Great Chesterford Junction Part Two

G`day Folks,
Another busy day for Gormo and the Missus, but in between various tasks and duties, I`ve managed to move a little further forward.
I`ve sorted out what I`m doing with the castle walls and grounds, and decided to commit and get on with it.
Since the last picture update, I`ve created four additional walls, all made easier when you have made an artistic decision on how things are going to look and where they fit in the scheme of things.
So this is it...the final arrangement. There is actually a walk through break in the low white wall at the back.....this joint is really derelict.





I then marked out where all the pieces fit and also added extra markings for big flag stones bordering the walls, and in some cases, dividing the cobbles.. A path outside the walls leading down the hill was also marked in.





First job is to set in the cobble stones, and to create them I have fitted a piece of Brass tube over the soldering iron tip. This is a bog standard 40 Watt iron from Jaycar, no longer my weapon of choice for soldering, so I`m happy to experiment with it. The business end of the brass tube has a slight crimp in it to give it an oval profile rather than a perfect circle......rocks are rarely perfectly round.
The idea is to hold the iron vertical above the work and then lightly touch the polystyrene to produce a little oval imprint in the surface.
Sounds tedious, but you can do a lot very quickly because you cannot dwell in the one spot, otherwise instead of cobbles you will be creating pot holes.
So you need to get into a rhythm and concentrate.




Then the lined areas that will sit under the walls were masked up prior to spraying, simply so I can find them again when I want to glue the walls to the base.





The area was then sprayed with various tones and afterwards the masking tape was removed





I then got to work with the chalk pastels adding more tones here and there. I will probably continue on with this until I`m happy to leave it.





A birds eye view of part of the courtyard




I have to spray the low walls yet , but that will be another day. Once they are done, all the walls will be glued into place and then I will be putting a plaster skin over the whole of the hill around the castle.
The castle is going to be called Ravencourt Castle. I arrived at this name by using letters from my own name with the exception of the " U "
It`s got a kind of spooky sound to it and the castle has a kind of spooky look to it.......so job done in that regard...
More as it happens
Gormo

 

G`day Folks,
Well Ravencourt Castle has been permanently fixed to it`s site.
The last of the walls were painted this morning and then weathered prior to installation.
There was an interesting development with my hot glue gun. I guess when I`ve used it before on polystyrene, it was a simple quick glue and push together without any issues, whereas this morning the gun was on for a much longer time and by the time I got to the last couple of sections of wall, the gun had obviously reached it`s full operating temperature and when hot glue was applied to the polystyrene, it carved a trench into it........logical, I suppose for anyone who had thought it through properly.......
Anyhow, I used Liquid Nails to fix the last couple of bits of wall and all is good.




























Then I got out the hot wire gun and shaped lift out section number two. I also established a meandering path base from the castle down to the right hand side of the scenery......not easy to see in this pic.





Then the whole lot was given a coat of plaster





So now we wait.....



More as it happens
Gormo

 

Thanks Gary,
Yes it will be good to green it up.
Another busy day today so there was only time to add some wash to the plaster.
Before the wash was done, the sections were fitted back into the layout to make sure they still fit alright.





Another joint to be concealed but it should not pose too much of a problem.





The Black and White test to see if everything looks OK.








And finally the wash......Burnt Umber and Black applied separately and randomly.
Yes it looks awful, but it will scrub up OK with some static grass etc. over the top of it


More as it happens
Gormo

 

G`day Folks,
After cutting my grass today, I found my way into the shed and started applying model grass ( static ) to the hill that I`ve been working on.
First thing though, was to make up some gravel for the footpath up to the castle. I found some chocolate coloured clay up in the back corner of my yard and put that through the coffee grinder to break it up into fine particles. I finished up with fine and also pieces the size of ballast.
Then put some shell grit ( for budgies ) through the grinder and separated it into fine and coarse. I blended the fine shell grit with the fine clay to produce a fine gravel in an off white colour.
The mix was applied to the scenery and by chance, some of the brown shows through in random patches to give a more natural look to the overall scene.
Once the path was done I started adding the grass.





Once you get away from the walls of the castle, the grass can be applied fairly quickly.
Note the strata layers of polystyrene





I decided to leave a good deal of the rock face exposed as it`s quite steep and it would be unlikely that grass would grow at that angle. Based on that decision the rock face had to be coloured to suit the stone in the castle. When the castle was built, they would have used local stone, so the rock face does not really match as in the pic below.




