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

I

 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'

Stamping out brickwork

Dib dib dib

It's not easy to accurately mark out brickwork in long runs on foam. Here is the method I currently use.

The 'dibber' is made from an old paint brush with the bristles removed and the end opening formed into a brick sized punch. I cut the handle down to prevent me poking myself in the eye with the end.

With the foam cut to size, I first mark in the horizontal pointing by gently scribing with a straight edge and small point such as a rollerball pen or fine technical pencil. Then, starting from round about the centre of the top course, I mark in  bricks vertically in alternate courses  using a small set square to guide the dibber and keep things square.

When I've done all the odd courses, I fill in the even courses taking care to keep the bond accurate (well, fairly accurate!) Again starting from the centre and doing a whole vertical column at a time.

You can do a fair sized wall in a remarkable short time.

Tudor tavern 4

Just about finished

There's a bit of tidying and weathering to do, and some detailing, maybe a few more weeds, some suitable pub tables and chairs outside, and some barrels and beer crates in the yard.
A dray and horses would be nice, but those kits are mighty expensive in 7mm scale and I can't see me scratch building a pair of horses!.

A few white bits have appeared between the roof tiles, I'll touch those in, and that finial needs painting black. I need to think up a name for the place, and erect a sign.

Foam walls

Here's one I made earlier.

I had an email asking how I made the foam garden walls for the railway cottages. As it happens, I'm just making some more for the Tudor tavern, they are very easy, but I`ll go through it anyway.
The photo shows a partly complete item illustrating several of the steps.

First I make a blank wall, in this case a scale 6 feet high and 18" wide. this is done by sticking two lengths of 5mm foamboard together. Banner tape is the quickest and easiest method.

I start to round off the top by slicing off a thin sliver at roughly 45 degrees from the length on both sides to help round it off. (I wouldn't need to do this if the wall were to be flat topped or topped with capping stones) In this case the top is supposed to look like concrete.

I lightly score lines down the length of the wall just below where the concrete starts and if the wall is going to be built of dressed stones or bricks in courses, further lines to show the horizontals between the courses of bricks.
Next, I mark in the vertical joints between the bricks by pricking with the scalpel.
If I want a neat and tidy wall, I use a small set square to get the lines accurate and vertical. If it's a rough old stone wall, accuracy isn't so important. It's best to break right through the outer skin of the foamboard.

I score out the stones or bricks using a pencil or biro point, a slim tip will produce fine tidy brickwork, whereas a thick one will make big chunky slabs with deep recesses in the pointing.  I also add some texture to the stone faces at this time.
If the wall is going to be random stone, or dry walling, I omit drawing the course lines and just begin scoring the stones from one end trying to keep it irregular but convincing.

Lastly, I round off the top a bit using the edge of my thumbnail.

You can paint with acrylic straight onto the foamboard, or give it a light blast of aerosol acrylic grey primer, Not too heavy as it does eat away at the edges of the foam a little if you overdo it.
You can, if you wish, instead of car primer, give it a coat of Astonish wood floor polish
 (which is actually a thin acrylic laquer) which helps with paint adhesion.

Here are the finished walls in situ click here

Tudor tavern roofed

Chim chimenee chim chimenee

The previous part of this project is here

Click here for the first part of this project.

The Tudor house is almost complete, just a bit of detailing and some tidying up to do.
It's had quite a bit of handling owing to the empirical nature of my building so some of the blackwork needs retouching, but I'm fairly happy with the result.
I'm not too sure about the lower brickwork, I did base it on a photograph, but maybe the bricks are too large ( Tudor bricks generally were a lot smaller than modern ones) I can fairly easily cut those parts out and remake them - we'll see.

I still have the lighting to add, not too bright, a couple of grain of wheat bulbs in series should do it.

I had a plan to make the carved gable by laminating something like a paper doily or maybe some fancy lace onto card, but I didn't have either so I went for card with holes made with a leather punch and small disks courtesy of the same device - I'm quite happy with that.

