Hi Michael.   I know what you mean about chicken wire from the allotment, in the first instance you could try gloves and don’t roll up your sleeves. To keep it down I would recommend a stapler ( the type that the art teacher would threaten the pupils that are ignoring him) . Best wishes Kevin.          By the way? The Peckham school that I attended, the Art teacher was too handy with his, firing staples like shooting a gun.

…but I'm favouring short lengths of copper wire from mains cabling pushed through the edges of the hollow  board and twisted over the netting….all same as stitch and glue canoe building.

D

Thanks for the comments and thoughts gentlemen. I’m more of a mutterer than a master Headmaster, but thank you.
The twisted wire through the core flute is the likely first pass I think. 
Maybe staples along the backboard and where the wire meets the baseboard. Don’t have a staple gun…. might be more pan head screws.

Pretty it doesn’t need to be but with the impending move, sturdy is required.

Great and purposeful substructure Marty, which I suspect was a most rewarding start.

Watching with interest here, as I'll be doing something similar soonish and following a similar foundation, was leaning towards layers of kitchen paper painted with PVA, which I've heard is light and strong.

Best of luck with your chosen method.

Bill

Cyclone Seroja got closer to Perth than any other cyclone has got in the last 10 years or so… no damage here in the city and suburbs. 50 km/h wind gusts at worst and a decent, but managable, bit of rain, good for the garden. The coastal communities further north, including Geraldton, a city of some 38,000 people, are still in Red Alert (stay home) until the emergency services have finished making the streets safe from fallen power lines, trees, flooding, random bits of roofing tin, etc. No loss of life reported. Thankfully. 
The rain curtailed outdoor activities here for a while, although I did manage to mow the lawn and go out to brunch with my sister in between showers.

Subsequently further progress has been made on the hill between Henllan and Newcastle Emlyn. After pottering around on this layout for over 10 years (and no… checking start dates and duration is not allowed… just as adding up total cost is banned….. it's a journey, not a destination for this little black duck…) construction methods are aiming for strong, rapid and cheap at this stage. There are other ways of doing landscaping…. what occurs here is purely a sequential application of various techniques in the hope that it achieves the aim.

Yes…. I'm making it up as I go along…  :roll:

The garden wire fencing was draped over the core flute frame with one edge lined up with the backscene. Wire cutters trimmed the wire to fit the general area of the hill from backscene to river valley.



Tiny screws were fixed into the backscene along the top of the hill, the wire wrapped around the screws. Staples and screws were used in the valley and at strategic locations on the other bits of timber. 

The area that is reserved for the Green Grove milk factory cows resembles a modellers workbench…. but the wire appears to be more or less where it should be. Trimmed away bits of wire scatter the valley, abandoned, until they get in the way. Whereupon they go into the useful bits pile on the floor… to be trodden on and get in the way there too. Really tiny bits of wire go into the bin… honest.



Then the complicated bits that needed some … ahh… creative… thinking.

A tunnel mouth is needed here in the hillside at the exit from Llandyfriog Junction. Totally fictitious, there is only one tunnel on the branch, and that has already been modelled. However, the new hill is meant to break up the stations into operating areas and so more tunnels…





There are surplus Peco tunnel mouths available in the yard stores and one is being pressed into service here… except there is no baseboard to support the tunnel mouth on the far side of the track and it keeps falling into the gap in the hillside. Blast.



 
There are offcuts of track bed ply in the yard store too….. create a rough template and gallop out to the store… rustle around under the workbench…. plug in jigsaw…. clamp offcut of ply to bench…. offer up template…. hack wildly with jigsaw… (it's a really old one that doesn't track straight)…. gallop back into layout room… it's really only drizzling at the moment.


Climb under bench, on top of diorama travel box, twist over to acheive upsidedownness… pause… getting out of here is going to be interesting…




ah… bodgy bit of baseboard ply needs to go in that hole there….




Slather with PVA glue, drill pilot hole, while installation technician is upside down, and screw in to hold while glue dries…. why is it whenever this needs to be done that the screwdriver is on TOP of the layout in the reserved area for the Green Grove cows and totally unreachable while one is under the baseboard? 




Job done… and a bit of cork tile is possibly going to substitue for the sheer rock wall of the cutting… I'll leave it there and think about it…




Stay safe all..

By the time you have finished with your goop, no one will be the wiser....

That’s what I’m hoping Sol.

Quick and easy, I like it a lot. Now bring on the goop!

 Do you wear full PPE Marty? 

Bill  :thumbs

 Hi Bill,
Safety glasses, gloves, helmet and boots…. nah 

But I did a lot of the tricky wire work with a pair of needle nose pliers to save the wee fingers.

Still a bit to do before I get to the gloop.

"a bit of cork tile is possibly going to substitue for the sheer rock wall of the cutting…"

''Ows about a bitta tree bark?

