convincing.  Looks like a lot of scenes I see from the train window!
Michael