The chimney stacks are made from some 00 embossed brick plasticard stuck to dalerboard with banner tape, and the flashing is masking tape. The chimney pots are short sections of Biro tube with strips of paper label wrapped around. They are lightly glued to the stacks as they will inevitably get knocked off, and I'd rather lose just a chimney pot than a whole stack and a load of roof tiles!

Next job is to pop down to the club and measure up a baseboard for it. The village is starting to come together nicely.

Jump to next installment click here

I join the ranks of the great artists.

Backhanded Compliment?

The other day, someone described my modelling as 'Impressionist. I'm not sure if it was intended to be an insult or a compliment, but I quite like the idea.

Tiles - large and small

 This weekends achievements 

More work on the Tudor tavern.

I made the roofs out of Daler board - I almost got the angles right - and spent Saturday afternoon sticking on small rectangles of cereal packet card. Individual tiles give a roof a totally different look than the tile strip method, I feel the individual tiles are more in keeping with an ancient and slightly run down village tavern.

I can't help wondering if I should have made the chimneys and stuck them in place before tiling the roof, never mind, the flashing will hide the joints, I hope.

I've had a bright idea for the barge boards - more on that later.

Jump to next installment.

I also made up over a metre of platform from scribed foamboard. I shall pop down to the club later and stick it down.

Narrow gauge platforms

This weekends achievements 

Around four feet of foamboard  loading dock for the club 0n16.5 narrow gauge.
I had to make it in three sections as I was bound to snap it into at least two bits getting it to the club.

As usual, the photography is a bit cruel - I really should improve my camera techniques. Maybe I'll give the sides a little tickle around with the old airbrush, and a bit of 'undergrowth' to be added once the platform is in situ on the layout.

I spent Saturday afternoon building and Sunday morning painting, now I'm off to Fleetwood exhibition to admire other peoples no doubt superior efforts.

The wagon is a Smallbrook Studios Glyn Valley box van, a bargain at twelve quid (+ a Dapol wagon chassis)

More on the Tudor tavern

The previous part of this project is here

Click here for the first part of this project.

So far so good, all windows are made up and installed, and the shell is lightly glued together.

The original test piece which I wasn't at all happy with, was resurrected and used for the back wall. I did this by by spraying over with white and after cutting out the white panels painting the 'woodwork' black as I did for the front elevation.

I decided to jetty out the front gable, I also added a downstairs window and changed the upstairs window in the gable for one with more suitable glazing bars.

Doors are made from Daler board, scribed and with microstrip detailing. The iron rivets are dots of pva glue.

As I'm going to fit some lighting, I've added some internal black card masking and the next job is to add some internal strengtheners and think about how the roof will be.

More to come

Jump to next installment

Tools

Foamwerks straight/bevel cutter

I used to cut 45 degree bevels by hand and eye, but not anymore since I bought one of these little gadgets. Just over eight quid from America, it cuts perfect 90 degree right angles or 45 degree bevels in foam with ease and grace and most importantly, safety.

Recommended.

A Tudor style tavern.

This isn't going to be a quick project, I've already spent some time making experimental test pieces to find the best method (for me) of making this building.

What follows is an account of how I'm going about it. 

I usually build the complete shell - sans roof - before painting the brickwork, but this time I decided to complete one side  before proceeding with the others

Here is the front elevation of the tavern marked out and ready to paint. I'll let you into a secret, I've been here before, and painted it using the logical method, The black woodwork followed by filling in the white wattle & daub panels then the brickwork. Hmmm, doesn't really look very good, and it's really difficult for me to keep the white paint off the black - touch up the black... Hmmm, it's really difficult for me to keep the black paint off the white... Still not good enough - Start again

Next attempt, I decided to cut out completely all the white panels, but first I sprayed the whole side with powder grey acrylic. Once properly dry, I tickled out the white squares and windows with a scalpel - It's easier than it sounds - Then after marking them on the back, so I'd know where they came from, I painted the woodwork part of the remaining fret a nice dark brown/almost black. The most humane way to do this is with an airbrush.

I left the door in at this point to retain some strength in the foam fret.

