Stephen Fay’s O gauge layouts and dioramas, Commission builds, personal builds and magazine articles

Painted up the carved areas and applied some backing plaster

 

A very productive day on Haskins Hill today, still plenty more to do yet. A wire in post fence will separate the Railways boundary from the field and forest, The large tree needs big leaf foliage added and I’ll add more scrub and bushes once I know the final tree placement,

There’s a few patches of ferns to add as well.

 

Another day and Haskins hill is getting bigger! I have to be able to dismantle it at the moment for storage so it may be a while before I can blend the bits in, I made up a very simple frame work for along the back and one of the Sonning boards was cut and screwed in place and a couple of trees posed. A pair of lineside buildings from Intentio arrived this morning and these have been built and the Skytrex stone wall also arrived so I have some painting to do.

 

Pictures with locos in usually get more attention! In this case it adds a good reference as to the size of the scenery surrounding it.
I wasn’t happy with yesterday’s efforts in that I mounted the top section of scenery horizontally, this morning I’ve rectified that and recut a new section and added a slope in, I think this looks much better and draws your eye up and the perception that Haskins hill Continues on rising. I’ve also painted up a section of slaters brick in engineers blue to match the tunnel mouth, this now ties in the new retaining wall with the tunnel mouth it’s self.

 

The first PWay hut completed
The second PWay hut is this rather nice cast concrete version again from Intentio designs and it’s 4mm little brother I built for a customer

 

A very rough mock up of Canton shed, checking clearances etc, Intentio models sent a PDF to print out and now the shed can be designed fully.

 

Adding some Moss to the damp areas of the cutting and some on the PWay hut

 

A little more done today on Westbourne Bridge including coal spills, puddles and weathering.

 

First track panels laid on St Stephen’s bank, trial fitting Teignmoor tramway underpass and the pill box.

 

Assembled 3 of the 5 boards today, finalising some of the base ground works so scenery can begin.

 

Doing a little scenic work today on the back end of board 3. The Pillbox has had a decade of growth since the end of hostilities and nature is fast taking over in amongst the timber forest. Below we have an area of natural woodland

 

Bank holiday modelling mornings!!
As is usually the case the next day I look and think what else is missing? So I’ve added a large MBR Scott’s pine plus a Birch plus my large home made tree ( I always intended on putting it there ). Plus added som extra static grasses. Still more to do In the way of fencing etc

 

I may have lost it ! I was unsure what to do about the underpass area, IE branch line etc, well I’ve made the decision and branch line it is & to make it more convincing I’ve added an additional board but as you can see this one bolts to the front of the centre section now making the layout a T shape. This will now be known as the Torcombe board and the Torcombe branch runs down to the coast similar to the Kingsbrisge branch, on its way back up to join the main line it follows a valley around Haskins hill to rejoin the main line. This will open up some lovely ( fingers crossed) photo opportunities but may make it harder to sell the layout when the time comes so this could end up as being a stand alone diorama or extender to be a layout in its self it will all depend on where it eventually ends up.
Plus I like to think differently than the traditional side on view of a model and I like the modular style a lot of American modellers take.

 

Combe End tunnel arrived from Invertrain, very nice clean plaster castings. I’ve also been doing a little on Teignton Lane which now extends over this board, sanded back the backing plaster sealed with PVA and rubbed in some das clay and ran a car over it to leave tire tracks.