Released.

Harbottle has been released from the cottage hospital for the festive period, I'm supposed to be taking total rest, but you know how it is, I get twitchy when I have nothing to do. I can only do a few minutes at a time so I took the opportunity to hook up the lights on the Tudor tavern and take a few snaps

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 So here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody's having fun down the pub on Christmas Eve.

And just for fun, It's snowing! Merry Christmas. Need to buy some curtains.

Banged up!

Things have got worse in Jeremiah's world, as I'm now resident in the local cottage hospital.
This means that there's no modelling to be done, although the time spent here could be used as a small plastic parts gathering exercise.

So dear reader, I have little choice but to allow OwMuch to rest dormant for the duration.

See you on the other side

Jeremiah Harbottle

Lampost leanings

Throwing a little light on the subject

I felt that the village needed a few streetlamps dotted about the place, and having looked at various companies ready to plant offerings decided to have a go at making my own.

I began with making a paper template for the lamphouse and when I felt that this was near enough right, I measured up and transferred the plan to my favourite drawing program (Xara Designer). After a couple of test runs, I printed the design out onto overhead projector film, as you can see above.

The resulting shape, when scored and cut out, folds up into the lamphouse you can see above. Some strips of tape hold it together, and further tape strips make up the frame. A dot of superglue holds the lantern roof in place.

The main post is made from a plastic cotton bud with the fluffy bits removed. A small cube of foamboard forms the base for the lamphouse. A grain of wheat bulb was chosen in preference to an led as when suitably under run they produce a nice gaslight glow - I shall fit a suitable resistor in series with the lamp to drop the voltage.

The ladder rest is a simple twist of wire, the decorative ends are the 'bobbles' from a length of bath plug chain, superglued on. After a bit of thought trying to find something to represent the cast iron base of the lamppost, I found that the first inch or so of a tapered pipette was just the job.

Decorative bands around the post are represented by strips of tape.

So here's the finished lamppost ready to erect outside the Tudor tavern. That's the first one I've made, and subsequent ones may have their proportions adjusted slightly. also, I may try making the lamphouse roof from carved foamboard, as the ohp film is a litle bit relucant to form a nice pyramid with four sides to align and glue accurately.

Anyway, I'm happy with it, and as I always say "It ain't Pendon"

Lighting

The lighting module for the Tudor tavern

These are flexible LED strips from the 3M company, a roll of 300 leds costs around £7 on Amazon.

The roll is easily subdivided into units of three leds which are in series, with a dropper resistor for use on 12 volts. The strips are self adhesive on the back. Individual led chips are about one eighth of an inch square and could be unsoldered from the flexible backing and incorporated directly into say yard lights or lamp posts with a suitable dropper resistor

As supplied, the white leds are very bright and very white, I've made the colour more 'gaslight' by sticking small disks of some old yellow OHP film I had knocking about, over the business end of the chip.  - never throw anything away...

To reduce the brightness, I've wired two strips in series. Each strip fits along the opposite side of an internal dividing wall, and reflects off the inside of the buildings roof. Hopefully, when all is finished, the leds will impart a nice homely yellow glow.

Photographs to follow.

Interwebs

T'other day, I came across a splendid website - Wordsworth Model Railways - offering some nicely produced  free 00 card kits, excellent brickpapers, and backscenes, and also featuring some photographs of the owner's own layouts using his own card models.
A little jewel tucked away on the site is a very clever model railway scale converter program.
Written in java as a stand alone program (That means it doesn't have to be installed) you simply type in your real world dimension and the program displays the result in mm or inches for scales from 0 to Z, or you can enter a scale dimension and it will tell you the 1:1 size. Brill!
and it's free.

Recommended.

Visit  http://www.wordsworthmodelrailway.co.uk

Harbottle is happy.

Harbottle returns

You may, dear reader, have noticed that I have been missing in action for some time. I've had a fortnight in hospital, not an altogether pleasant experience with a couple of close shaves - and you'll notice that Harbottle isn't used to any kind of shaving.

However, I'm out now, seemingly on the mend, and ready to recommence modelling. I did a lot of thinking and planning in my more lucid moments, and I have some (I think) interesting ideas to share.
So, give me a day or two, and watch this space.

More on foamboard walls

There are 70 centimeters of rough old brick wall to build for the backscene behind the goods yard on the club layout, and the same length of footpath to go with it.

The walls are 3mm foamboard, marked out as shown in the previous post.  A quick and patchy coat of grey acrylic is followed by picking out all the individual bricks with a nice brick red colour, it takes a while, but it's strangely relaxing.
Random bricks are either lightened or darkened and a light grey/white mixture of mostly water and little paint is run into selected mortar joints and the excess dabbed off with a moist tissue. A dusting over with weathering powder made from Reeves soft chalk pastels takes any shine off the acrylic paint.

The brick pillars are stacks of 3mm foamboard squares stuck together with banner tape for speed. The bricks are impressed between the joints with my trusty dibber. the pillars are coloured in the same way as the walling.

The footpath is again just 3mm foamboard, scribed, and then coloured by painting on a generous coating of dark acrylic, then wiping most of it off with a dry cloth leaving paint in the scribed lines

The wall still needs some form of capping stones before it gets plonked into place on the club layout.

It's not perfect, but then again, 'It aint Pendon'