Here is the foam fret with the white panels removed, sprayed black and a first dry brushing of some brick colour

The next step was to replace all the white panels in their correct places leaving out the window positions of course. To hold them in position, I backed up the whole side with black card. This serves two purposes, it stiffens up the whole side and as I`m going to fit the building with lighting, it makes the side light tight.

Below is the side with all panels replaced and a start made on making and fitting the windows.

One of the great advantages of wooden framed buildings is that they are generally both ancient and organic. This means that they move and settle over time with the result that frames are often not parallel and windows and doors are rarely square. Some of these old buildings twist and lean alarmingly, so if, during marking out or cutting, things get a bit squiffy, it doesn't matter so much.

The windows are made using a variant of my usual method. A card frame stuck to OHP film using banner tape. The film is printed with a diamond pattern to represent the cames of the leaded glass. A second frame is added on top of the card to give the window a little more depth.

More to follow.

Jump to next installment

Airbrush hints and tips

Cleaning

If you have this kind of inexpensive suction feed airbrush, you'll know what a pain it is to clean the feed tube. Here's a little tip to make it simple.

Get a disposable plastic dropper pipette and cut off the end so that the remainder is a nice fit over the airbrush feed tube, when it's cleaning time, a little warm water or thinners in the pipette, hold the brush upside down  whilst spraying into a rag, and Bob's yer uncle.

Another little tip, instead of forking out ten or twelve quid on a superdooper airbrush cleaning vessel, get a big coffee jar and make a hole in the lid. Be careful with naked flames if you are using volatile thinners.

Here's a photo of mine relaxing in the conservatory and sporting my trusty (and nearly 40 year old) badger 100.

Coaling up

Coaling stage

I came across this little 4mm scale yard crane in a pile of 'old stuff' at the club. It needed a few repairs but was essentially all there, and as we are needing some form of coaling stage for the narrow gauge part of the layout, I figured it would do for 7mm scale for hoicking buckets of the black stuff onto the footplates of the little engines.

The timber staith and stone platform are made from foamboard offcuts, and the coal is graded cat litter. To be truthful, nothing looks like real coal except real coal, but cat litter painted with black acrylic comes close enough for me.

All we need now is a couple of buckets, a chain and maybe a new hook, and some steps for the crane operator to be able to climb up onto the platform, and it's ready to plant.

Jam & Jerusalem

The Village Hall

Here's the little village hall / chapel almost complete with just a bit of tickling up to do. As previously mentioned, the walls are scribed foamboard, the roof is Daler board with the usual black card slates. (This time stuck down in neat rows, as the church roof appeal must have been successful)

The bell tower roof is real lead over a base of card and micro rod. The lead is the stuff found around the tops of wine bottles, it's very malleable, so can be coaxed into quite complex compound shapes.
I can't decide whether to paint it either grey - to represent lead, green, to represent verdigris on copper or just leave it as it is to gradually oxidise in it's own time.

The lead flashing is real aluminium tape as used for sealing heating and airconditioning ducting. Another very useful material and not expensive.

The stained glass windows are photographic images laser printed onto overhead projector film.

The porch light is a 6mm white LED with a plasticard shade and microstrip 'cage'. I stained the clear plastic of the led lamp with a little yellowish acrylic wash just to tone down the harshness of the white light, and I'm using quite a high value series resistor to keep the brightness down to realistic levels - I do hate to see brilliant white lights on period layouts, preferring a more 'gaslight' effect.

Despite all my efforts, the lamp refuses to hang straight, and I need to figure out a better way to make louvres as I'm not over happy with those in the bell tower.  Oh well.

Railway Cottages

Here are a few snaps of the almost complete pair of cottages for the club layout

Really just an experiment in different techniques to see what works and what doesn't. any comments or feedback would be appreciated.

The front garden of No 1. 

The building is Das modelling clay on foamboard, since I started on this model, I seem to have moved exclusively to scribed 'Depron' foamboard which is far quicker and much cleaner.

