Hi,

At the end of my garden there is a fence between next door and ourselves. Alas it keeps the sun off this portion of the garden, especially in winter. As a sun shadow it does not grow plants very well: however it is a good location for the village or hamlet for the Railroad, so it has been put to good use for just that purpose

I have attached a photo of most of it. The buildings are all scratch built, using Sintra board, or corrugated plastic sheet, with scratch built windows; they stay out all the time. To keep them still they all underneath them a small paving slab to which they are fixed with screws into pieces of PVC angle section; the are painted with masonry paints and enamels.

Yours Peter.

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Hi,


Here is Sycamore Creek in the snow taken from the end of the village and showing the other part of the village area

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Enjoy, but find some warm clothes first please - Brrr!

Yours Peter

I am enjoying the photos, Peter. It looks like you enjoy scratch building.

What do you use for the walls and roof of your structures to help them stand up to the elements?

Peter, nice going. Where in England are you?

Hi, I use what is Europe is called PVC solid foam sheet (or Foamboard, not the artist's version though) 5mm thick, and Styrene sheet for details; the roof is covered with roofing felt - I think in the USA its called 'Construction paper' The inside has bracing and extra corner pieces, and has external PVC angles over the corners the 'battens' are Styrene.

The windows are scratch built on a matrix and then painted before adding the glazing from clear plastic packaging sheets; the outer frame is either plastic angle again or made from two pieces glued together to male an angle.

For glue I use a latex based contact cement called 'Evo-stik' I don't think its sold in the USA but Walthers 'Goo' seems to be like it also E6000.

The paint is Masonry paint, this was built in 2004 and it has the original paint.

It sits on my usual small paving slab. The cross on the top is in a exposed position, so its loose and just pops on, on the left side at the back of the roof there is a heating chimmney - made from two straws one inside the other, and a top from a sealant cartridge to look like the small triangular tops.

Yours Peter

Hi Tony, On the eastern edge of the Manchester conurbation, close to the Pennines. Very roughly its close to the centre of the island of Great Britain (incl. Scotland)

Yours Peter.

Hi Peter, nice looking garden layout!

Nice layout. Especially like the work you've done on the village buildings.

:up:

Hi,

Bridges

Having a garden layout can mean that there are garden paths; I have some of these and they needed for the layout to be bridged. The first about 3 foot long was made from wood, with preservative but as I live in a somewhat wet island and tour location verifies that trait, it is kept inside - I do not intend it to rot! That one is a pony truss, and is just over 3 feet long.

The second one is a girder style through truss made in a kit from Aluminum, with stainless steel fixings and is very good indeed. it stays out all the time, and is just over a 3.5 feet long. They are getting longer!

For the third I wanted something different - after trawling the web, and my books I decided on a Howe Truss as used by the Colorado Central in the Forks Creek area as a basic design for me to work to. It was roughly drawn out full size, and I used Sintra board, welding rods, and square section steel tubes to build it; detail work was made from styrene including the cosmetic cover plates on the joins between the horizontals and cross pieces and the 'nut and bolt' units.

In between it was painted, in a mid brown with the welding rods in black; it is capable of being left out and generally sits by the side of its approach trestle, but as a precaution I put it into the garden shed in the worst of the winter.

This bridge is the longest being 4 foot long with the rails extending a bit past that, all the bridges use Hillman Bridge clamps which work very well. Four foot is about the longest I can have as working from both ends I can just clean all the nickel silver track.

Here is a photo of the bridge on top of our garden table -

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And, hopefully, another of the bridge in location, with my scratch built Mason Bogie, finished as #12 - Como, leaving my bridge and onto the trestle.

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Yours Peter.

Wow, great stuff!

I'm a recent convert to PVC foam board, and really like it.

Hi,

as part of my 'construction' I have built some horse drawn vehicles as with the exception of North East Narrow Gauge(NENG) and GME are not available.

I fear the NENG have ceased trading which is a great pity as their laser cut wheels are superb: his wife was seriously ill, and that may be the reason does anybody know of that is the case.

Back to my vehicles; in Colorado there was a vehicle that was the main transport on very poor roads this was the mud wagon, a much lighter vehicle that the stage coach, beloved of Hollywood, but that required open country. Colorado isn't: the mud wagon was a much more open vehicle, and could be hauled through the bad conditions.

Here is my version of one - built from a California design found on the web, with some other sources as well, and using some wheels from a English company - hobby's. The body is from styrene with the cases and boxes from scrap, the shafts etc from Sintra board, with the hooks from brass wire.

The 'motive power' is 4 'Safari' (a Florida based company) mules, the full size versions of which are said to have much more sense than horses. Two of them have had a repaint, the large ears of a couple were moved around ( cut them off, add a pin from a paper clip, and re-fit and fill the small gaps) , and the full harness added from painted aluminum foil, and more wire loops and wire for the hames (which allow them to pull the coach, being connected with straps to the cross pieces; those being connected to another cross piece, that is part of the central shaft: the front two have a connection via their cross pievces to a cental hook on the front of the shaft so all 4 are connected to it for pulling the mud wagon via the collars on the mules. The same collars are used on horses but a different size; they are styrene and some strips of Sintra for the padded parts, into which are fitted the 6 loops and 2 hooks per collar.

The building behind is a large hotel, recently finished - all the passengers and driver are presumed to be inside! The whole thing - wagon, and mules is fitted to a piece of plastic both for safety, and ease of moving it outside, that is 17" long.

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Here is a photo of the vehicle outside my new hotel building.

Yours Peter.

Here are some more horse drawn vehicles, this time they are much smaller.

The simplest vehicle is the 'buckboard' basically a flexible set of planks with a seat on them; ; this one has spring suspension for the driver. Since the photo I have added a load.

It is a repainted Schliech horse on the front, with full harness as before.

Behind is a 'Piano box Buggy' this was the second vehicle I built, and is from NENG plans, and uses their superb laser cut wheels. which I cannot find anywhere else. The hood over the driver is made from 3 layers of paper.

Finally at the back is 'The first pickup' before the rise of the automobile! This is the sort of vehicle that carriage builders owned that could be dispatched when disaster struck. There is space at the back for spares and tools these could be stored under the seat as well, and hooks on the side poles, along the sides for long items like spare shafts. This vehicle also has a load; made from bits and pieces of plastic and some bought barrels they are each on their own base so they can be used on other vehicles as well.

Here are some photos --




Three vehicles together







part of the 'loads' available for the 'First Pickup'

A couple of photos of some of the various loads for vehicles with a measure to show the small size of them! The bits of tube are the source of the cans, being scrap from pens etc. The square cans have an internal part of Sintra which is then wrapped with .010 styrene and some very tiny bits added for the handles and filling hole.

This vehicle needs some small decals which will be added soon.

Yours Peter.

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I've been to the Pennines, Peter. I used to travel to Horwich on business. Nice looking garden layout!

Chuck

Very nice models, Peter.

George