Great Chesterford Junction Part Two

G`day Folks,
Based on helpful suggestions and my own gut feelings, I have added some advertising signs to the back walls of the two terrace buildings.
We have here a mixture of railway posters and advertising signs, suitably dealt with to give the impression of age. This was reasonably easy with the advertising signs which are suitably aged or weathered as downloaded from the internet.
For anyone interested, if you search for " ghost signs " you will be offered a selection of advertising signs painted on brick walls.
Railway posters are a different kettle of fish because they usually are presented in almost pristine condition.





The totem for Bamford was going on there anyway, so the rest is just embellishment.
All these signs are printed onto the brick paper.





I also printed some signs onto the back of the smaller terrace and here it is being restrained as the glue sets.





As I said, the railway posters are usually in pristine condition, so to age them and give the impression that they may have been painted onto the brick wall, I use my Drawing program , LibreDraw.
When you load an image into this program, there is a facility whereby you can adjust the image`s transparency ,and also it`s contrast and brightness. So by adjusting the transparency, you will gradually see the image fading away and the bricks behind it becoming more prominent.
That`s all well and good, but an image made evenly transparent is not really representative of an aged poster painted on a brick wall.
To add further distress to the image, I use a colour replacer, also to be found in LibreDraw. By clicking on any colour in the image, and selecting it, you can determine how much transparency you want to give that particular colour. The result is that you can remove or partially remove sections of the image to imply that it has worn away.
This is very much the case in the Southern Railway image below.





So folks, that`s the blank brick wall problem solved and now to keep going and get some more done.

Gormo

 

A couple of pics back on the railway.









Gormo

 

G`day Folks,
I`m just doing some experiments with guttering, well mainly down pipes.....
As the long terraces have quite a substantial roof area, I have assumed the building would need some significant, almost industrial type of down piping, to confidently cope with the volume of water that could be produced from that roof surface area.
Some little while back, Chris M from this forum put up a suggestion that cable ties could be used to simulate these sorts of industrial down pipes used on industrial buildings.
That suggestion was duly noted in the old grey matter for later use, and here we are at that point now.
So I have cut the head off the cable tie. Straightened some wire and flattened one end of it with hammer and vice and then slid the flattened end of the wire into the cable tie head and Super glued it in place.
At the moment this is a rough attempt and a bit of a dogs breakfast to look at, however with a little refinement and some black paint, I think it will work quite well butted up under some guttering.




Gormo

 

Okey Dokey....
Got into some down pipes this afternoon and fitted them to the large building.
I stayed with the cable tie method and pushed ahead with creating some down pipes.
Once they are blackened, they become one unit.
Normally I would paint the guttering and down pipes, however this time I went down a different route.
This time I used what we call here in Oz ......a Texta.....possibly overseas, a better description would be a large felt tipped pen with a chisel type of tip.
It goes on well over the metal parts, which are umbrella struts for the guttering and galvanized wire for the down pipes. It also covers the plastic from the cable ties and masking tape used for pipe joints very well.
The bonus being that it dries very quickly........seconds.??





I still have to do short lengths of guttering for the annexes yet, and of course there is the other smaller building to be done as well.
This pic below shows the slight taper on the cable tie head towards the bottom, which I think looks appropriate.
As I mentioned in the previous post, this idea came from Chris M......thanks Chris.





The down pipes are set off centre between the windows to allow for a brick dividing wall to be placed in here.





And finally, the cruel close up





Gormo

 

G`day Chris,
Thanks for your comments.
Cardboard structures can be quite strong and long lasting , even in less than ideal conditions.
The card I am using is mounting board card, normally used by picture framers and available from art shops.
I get mine from an art shop up in Springwood, where we are regular visitors.
The mounting board is generally thicker than most commercial card kits, therefore it`s strength is increased. Most card buildings start out a little flimsy until you start adding the elements and bracing, and as they progress towards completion, you can feel the rigidity and strength increasing.
I only ever use PVA to glue these projects together, and once set it`s pretty much done and dusted for many, many years.
The building in post #2641 has a 1.25kg weight on it, however the load is taken up by the side walls, which are in compression.
So the building is strong, generally, as long as you are careful about where you apply the stress to it.
Gormo

 

G`day Folks,
The end is near for the terrace build.
Progress has been made over the last couple of days, to the extent where on the large building, all I need now is chimney tops and chimney pots.
The small building requires brick fences, gates, chimney tops and chimney pots.....hopefully I will finish the whole project soon, although a trip away looms and time is getting tight......
So, guttering and down pipes have also been fitted to the annexes on both buildings, so both buildings are finished with guttering now.









Then moved onto adding the dividing brick walls and gates. The walls are capped with grey ridge capping from Scalescenes, as supplied with the roof slates.





The gates were drawn up in LibreDraw, drawn double length and folded over the top of the gate. It`s hard to get a good crisp fold on the top of the gate, but it is what it is.?





