Club Corner

There is a little corner of the club railway, right next to the narrow gauge terminus, which until recently depicted a heliport. This doesn't really fit in with the 1930's(ish) period of the 0n16.5 section of the layout, so it was decided to move the heliport to a more secluded part of the railway and construct a little village scene.

I decided to make a series of separate sub boards for each building, partly because the village area is an odd shape and I haven't really got a plan to work to, but mainly so that I can do most of the building work at home, then plonk them in place at successive club nights

So, this is the first dwelling in the village, the crossing keepers cottage.

Based very loosely on a traditional Manx cottage, it was originally intended to be thatched, but my first attempt at a thatched roof fell down when making the ridge. I just couldn' t get it right and eventually ripped the whole roof off to start again. I was using the bristles from a large decorators brush and they proved just too stiff to form the ridge correctly. I will try again on a subsequent cottage using softer bristles and more patience.
As you will see, something still went astray with the tiled ridge on the crossing keepers cottage - I may have another bash at it sometime tho it probably doesn't really look too bad considering the intended slightly neglected look of the model.

A few things you might find interesting or helpful:
The hedges are made from poundshop pan scubber. The dry stone wall is made from small chunks of cork tile which is marvelous stuff for all sorts of modelling
The cabbages are made from a Crayola product called Model Magic, a kind of air drying foam based modelling compound.
The chicken run mesh is some kind of backing material used by dressmakers.

The large plants in the front garden are from a product called Lucky Reptile Flora Mat. Some of the produce  in the vegetable garden are offcuts from the same product.
I'll try to cover these things in later posts

I'm not altogether happy with the gravel paths, I might redo those at a later date, but as I always say "It ain't Pendon"