Thanks Toto, I need to allow the wet evaporate out for a few days now, the plaster has started to turn pink but I've loaded the scene with plaster of paris and that will need three to four days to dry back. I'm making a start on the girders tomorrow.
All looks very good Ps never knew about the pillars under the bridges, after 24 years as a volunteer... it then, that’s not my area
The first bridge beam has now be made it measures 240mm in length which roughly equates to 35 feet in big railway terms, so its not a huge girder but making it has certainly given me some ideas for doing a slightly bigger one...maybe something which has a lattice fretwork... I have one in mind and its on the Churnet just north of Bosley. . So here is the first beam sitting in position on its stone corbelling plinth over the abutment walls and fitting like a glove. and from the other angle
Here is a view showing the inside face of the girder, the long plate located over the webs is to stop track ballast falling down onto the bottom of the I beam and potentially causing a drainage blockage, not an issue on a model but on the real thing is very noticeable if you are trackside and so from an authentic model perpective must be included.
Now I've got the second beam underway already, the web positions have been scribed on front and back so its just a matter of building this one up. And we can see this now starting to take shape, once the second beam is complete I'll scratch the smaller centre transom beam which carries the deck joists and bridge flooring... all made mainly from scrap etch frets. With any luck the bridge should make a low rumble noise when a train is run over it.
First coat of grey primer on and we can see what a difference it makes. The bridge will be finished in a gunmetal colour which resembles the Micaceous Grey paint the railway used on many steel structures.
Thanks Toto, I'll be happier when that icing sugar has dried out and I can get an earth ground colour put over it.
The second bridge girder is fabricated and now I'm on with making the centre transom and then the bridge deck which will all be soldered together as one unit... just need to work out the track levels yet. A quick set up picture in the workshop using some LED spots and the scene captured looks a bit spooky I think... I wonder if I should chuck a few supermarket trolleys and a bedstead in there or maybe an old car that has been torched.
Anyway the plaster is all dried out and I've layered on a base coating of various browns and greens along with a coat of Jacobean Walnut on the trackbed all bits and bobs of old gloss paint or various varnishes which will water proof the plaster. Once dried I'll put down a basing layer of 4mm Summer Grass and my own mixture of sieved sand to give texture along the river bank. The railway embankment will be treated differently using 6mm Patchy Grass overlayed with 10mm Straw.
Made up a simple Silignum mould this week to cast the plinth capping stones in Plaster of Paris, eight in total and now they need fettling before painting in stone colour and weathering. Just added a bit more earth compound to the river bank edges and hopefully tomorrow I'll start to put down a basing of static grass around the river, I also need to sort out the wing wall cappings, culvert parapets and a drain invert shaft before proceeding to "Nature" the embankments and weather the bridge brickwork.
Geez .... no hanging about there then. Looking really good Paul. A fantastic setting for loco shoots and promotions. has anyone told you that the bridge is out
Don't fall down this if you are rooting for relics along long closed railway lines, this is a brick land drain invert with iron grid cover I modeled earlier today for the diorama, inspired from a similar design deep drain I found once on the long closed old Waterhouses arm of the Cauldon line. There were similar ones on the site of Chatterley Sidings just before the entrance to the main bore of Harecastle Tunnel and some inside the cutting of the old Hanley station. Anyway this could well be a contender of being the first O Gauge model scene with a drainage system.
And the middle of Oakamoor tunnel... which as you may recall is on a curve.. walking through in darkness when suddenly there is a “ouch” splosh! And you turn around with your light to see only the torso of your companion above the ground in the darkness! Nice work Yorkie!
Having spent much of the morning constructing model drainage inverts this afternoon was spent doing much bigger stuff like the culvert which takes a spring under the trackbed. Basically its made from a bit of mdf board and a card tube which had been carrier for kitchen clingfilm, I also knocked up a bit of a metal fence from some scrap etch and 0.07mm wire. The shape of what I'm looking for is now there and the next job is to clad it with thin Plaster of Paris stone blocks which I'll cast in a purpose made mound. A layer of 2mm static grass was also put down followed by a couple of passes with 4mm and 6mm Patchy Grass and Meadow Grass... it seems to be making progress now.