D

 I was following your every pain getting under and out of that baseboard Marty - even down to the screwdriver always being on top whilst you're underneath !!  It matters not one jot how many times I mentally go through my list of "tools required" before I lever myself under the boards only to find that, the minute I carefully position some delicate gadget which has to be held in place by one hand whilst fixing with the other, the "fixing tool" is still "up top" !!!

When you mentioned fixing the chicken wire with staples, I'd imagined "office staples" (as used on paper) but then saw your fencing staples.  Are they nailed into ply or styrofoam type boards ?  If the former, how did you manage that without everthing in sight jumping off the layout ?  They're not easy to hammer in………….. :roll:

I've tried all sorts of scenic formers in my time but always come back to the chicken wire as my favourite.  :thumbs

It's always slightly amazing seeing the transformation from "bodge" to landform once the "top coat" is on.  I think it will look great.   :thumbs

A well-known Australian phrase springs to mind…."She'll be right mate!!" Another challenge risen to and met, now bring on "da gloop"!!!
 :pathead

Cheers,John.B.:thumbs

[user=312]Chubber[/user] wrote:

"a bit of cork tile is possibly going to substitute for the sheer rock wall of the cutting…"

''Ows about a bitta tree bark?

D

Great idea…. thank you. Happens that there are several piles of firewood drying in the yard…. something like this? Vertical, horizontal or diagonal?

[user=6]Petermac[/user] wrote:

When you mentioned fixing the chicken wire with staples, I'd imagined "office staples" (as used on paper) but then saw your fencing staples.  Are they nailed into ply or styrofoam type boards ?  If the former, how did you manage that without everthing in sight jumping off the layout ?  They're not easy to hammer in………….. :roll:

I was fairly certain many of us would have similar experience with baseboard limbo and forgetfulness Peter. These things are never as easy as we think they will be and often take waaay longer than expected. 


Where the fencing staples were put into ply or other timber my Bosch friend helped. A light tap on the end of the fencing staple to mark the location and then drill pilot holes accordingly. The staple legs were tweaked parallel with a pliers too before installing them. Reduces the amount of "bounce all items on the baseboard" significantly.

[user=201]georgejacksongenius[/user] wrote:

A well-known Australian phrase springs to mind…."She'll be right mate!!" Another challenge risen to and met, now bring on "da gloop"!!!
:pathead

Cheers,John.B.:thumbs

Thanks John. Gleeful anticipation is building here for gloop application too.  A few more things to sort first. Tunnel mouths and several plate bridges.

Application of the terrain gloop really can't progress until all other items that the gloop will interact with have been modelled. 
So, what needs doing?

The engine shed road extends right through the shed and into the hillside. To accommodate the extended shed road the navies were asked to quarry out a chunk of hillside, the resultant rock pile being used for bridge abutments and buildings along the line.

Cork tile has been used to frame out the quarry but with a bit of luck the tile will get a layer of bark, at least on the visible faces, to better represent rock. Experiments are required. Space is at a premium, don't want the rock to get too close to the line and restrict it's use by larger engines. 




There is another tunnel mouth to the right of the engine shed that needs framing out in cork tile, the line coming out of that tunnel crosses a steel plate bridge over the mill stream and the engine shed itself is built on a steel plate bridge over the same mill stream. 

While the hill being modelled is fictitious the mill stream isn't and it, and the engine shed bridge, was part of the charm of the line that hooked me so many years ago. 




In the image below the bottom bridge and the mill stream cut through the shed embankment needs to have some kind of terrain support too before the gloop goes on. The ply roadbed in the foreground around the bridge location has been Dremeled out with a die cutter. A bit more work to be done there yet to show the stream passing under the bridge.
As for the cut through the embankment…. between the shed and the roadbed in the foreground, where the red wire is…
… maybe…
a little bit of mess with a block of polystyrene  :shock:
….(when SWMBO is out buying another fat quarter of quilting material)







And just to get the feel of what it might be like here's Union Mills loco 3717 City of Truro thundering out of the tunnel and into Llandyfriog Junction along the banks of the Avon Teifi.





While in the background the hill awaits it's transformation.




Progress… albeit slow… is being made. 

Hi Marty

I wouldnt call that slow! That is a substantial sub structure……cant wait to see the gloop and then the completed hillside …..it will be a very impressive feature.

Best wishes

Have to agree with John.   You have made something good out of nothing Marty,  :thumbs

[user=19]Marty[/user] wrote:

Getting the baseboards out of the current layout room, into a truck, moved by road 450km and into the new room is part of the logistics being considered. The baseboards were designed to come apart for transport. 

…..  Got to finish the house build first though….

Where are you moving, Geraldton or Albany? Either could fit the 450km depending on your location in Perth.


Colin

Hi Colin, 
Down to the south-west coast and forests. Little place called Denmark.