Thanks so much, Dave.

The mock-up is also a great design tool, as it really shows how the layout will look. I need to take some notes as well, as ideas come as I work, and I want to remember them later.

Cheers, Mark.

Hi guys.

Well - a bit of progress so I will upload a few more photos. I wish I could photograph this better. Some of the views look great in reality, but are quite hard to see in the photos.

First up is a photo of the back wall of the room in which Tellynott is. This is a scene loosely based on Squawbottom river on the G&D. Sometimes those blobs of expanding foam lead to some interesting ideas. The big rock overhanging the middle track (logging branchline) was one such blob. I have put a short tunnel through it to break up the shape of things. I tried putting the river through a cave here, too, but took that out. I may revisit that idea when I get to building things. There is 680mm (26 3/4") between the top track and the bottom track (passing siding) here.



Next we have some views of the remade peninsula.

Firstly, here is a close up looking under the two high bridges. These are the ones I brought closer to parallel and further into the peninsula in order to be able to see the view over, under and through them. I have made some quick mock-up bridges to help with the imagination. The big bridge in the background is over 1100mm long. I have plans for a large kitbashing project here using a faller bridge. It is a double track bridge which I intend to bash into a single track. It looks like a lot of work! The middle lower bridge will be a curved trestle.


And here is the same view from a little further back. You can see how this technique helps you to design with an eye for viewing different scenes within the layout. Here I was very conscious about leaving the cliff faces in the gorge back far enough to be able to see the curving track following the river. There are two lower tracks near the front of this scene that will be hidden under the riverbed. The river will fall in a serious of rapids/ waterfalls to negotiate the tracks below. as the scenery does not go all the way to the floor, there will still be access to these tracks for maintenance and emergencies.



And here is the same scene from further back again, showing more of the overall view.



More soon, cheers, Mark.

Part two.

Here we are on the other side of the gorge. I turned my kitbashed bridge around for you. You can more clearly see where the curved trestle will go in this shot. Maybe I need to mock that up... You also get the feeling for what a train snaking along on the bottom track with the gorge behind will look like.



And here we have a shot of the whole peninsula. This shows the second gorge with the spur to the mine. It also shows the tall curved trestle at the end of the peninsula. You can see I am trying to create cameo shots to help the layout seem more plausible, but framing them with the terrain and visually blocking them from competing with other scenes.



An eagle's eye view. Although there is still a lot of track, I have hidden quite a lot under the scene and visually separated more with the steep mountains. This shot clearly shows the spur to the mine, and the flat area to the left of the spur where the mine will be situated.



This shot shows the Fastford River area with the peninsula behind. You can see the depth of the view. Very exciting!



And another eagle's eye view, this time showing more of the big picture. You can see a few foam blobs in the background. Sorry about that - in a rush to share...



More soon, cheers, Mark.

I can see the Gorre & Daphetid influence easily in the form you are creating. Lots of elevation changes. Assuming you are watching the rate of climb closely.

Dave,

on the other side of the world.

Thanks, Dave.

Yes - 4% ruling grade. Short trains. Geared locos. I'll do a plan in a larger scale moving forwards, with more precise curves and elevations, and turnouts carefully worked out and considered. the curved turnouts are the hardest to get right in a plan, but in the model I think they look great, so use them quite a bit. There are several already in Tellynott.

Cheers, Mark.

Hi guys.

Its been a little while so thought I should update.

I got all excited about my new adventure into Shadowlands, so tracked down some plans and went to work on a mining project for the empire. Progress has been slow, as the plans were a bit sketchy in places - that and its one behemoth of a project with a lot of complexities.

For this I will be attempting to build a model based on an article in the Jan and Feb issues of the 1964 railroad Model Craftsman. You can find a heap of info here, including a link to the plans and a small picture on the cover of the Feb 1964 magazine. Thank you so much for all that helped with this.
My model will also be based on two photos that appeared a decade later (I'll put up the magazine issue when I locate it - I have photocopies in a folder to work from) from when Jock Oliphant built his own version of the mine from these plans. Jock's version differed in several ways, most notably with the addition of a barn over the lower tracks.