The paths are scribed foam, as are the stone walls. The decorative bricks are made using an old paintbrush ferule as a stamper.
There's a bit of cleaning up to do yet, that doorstep looks a bit dodgy, I'll have to take a closer look at that. The gates are built up from microstrip. The flowerbeds are Oasis, which is nice and easy to plant individual stems into.

The rain barrel is the only part of this model which is a proprietary item.

The front garden of No 2. 

The stone sett path is Crayola Model Magic, marked out with a stamper made from an old paintbrush ferule  from which the bristles have been removed. It could just as easily be Das or foamboard I suppose. There's a bit to do yet, some titivating up and detailing, and the whole model needs weathering down a little.

The rear of the cottages with the little foamboard shed and the rockery populated with Forest Floor Moss plants. The rockery stones are kitty litter and the raised flowerbeds are made from Oasis with various different attempts at flowers. The dividing stone wall is made from Oasis.

The crazy paving and decorative brick path are scribed foamboard. There's still a bit of cleaning up to do here, but as the finished model won't be particularly visible from the rear, I'll probably not add too much extra detailing back there.

I accidentally left the model for hours in full sunlight, which distorted the rooftiles. Well, it was the 1930's and small railway companies didn't have much money to spend on their workers cottages... That's going to be my excuse. (and anyway,  'It aint Pendon!)

Old Buffers

Timber built buffer stops in 7mm narrow gauge.

Depron with painted ballast for infill. The weeds are bits of forest floor moss.

Railway Cottages

Railway Cottages just about ready to plant on the club layout

Das on Foamboard, there are a few bits and bobs yet to do.
More photographs to follow

Flora

With fronds like these...

Who needs anemones?

Forest Floor Moss is used as a substrate in vivariums. It's real plant life dried and compressed into a solid block of material which, when dunked in water, magically reforms itself into a mass of real plants. It's highly compressed, so a whole block makes a lot of moss (3.5 litres in fact). You will get many thousands of tiny plants from one small block. You can buy it from pet shops which specialise in reptiles or from Amazon.

I chop off about a 3/4" cube of the dry stuff and after soaking in water, I spread it out a little and let it dry out. It now resembles the brown material in the photo above. At this stage the plants are fragile.

I prepare a 50/50% mixture of green acrylic paint and water (with the obligatory touch of washing up liquid) then I add about 30% pva glue. If you add acrylic paint directly to pva glue it tends to go lumpy or separate out. It shouldn't be too thick in consistency.

After sorting through the  dry moss to find the best scale plant like bits, I dip the tiny plants into the mixture one at a time, and let them soak for a few seconds before laying them on a paper kitchen towel to absorb the excess pva. While the glue is soaking away, you can poke the plants into a suitable realistic shape. The glue makes them more supple and less prone to break.

Once the majority of the glue/paint mixture has been absorbed into the towel, I lay the plants out on a piece of greaseproof paper to dry.

Teeny Tiny flowers

You need:
A hole punch or a wad cutter, Some tissue, felt pens, a piece of thin soft rubber or foam.

The tissue needs to be the crinkly kind which you find as packing in new shoes or wrapped around loaves of bread and not the kind you blow your nose on.

Punch out lots of little disks of tissue and using the tip of a felt pen, press them into the surface of the rubber. the idea is to form a cone or trumpet shape (a flower shape even) You'll find that the ink transfers from the pen to the tissue, you can put a dot of another colour in the middle of the disk first to give your flower a contrasting centre. For white flowers, use a pencil, a colour pencil will give you a coloured centre.

 Beware of the Flowers (John Otway 1977)

Then I stick the flowers to the stems using dots of pva. After many hours of relaxing fun, you have enough for a whole garden.

Shed

Here is the preliminary marking out and scribing for a little shed to fill a space in the railway cottages garden.

The component parts cut out, I'll cut out the doorway  after I glue it together. I'll also add a floor to stiffen the whole structure. The door and roof will be painted card, I may add a window.

I've faffed about for hours trying to make gadgets for cutting rebates for lap joints and in the end I've found it's easier and quicker to cut them by hand.
I measure on the inside and leave a bit of extra overhang on the thin overlapping side which can be trimmed back after gluing.

