Denton Brook 7mm light industrial

https://youtu.be/1xKWcftFZTg

My current layout under construction is a little industrial theme (8' x 3') with the back-end of a cable manufacturing factory in the early '60's. Best described as a whimsy, rather than laying claim to be anything serious - it's built for my pleasure.

Again, trans-shipment is the theme - this time with a gantry crane from narrow gauge to Standard Gauge (and into lorries).

I recently completed an industrial Garratt, which gave me a hell of a time in the building - but now it's complete - I love it. The steep bank gives it some justification.

Also on the way is a radio control mobile crane, with working out-riggers, slew, derrick and hoist, as well and drivable capability.

 

The layout on it's way - factory end

 

The corner factory building. This is clad in a good quality fire-cement, which I really enjoyed working with.

 

'Tram Road' - Loads of setts on this one.... I made an embossing tool to do the thousands of setts, but it still took along time! I didn't want the regular look of plasticard setts.

 

Drainage is required.... (courtesy of our little laser cutter)

 

The factory end taking shape.

the office building spanning the track is entirely home produced on the laser

 

The Garratt. Much of it is a Mercian kit with a scratch-built boiler, firebox and smokebox. much else was corrected during the build process.

 

Thank you Gents - I'm simply slow and persistent though.....

Four months ago I bought a laser cutter which has been the most extraordinary help in all things modelling.
This building had its walls made in 2mm MDF courtesy of the machine, the windows cut, and the fire-escape also laser cut.

 

The Windows are cut from 0.8mm ply



And even the gutter brackets were done on the machine ( from 0.8mm acrylic)

 

The fire escape on Denton Brook was also cut from 0.8mm ply (including the hand rails) which is surprisingly resilient. I decided to model the cast iron type with the little square holes in the treads, and much to my joy, the laser actually did it (with a little trial and error on the settings...) The holes actually are square, and about 0.7mm across. So many holes meant the cutting took ages......

My wife Diane, (who uses the laser for leatherwork, mostly) suggested I try making a smaller version -which I thought couldn't be done - but I tried anyway. I tried in Trotec (acrylic) as it needed to be 0.5mm thick, but I anticipated the impossibility of cutting clear holes in the stuff at that small size (the plastic has a tendency to re-melt in and needs to be pricked out) but after a bit of a brainstorm and experimentation, I got the machine to cut clear square holes about 0.4mm. This small one is 4mm scale, and was produced purely as an experiment, not for any railways I've got going...

 

SMR CHRIS wrote:

Thank you! Regarding the weathering, the most important thing I do to a loco, which makes all the difference to its appearance, is to sort the underlying paint finish.

Paint on a model (when you look at it closely) is always very bumpy and rough - and conventionally we then impose another finish (gloss, satin, Matt) on it by using varnish. For some years I've felt that this is the wrong way round, and so the first thing I do is flat the paint down with 2000 grit wet-and-dry (used wet) until the surface is truly flat. As you go through this process, you very quickly see how rough the paint actually is.

I then polish the surface back up, usually with a kitchen towel (paper being mildly abrasive) and sometimes helped with a very quick wipe of Duraglit silver polish (I don't tend to use T-Cut, as I find it a little coarse). You can vary the amount of polishing from 'dull' to show-room/ex-works. I then weather on top. But I never varnish........

 

Yes I certainly can do so, although they're not especially cheap - given the long cutting time.... (It's all them holes!)

Meanwhile, progress is being made on the mobile crane, whichever although not finished, is not far off. The servo operating the rear stabilisers has just failed, so now I've got the entire rear end in bits replacing the offending item with a slightly chunkier item!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfM4Lx6VJBI