The plans were pretty good, but quite complex. They did not feature a floor plan - which they really needed! It took quite a bit of study and head scratching to work on exactly what was going on in places. I drew my own floor plan, blew the elevations up to 200% and then went about building a mock-up. For this model I felt this was REALY necessary. I would have made several mistakes on expensive modeling materials (rather than cereal boxes) otherwise - I still might! This mock-up took some considerable time to build and so I would estimate it will take in excess of 150 hours to build the actual model - not including the headframe.

I used plastic irrigation pipe I found lying under our pine hedge to cut the circles for the three flotation baths. This pipe was exactly the same diameter as that used in the plans (nice fluke). I used my hand mitre saw to make the cuts. If you check out the photo on the cover of the magazine in the link above you will see these baths are suspended on frames of differing heights and there are decks protruding half way across them from the small gables rooms. These make quite a dramatic scene.

Next up will be to mock in a bit of scenery and add a couple more details - a copula and two stacks. Then I will need to choose cladding materials, doors and windows, roofing materials, stripwood and colours.









More soon, cheers, Mark.

Nice pictures Mark. I can now visualize better what the building looks like. Those plans aren't that great in my opinion. I'll be following long here too.

Bernd

Hi guys.

Thanks, Bernd.

I don't expect you to comment on both forums! I just thought I should catch everyone here up on my progress.

I had planned to 'finish some projects off' for the challenge here, but have got sidetracked with this project so I will call this one my 2022 challenge - start something new... I might still get around to some finishing off...

So... Catching you all up.

Whilst carrying on in mock-up mode I went about trying a quick base for the stack. I have cut a piece of 11mm styrene pipe for the stack and used a small measuring cup to make a plaster base for it.

Photo 1 - shows the cup cut in two and the plaster poured in the bottom section.


Photo 2 - I sorted all my windows and doors and prepared them all. Here they are after a wash and rinse, drying. I gave myself a few choices by doing a couple of extra doors and windows. I hope to get these primed this afternoon.


Photo 3 - shows all the stripwood after its leather dye and alcohol bath. Lots here - but I'm bound to run out! 2"x2", 4"x2", 4"x4", 6"x2", 6"x6", 8"x2", 10"x8", 12"x3", 12"x4", 12"x12" and two stringers. I also weathered up some cladding with my usual ingredients - Golden Titan buff followed by some splodges in browns and greys smeared in while the Titan buff was still wet and then a wash with leather dye and alcohol. I did some board and batten, some shiplap and some V-groove. Its about now I am realising how much work will be involved in this...


We had a great two days modelling in my garage with four of the five from our 2fatpossums group. It was a great two days modeling, but I found the plans tricky to work from and there was a LOT of talking! I also ran into some problems painting the siding. The inside out sock technique simply doesn't work on board and batten siding. All the paint is left on the the battens and there is none or very little in-between, especially along the sides of the battens. This is the exact opposite of nature and simple looked wrong. I tried various different things but couldn't find anything I was happy with for a peeling paint effect. In the end I opted for a thin wash. in oxide red. The trim and windows and doors were dry sponged with unbleached titanium. I figure they could have put a stain on the cladding and painted the trim. Anyway - I didn't get anywhere near as much done as I had hopped, but did have a great time! Our next two day stint will be either at at the start of Feb. In the meantime I will keep chipping away at it.

Photo 4 - shows an overall shot of progress. I also found this cladding more work than others. You have to both carefully mark and cut out all your openings, but then also add your windows and doors and carefully mark (with a sharp knife) remove, and trim away the battens so the windows and doors fit flat against the cladding, You can see I spliced some siding to a piece of 1.5mm styrene. This is another addition - working out where to use scrap to save on material and then splicing the scrap to the visible cladding. I also spliced some brick work to the end wall where the land will slope up against it.


photo 5 - shows the first of the three canter-levered gable-ended rooms. I also had to consider which part of the walls would be cladding and which would be beams. I decided to make up the decking platform. I cut slots in the middle beam into which I inserted the 6"x2" joists. I will add the posts after the building is assembled.


More soon, cheers, Mark.

Mark,

I think your choice of finish is very realistic looking. Unless you have a large stock of castings, it looks to me like you will seriously deplete your supply.