It's worth spending a little time honing your knife skills. With practise you should be able to easily remove very thin slivers of foam accurately and safely just using the Mk1 eyeball and a finger as a guide. Just watch those fingertips!

45° mitres are a little tricky, I cut the joints square, then use a length of triangular wooden beading as a guide for the blade removing thin slivers of foam until I've cut back to the line.

You can buy a tool for doing all this, but where's the fun in that?

Fun with Foam 2

Hints and tips

If you have stocks of  paper covered foamboard and want to remove the paper covering so that you can scribe the surface, you may find that some makes of foamboard allows the paper to be easily peeled off, whereas with other makes the paper defies all attempts to remove it cleanly. Try wafting it over with a hairdryer and you may find that the paper just falls away. I discovered this after leaving a sheet in the full sun for an afternoon. You don't need to get it too hot, once you get a corner started, hold it by the paper in that corner and let gravity do it's job.
It does tend to warp a tiny bit especially if you only remove the paper from one side, but nothing which can't be fixed in the mix.

More fun with foam.

I knocked up this little 7mm scale chapel/village hall using the remainder of the scrap foamboard. 

The stonework was scribed using an ordinary pencil but I've since found out that a black roller ball type pen works very well.  

The rounded edges to the windows were achieved by careful smoothing with the back end of my scalpel and a fingernail. The rounded window tops were 'moulded' with the rounded end of a Sharpie.

I've given it a couple of light coats of acrylic matt black car spray as a base for whatever method I decide to use for the painting.

If you think it looks familiar, that's because I used the 00 scale Dapol village church as a template and scaled it up to 7mm scale.

More to come. see here

Steamy Windows

Making window frames

I find windows difficult to make accurately, probably a result of advancing years and failing eyesight. I'm not about to go spending money on fancy etched brass things and resin casting seems to have passed me by, so scratch building is the only way.

Here is the method I use. The photographs are fairly self explanatory.
It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway)  that you should mark out your proposed window frame accurately on graph paper or similar, you could use a plan, if you have one, or even a photograph.
If you have a laser printer, you can design your window frames in the graphics package of your choice - I use and recommend  Xara Designer - and print them out. You could kill two birds with one stone by printing them out onto clear OHP film.

The glazing material usually comes from dis-guarded  packaging, the example here is an offcut of camera screen protector, but obviously  it can be anything you can find.

Many of my earlier buildings had windows made using thin strips of card/banner tape laminate for the frames and glazing bars, however styrene strip is far easier to handle and get accurate joints.

I make my own self adhesive microstrip simply with banner tape and 0.010" styrene sheet. Stick the tape to one side and slice it into strips with a straight edge and a scalpel. Cut slowly and gently to avoid the strip curling up or bending.

I lay down the outer frame first, followed by the either the horizontal or vertical glazing bars depending on the type of window - you can cover the joints with the 'moulding' you add later so you need to think about the construction of a real window at this point. Some windows, sash windows for example,  have to be built in several layers

The tool I use for cutting the ends of the microstrip is shown in the first photograph. A chisel blade, it will chop straight through several layers of thin card or styrene in one firm vertical press. If you are going to buy one, get a decent trusted make, I think that one was made by Exacto -

I stick the remaining glazing bars on as a whole length, then clip out the bits where they cross with my trusty chisel tool. as you can probably see, the hard bit is getting the glazing bars nice and straight.

Getting the 45° mitres in the corners is a bit of a cheat, overlap the two strips and cut through both at once, then remove the waste bits, that way the angle doesn't have to be perfect.

A few tips.
If  I'm not going to detail the interior of the building, or I  just don't want the windows to be too transparent, I rub the back with a bit of fine wet n dry or a track rubber. Rubbing  in one direction only and at an angle leaves the 'glass' shiny but less see though.

If you chose a glazing material which isn't affected by solvent, you can wash over the frame with MekPac or whatever is your styrene solvent of choice, this softens the edges of the microstrip and helps to hide the joints. It doesn't seem to affect the adhesive used on banner tape.