Then the back walls were added in between the gates
















These back walls are going to have gardens butting up to them, so there will be plants and bushes of all description softening the scene and greening the space between the buildings and the rail yard.
I would also like to have a footbridge connecting this side of the tracks to the station platform. Anyway the images are starting to form in my mind......all I have to do is build it.........
Gormo

 

G`day Folks,
Completion of the build is tantalizingly close.
Today I designed the chimney tops in LibreDraw.
I fiddled with the colour a couple of times until I set up this grey gradient below, which seemed to compliment the roof. You can use the gradient tool in LibreDraw to transition from one colour to the next and adjust it accordingly as well.
These things will be dusted with pastel powder anyway, but I just needed to be happy with the base colour. It may not be totally correct, but tell someone who cares.....




Because these chimneys are going to be in a particularly vulnerable position, at the front of the baseboard, I decided to punch out some holes in the card to the exact diameter of the rivets that I will be using as chimney pots. Normally I would just glue the chimney pots on top of the chimney top, but this method, which allows the rivets to be push fitted to the chimney tops, will be glued as well and may add some extra strength to combat those random knocks and blows...??
The jury is out on this one and only time will tell if it is to be successful.
To punch the holes, I find a nail of the correct diameter, cut off it`s head ( sounds awful ), and then grind the headless end of the nail flat. The pointy end of the nail is then put in my drill press so that i can then use the drill press like a punch, by lowering the nail down, flat end first, to penetrate the card. The card is placed at the correct distance against a fence so that I can punch it accurately each time.
Speaking of drill presses, I also lock the rivets into the drill press to turn the heads down with a file, held against the head whilst the rivet is revolving.
It`s not absolutely accurate, but if you hold your tongue to the left side of your mouth, and get an intense look of concentration on your face, it usually turns out OK....
Below are the turned rivets, now with two coats of acrylic on them, drying in the air conditioned comfort of Gormo`s back room at Gormo HQ.
I suspect they will be dry enough this evening to be fitted to the chimney tops.





Gormo..........don`t forget to run your trains,.....regular running = less track cleaning...

 

Chimeys done....












Just the rear walls on the small building to be done now

Gormo .....don`t forget to run your trains,.....regular running = less track cleaning...

 

Thanks Richard......
Well here we are folks, finally finished...
The smaller of the two terraces was finished this afternoon. Walls and gates were added,





The terrace to the right is considerably more generous with it`s accommodation and also boasts a much larger yard. Just to be different this yard has double gates across a wider access, so it may even be possible to place a vehicle in this yard.








Of course, then it was time to take the buildings out to the shed and plant them where they are supposed to be planted.





It looks a bit rough around here at the moment but time and a bit of scenic work will tame this sparse landscape.















The Bamford fault line will be covered by a road at some stage




So that`s it folks.....another project bites the dust and now it`s time to move onto something new.

Gormo .....don`t forget to run your trains,.....regular running = less track cleaning...

 

Thanks Phil,
I think visually, it`s hard to look past this structure sitting out there all on it`s lonesome in the boondocks there at Bamford.
It poses the question.....does it look right?.....well probably not at the moment because the rest of Bamford is undeveloped at this stage, and also the building is not sited in a position that we normally use to any great extent in model railways. We usually have the low stuff at the baseboard edge and the high stuff up against the backscene.
I think as the rest of Bamford grows up around this structure, it will start to blend into the background and not dominate the scene.
Thank you for your comments and I`m glad you like the results of the project...
Gormo .....don`t forget to run your trains,.....regular running = less track cleaning...

 

Thanks Chris,
The chimney stack method was learned from Scalescenes kits. That`s a method they use.
The signs take some fiddling, resizing and adjusting transparency etc.....but certainly worth a go.
Gormo .....don`t forget to run your trains,.....regular running = less track cleaning..

 

The latest YouTube update for GCJ



Gormo .....don`t forget to run your trains,.....regular running = less track cleaning..

 

Thanks guys......
I may get some more modelling done sooner than I thought.
By this time today, I should have been in Yamba in northern NSW, en-route to visit my daughter in Queensland for her birthday.
However, my wife Julie, was feeling a bit unwell last Saturday and consequently has tested positive for Covid 19.
So we are to stay at home for at least seven days and Julie is not allowed out after that unless she has no symptoms whatsoever.
So far.....fingers crossed.......I am still negative.....I did a rapid antigen test only an hour ago.
I think the logical and safest approach to our trip, is to wait now at least fourteen days, just in case it takes that long to get me.
Maybe it won`t, but that`s the great unknown at the moment.
At least Julie is starting to feel a little better and I think she will be fine by the end of the seven day period.....so that`s good....
We are both fully vaccinated, even had our fourth ( booster )shot and the flu shot. We can`t do anymore than that and just follow good hygiene practice at home.
Gormo .....don`t forget to run your trains,.....regular running = less track cleaning..