Mt Yatala

Hoists are now painted and grimed up. Swapped out the VB and replaced it with a Saab 900 and a Nissan Prairie.

Time to turn my focus away from this build for a while as my next exhibition is in one month's time now, and I need to spend some more time on it.
Cheers
Tony

 

Things move very slowly on the layout here, but there have been other things, exhibiting one of my other layouts in August, organising a Lego exhibition in September and building a potting shed for my wife. But this weekend I got a serious amount of work done.
Knowing that I had some serious time available I decided to make the legs for the fiddle yard. I designed it to my tried and true method, but with the improvement of using t-nuts from the beginning, instead of coach bolts and loose nuts.
First step was to make the upright part of the legs in the usual L pattern. These are 42*19mm section and glued and nailed together.

Then assembly with the yard on top, the yard in hinged in the middle.

The legs get set up first, then the folded up yard gets placed on one end, then is unfolded to cover the whole thing. Here it is with the legs set up and yard folded up.

The other time consuming task this weekend was to do the tuck pointing on the station building.
After some studying of lots of methods, and experimenting on practice pieces, I settled on Gormo's method from a shed video from a few years back. This used Selleys No More Gaps with a bit of paint added, in my case yellow oxide, a tiny bit of paint was all that was needed.
A summary of the method is to dip your finger in the gap filler and rub it in all over a small section of brickwork. Then, using a dry cloth (an old thin sock) rub the excess off. Once this is done get another old sock and lightly wet it, rub it until it looks the way you want.

Pretty happy with the results, a little tidy up is still needed.
Cheers
Tony

 

Will call the servo finished for now.

All main parts of the buildings are done. Will need to assemble the signs once in place and put various other signs and details on it, such as bait freezer, pumps, oil merchandiser and the like.
Will weather the roof later and the forecourt when placed next to the road. Need to do something else with the toilet doors, they haven't really turned out like i wanted.
Next on the list is finish the station, 2 more houses, church hall and the hire shop.
Cheers
Tony

 

One of the best pieces of advice in this hobby to me comes from Gormo, to paraphrase it: no rush, it's a lifetime hobby. That certainly rings true with me.
I've got the station to a nice point to photograph, I have added the AM models corbels from Casula Hobbies, they are a huge leap over the lumps that came with the kit. Window frames are now in, along with the window eyebrows and sills.
I have made the first decorative trim under one of the windows. The sills and trim are not parts that come with the kit. I have got the dimensions I needed for them from our laser scan survey of a Sydney station a few years back
I have wanted to do the colours as it would have been when I was very small and had just started taking an interest in things in the world around me. I remember that shortly after this early memory they changed the colour scheme, to something I didn't like. Not too sure on the colours, and there are very few colour images of station buildings at this time. Have to remember that in the age of film cameras and external flash guns is that people did not tend to "waste" film on things like a close up of the building, not when there was a train.
Also the light under the canopy would have been challenging, not many people carried a flash gun just in case then.
So maybe this is how I want to remember it.

Cheers
Tony

 

Time to modify another Rix kit, the same one but to make a different result.
The type of house is similar to houses all over the lower Hunter Valley, commonly seen in Waratah, Georgetown and Cessnock for a few examples. The main distinguishing feature is the large gable at the front, i have copied the roof pitch from these houses and kept the other proportions with the kit, as the windows are moulded into the walls. I could have scratch-built the whole thing, but these windows are close enough for my needs and the separate windows that i have tracked down aren't quite right in my opinion.

Still working on the station, but i had an opportunity yesterday to put in some decent time on the layout, which meant the starting of a building was a good idea.
Cheers
Tony

 

Getting a little further on the house. Have now assembled the porch, using the parts from the kit in a very different way to how the manufacturer had intended. Luckily they give you more pieces that you need to build the one in their picture. I had to make a new floor though, as the new one is longer than the one on the box. I made this out of 2mm thick styrene, scored it to be like floorboards, then painted with a Model Master colour simply called "wood" then over the top with a Valejo colour called "woodgrain" which is a bit of a dark wash, was happy with that for floorboards.
Also put in a false ceiling for the porch and installed a light, another piece cut off one of those battery operated stiff wire decorative light sets. Will have to put a resistor on before use.
Also installed some roof rafters, not to code, but no-one will see them.

And a look at the light, haven't decided if I'm going to use it yet, but these lights are very cheap and it would be much harder to install it here after the roof goes on.

Cheers
Tony

 

Calling this done until ready to place, where I will weather it, add window glass and curtains and guttering.

Might just build another, as this type of house often appears with others.
Cheers
Tony