Once in situ in the building, I usually flood the whole window with 50% PVA/water mix. This fills any gaps betwixt the building wall and window frame, amalgamates the whole thing together and softens it down nicely. a spot of washing up liquid in the mixture helps it to flow.

You can make a quite good attempt at leaded windows by printing the lead parts or cames as they are called onto OHP film.

The Depron Hut

Well, 'It ain't Pendon' but it'll do...

I decided that I might as well finish off the little stone building which I made as a test piece when I was experimenting with depron foam. I added a roof of card, tiled using my usual method of scored strips of black card fixed down with banner tape. The barge boards and door are card and the windows are made from styrene strip. I'll explain my own method of making windows using self adhesive microstrip in a later blog.

I never intended for it to be a finished building, it's probably the quickest construction I've ever done. I'm reasonably happy with it and will find it a suitable spot on the club layout, tucked away in some foliage it'll pass as a workshop or something.

Fingers!

Tool Tips

Safety ruler revisited

Back in May I had a grumble about safety cutting rulers being less than satisfactory. I have medical as well as aesthetic reasons for wishing to retain my fingertips, so I finally got around to doing something about that.

Above is a photo depicting a Helix 'Non-Slip' safety ruler, a great stick for measuring and marking out, with nice clear and accurate markings, but useless (IMHO) for cutting anything with a craft knife. The blade drags on the soft aluminium edge, removing a sliver of material and eventually ruining the ruler, and the 'non-slip' rubber inserts make accurate cuts difficult as the edge of the ruler doesn't press down on the material being sliced.

So, I bought a cheap steel ruler and using my trusty banner tape, fixed it to the underside of the aluminium rule - result! Nice and straight, nice and heavy and hopefully safe fingertips.

Dabbling with Depron

Experiments with Depron foam

I had read a few entries on blogs about using foamboard for modelling, and when at the club, I came across a chunk of what appears to be part of an advertising sign for 'Focus' DIY, I thought I'd have a dibble.

The board has a quite a thick covering each side of  printed card which peels off easily leaving pristine white closed cell foam of a type known to model aircraft makers as depron. This isn't crumbly like polystyrene or the usual foamboard, but quite tough and resistant to tearing. It's very easy to cut accurately and can be sanded or edges rounded with the fingers.

I'm sure department and DIY stores, and commercial sign printers throw away mountains of the stuff.
A reasonably cheap source of Depron foam is wood laminate flooring insulation. One trade name is SELITAC available from B&Q I believe.

I made a few test samples including the little stone hut. First thing I learnt, keep it away from normal superglue which eats through the foam like Billy Bunter with a jam doughnut - Apparently, you can get foam safe superglue, but ordinary PVA does the job fine.

Scribing

I tried various scribes, and found that for me, a fine pencil with a rounded point works as well as anything. 

A superfine Sharpie eats slightly into the surface and conveniently leaves a black line, which is handy for fine brickwork with dark mortar. The triangular example in the photograph shows this. 

Clay modelling tools - either metal or plastic - are useful for modelling the surface.

Painting

I've tried a variety of painting methods so far, it's not quite the same as painting DAS covered models as the foam isn't absorbent to most paints, however it does seem to absorb 'Astonish' wood floor polish which leaves it with a harder surface which will accept acrylic and water colour.

You can give it a very light blow over with Halfords acrylic car primer, but you have to go easy as some component in the spray will dissolve the foam. Used sparingly in several light coats, does however, give the foam a nice stoney texture.

Once you have your mortar colour, with a few variations to represent staining, moss etc. adding the stone colour comes next using much the same techniques as with DAS skinned models.

I would expound further on the subject of painting foam, but during my experiments I came across this blog Trainscape which, although in Spanish (Google will attempt to translate) demonstates far better than I ever will, the possibilities of realistic foam modelling.

Fiddling on the Roof

More on the Dapol Village Church

But first the stained glass windows.