Finished eventually and placed the parts back into the railway.





Note the change of colour in the rock face.









A view from the far end of Bamford





We still need trees, bushes, weeds etc. etc. etc. and some fencing and probably some figures inspecting the castle and a retaining wall behind the signal box.




More as it happens
Gormo

 

Thanks Gary,
Yes this one should not be too difficult blend in........I will use the old put a tree in and step back and assess method....
Gormo

 

Thanks Phil,
Yes you wouldn`t think it could come out looking like it does based on what went before and underneath it.
In my head, I`m planning further along to the station area now, but must get some more scenery sorted out on the hill first.
The station is going to be shortened slightly to get rid of the long skinny curving end which forms the start of the platform. The current piece in place does not have a slope on the end and there is something about it that annoys me visually.
I originally planned to take 5 coach trains up to Bamford, but that looks weird when they pass through Little Bardfield as Little Bardfield can only accommodate 3 coaches at the platform with a loco sitting beyond the platform. So I think it will make more sense to run 3 coach services and that will tidy up the operations.
Anyway...still lots to do, but I like the way it`s coming along.
Gormo

 

Thanks Toto,
Yes the backgrounds work rather well I think.
They are actually two backgrounds combined, one laying over the other. The top layer creates the mid area where you can see the township down in the valley, and the base layer starts with the dark tree line just above the township and extends to the horizon.
Sometimes if you can`t get the scene you want, you`ve just got to make it up.....
Gormo

 

G`day Folks,
As I need to get out and buy some more Brown paint in a rattle can, and that`s what I need for trees and bushes, I decided to leap frog the build for a wee while and get some other stuff prepared.
First up I removed the long skinny end of the station platform and modified it before re-fitting it. It`s probably about a third of it`s original length now but I prefer the new profile. ( Sorry Murray ).
The platform will be re-surfaced as well and generally given a whole new look.





Then cut out a base section for the town to sit on. This has two purposes, it also forms the end of a bay platform so that we can have passenger services to the left and on the right a narrow platform that will function as a loading dock that will butt up to a low relief industrial building. At this point I think the industrial building will be Bamford Paper Mill.





Here is some pine timber substituting for the loading dock just to see how it may work out.





I`ve borrowed my removable goods shed from GCJ to see how that looks too. Just to the right of the goods shed, where the wagons are sitting in the siding, there will be a coal merchants building.
So the plan is coming together in my head at last.





There will be a wall across this area to stop the passengers leaping onto the tracks and there will be two industrial gates on the right to give street access to the loading dock





Overall.......a good day...
Gormo

 

G`day Gary,
Paper mill maybe...????......cattle dock maybe........or a Dairy.......the jury is still out on those options.
A murder would be a group of Crows, unfortunately Ravens in groups are generally called an " Unkindness " ......sometimes also called a " Conspiracy " or a " Congress " and in some cases a " Treachery ", "Rave ".....or a "Flock "....or even an " Unpleasantness "..........they seem to have a bad reputation.....
Some model Ravens would be good I suppose.........do you know where I could get some...????
Gormo

 

A little bit more done on the loading dock side.
I`ve cut one out from the same material as the town base.










Gormo

 

Good one..........Thanks Gary

 

G`day Folks,
I have been away interstate for about a week, consequently no progress to report on the railway, but I hope to get some more done through this week.....hopefully.
Gormo

 

G`day Folks,
I have been pondering the town background / set up for Bamford for a while now and no firm resolution has yet surfaced.
I am still juggling background buildings about and seeing what fits and what looks right and a bi-product of that is this experiment below, where I have glued a printed building to some card and set it about 5mm off the background. It is not permanently fixed, but rather just temporarily placed and can be removed at any time.
This particular image was supplied by Trevor Gibbs, who was a member on a previous forum that I belonged to. Trevor was kind enough to send me quite a few images during my early days of manipulating images to create back scenes.
The subject in question is the building between the two clumps of trees. Mounting it on card and setting it slightly off the background gives it a slight 3D effect.





Viewed from the left , the shadow created by the building gives away it`s actual depth




And from the right..... a similar effect.




This is simply an experiment which requires more thought, but it may be well worth following through with this.........we`ll see.
I never commit to things unless I`m sure about them
More as it happens
Gormo