I remember the RMC articles very well, because I built this model when I was young, probably around 14 yrs old or so. Pretty ambitious. I wonder now what it looked like, because I would have had to scratchbuild all the windows. Although it's a very large structure, much of the size is vertical, and it fit quite easily on my small layout, which was literally 3 1/2 by 5' in size. I would not have seen Jock Oliphant's model because I was in college and had more serious things on my mind. In recent years I've considered building a version in N scale.

Mike

Thanks, Mike.

At 14 scratchbuilding this model was very ambitious! I was able to find Tichy windows that were a fairly close match - close enough to get the right feel. This build is also putting a hole in my stripwood supplies! If you tackle this build again I would recommend starting by drawing up a floor plan and the two internal elevations. I would also be inclined to redraw the elevation with the stack but eliminating the stack from the drawing.

Cheers, Mark.

Mark,

Those are good suggestions. Thank you.

Mike

Hi guys.

OK - since part of these challenges are to do a build thread in the hope of teaching something - I thought I'd do a bit of a list for tackling those windows in tiny or thin pieces of siding without breaking them - the old school way. As I had a limited supply of board and batten cladding, and as buying replacement here in NZ is somewhat of a long winded, if not impossible, exercise at present, I needed to be rather frugal with my usage. This resulted in my choosing to splice styrene to siding whenever possible. Long story short - I ended up with a long narrow piece of siding that needed a row of small 6 pane windows separated by a small slither between.

1. Take your time.
2. Add good quality high adhesive masking tape to the back of your siding.
3. Make a cup of coffee (or get a diet Pepsi)
4. Mark the window openings with a sharp pencil (I use a 0.5mm clutch pencil) Measure twice, cut once.
5. Using a steel rule and a sharp knife cut across the grain of the wood first. Place your ruler so that you can see all the other markings when doing this, using a piece of scrap cladding to keep your ruler level if needed. Make several passes, not going too deeply at the end of the opening you are cutting towards. When you have cut through the siding, turn the piece 180 degrees and finish the cuts the other way - again with several passes. Do the same for the other cross grain cuts. If you have a top or bottom (or side - depending on the siding and which way the grain is running) that is bigger than the other - cut this one all the way through first.
6. Take your time...
7. Flip your work over and make sure the tape is also cut to the corners.
8. Flip the piece back over. Now you can cut with the grain. Several passes. Cut one side fully, then the other. Again - if you have a choice - do the thicker end first.
9. Check the fit of your windows (doors), and trim if necessary. Its better to get the size right first time if you can as the siding is very fragile at this stage - so measure twice, cut once. Its also better to be slightly small than too large!
9. You may choose (as I did) to add bracing to the back before staining/ painting. I would recommend this.

I managed to cut all 9 of my windows with only one split - which I was pretty happy with.

Along with this wall I also cut all of the visible walls to size and cut out the openings. For the gable end walls I first made cardboard templates. This aided in finding the most economical way of using my limited material and made marking on the siding easier. I will use a different cladding type for the barn over the tracks and the barn on the top level.

There are two internal elevations which are not shown on the plan. If scratchbuilding this model I would recommend drawing these two elevations up first - I wish I had. The smoke stack, drawn in solid black, is also right over some critical measurements. These can be worked out - but it would have been far easier if it was drawn with dotted lines, or omitted for clarity.

Photo 1 - shows the long skinny wall after the window openings have been cut out and bracing added to the back. I also cut around the window with a sharp knife and removed the battens so the windows sit flat against the siding. The tools I used are shown.


Photo 2 - shows the back side of the wall with tape and bracing added. Also the tape I used and the steel rule.


Photo 3 - shows the walls ready for staining.


Photo 4 - shows an internal view of the main sub-assembly. there is still a bit of work to do on this before I can start adding other sub-assemblies to it. I will also need to incorporate extruded foam to change elevations.


Photo 5 - shows the front view.


Photo 6 - shows a view from the end.


More soon, cheers, Mark.

Mark, have you tried those 'corner cutters' that are actually from a mortising tool? (e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Square-Woodwo...dp/B07PVPC8G5/ Micro-Mark has a set without the drill bits that are probably better for models.)

dave

Mark, this plant is coming along nicely. It's going to be another super build.

Bob

Thanks for this, Dave.

No, I have not. I'll look into it when I hear that shipping to NZ from the USA is back on track.

Cheers, Mark.