The windows are simply photographic images laser printed onto overhead projector film. that's all you need to do in 00 scale. In 7mm scale you can add the horizontal metal bars which in real life keep the windows from blowing in or buckling under the weight.

The roof tiles.

My method is first to create a grid of scale tile sized rectangles using your favourite graphics program or one of the free graph paper programs available online. The tiles should be about 50% taller than they are wide to allow some overlap. This is then printed out, preferably onto a sheet of black or dark grey card.
The verticals are then scribed with a fairly blunt knife. Try to scribe quite narrow lines but quite deep.

I cover the back of the card with horizontal strips of double sided banner tape before slicing the sheet into rows of tiles. I hope that the photo explains the process.
The self adhesive tile strips are then fixed to the roof overlapping in a typical staggered pattern as shown below. The roof here is made from stiff yellow card as the items supplied with the kit were twisted.
The lower edge has been scored and turned up a little to represent the gutter

The ridge tiles and edge capping are strips of the same card scored and bent accordingly.

The photo below shows the almost finished model. I'm fairly happy with it tho I may change the colour of the white cross and maybe add a little light weathering to soften the roof a little.

An Ecumenical Matter

The Dapol village church

You know that feeling when you are strolling around an exhibition and you realise that you haven't spent any money yet? Well, that was me until I spotted a trade stand with a selection of Dapol building kits. Thinking that such a model would serve as templates for a 7mm scale version, I bought one, and a village pub. I always wanted my own pub...

I first built this kit when I was a schoolboy, which means that the tooling for these models is over 50 years old, so the detail isn't as quite as crisp as it once was (which isn't really a problem here)  and some of the parts are a little distorted. However, apart from the roof sections - which in my kit are quite twisted and the slates ill-defined, they are still excellent value for money kits and the model church goes together quickly and easily.

Once the basic shell was made, I gave it an all over coat of acrylic grey primer. acrylic does key into the plastic, but doesn't melt it like non acrylic would. The primer is important as it gives the next coat of paint something to stick to.
Next I worked various dark grey and brown washes of watercolour over the walls, getting it well into the pointing between the stones, with a little bit of dark green here and there to represent moss.
A cheap childrens watercolour set is perfectly adequate and a spot of washing up liquid helps the paint to flow.

The beauty of watercolour paints is that they can be removed with a slightly damp cloth so a bit of gentle rubbing brings back the lighter colour of the faces of the stones whilst leaving the mortar a darker colour.

If you don't like what you have achieved, you can wash it off and start again. I think that smaller scale models probably look better a little lighter in tone and with more contrast than in  'real life'.

Once I am happy with the stonework, I'll give the entire shell an airbrushed coat of Astonish Non Slip Wooden Floor Polish which although it says polish on the bottle, is actually a very thin semi matt acrylic varnish and useful for lots of things including sticking down ballast, fingerproofing transfers, and flatting off too shiney paintjobs.

Next step, the stained glass windows and the roofs.

Instant Flora

Lucky Reptile Flora Mat

I don't claim originality for this, I first spotted it on a YouTube video whilst looking for ideas for making garden plants. 

It's a plastic mat for use in vivariums, about 1 foot square ( that`s 30cm in the new fangled measuring), and costs around £10, tho I have seen it quite a lot cheaper.

So, 1 mat gets you around 200 of these

or 200 of these

and about 1000 of these

Which can be chopped up into an awful lot of individual plant stems.

Here is an example flower bed using the product:

The red and yellow poppy like plants are disks of coloured paper made with a hole punch and crumpled around the point of a pencil, then glued to the top of individual flora mat 'stems'
The purple flowers to the front are individual stems dipped in glue then lilac scatter material.
You can also just dip the tips in paint for a quite passable effect.
Same goes for the other little multi coloured plants, they are snipped off bits of the lighter coloured 'centre'
The tall purple plants are simply old paintbrush bristles dipped in glue and scatter.

The brickwork is Oasis, simply scribed and painted with red car primer.

Here's another example:

This time the walls are made from cork tile and the whole top of the Flora Mat plant has been used.