2mm Modbury

[Ian Smith]

It seems a very long time since I did any work on the layout, certainly anything documented. The truth is that I have done very little modelling over the last few months, but now Christmas is out of the way it's time to try to progress things a little.

So today I've made a start on the Up platform - the Down platform was made and temporarily bolted in place for the Tutbury show last year.

To start with a base of 0.040" plasticard was cut roughly to size then a set of dividers used to scribe a line some 8mm away from the nearest rail. Because the plastic sheet was not large enough to do the whole platform length from one sheet a join was needed part way along which was reinforced with a further patch of 0.040".



Because I had some from years ago, I decided to use the Peco platform edging strips for the platform wall and slab edging. However because they are clearly made for N Gauge "thick sleeper and code 55/80 rail" the wall section is far to tall. To rectify this problem, almost 2mm needed to be removed from the base of the wall. Once most of the amount had been removed by cutting with a knife, the remainder was carefully filed/scraped away while utilising a "locked-off" micrometer to check that all of the strips were the same depth and consistent along their lengths. To produce the ramp, the edging slabs on one strip were carefully removed with a hard-backed razor blade before the wall section was tapered over some 50mm, and the edging slabs reinstated. The individual strips were then cemented together to produce a complete platform edge from ramp to ramp.



The next stage was to attach the complete platform edge to the curved 0.040" base (the lines between the platforms are on a 10'0" radius bend). Before the walls could be attached though, some platform surface support pieces were cut from more 0.040" ensuring that the ends that will abut the inside of the walls were at 90 degrees to ensure that the platform walls would be vertical.



So that I could ensure that my platform edges will be equidistant from the rails along their whole length I've turned up a little roller gauge, the end of which extends out about 5mm from the inside face of the rail nearest the platform. This distance might be a little bit too much but a check on the Buffalo that I'm building shows that I will need close to that if the fly cranks/coupling rods/crank pin washers are to clear the platform edges.



Finally, a couple of shots showing the progress at close of play today, the second illustrates quite nicely I think the gentle curve through the platforms.





Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

Over the last few days, as well as trying to progress the Down platform I have also been trying to make progress on the Main Station Building that will be sited on said platform.

This building will be based on the one that used to be at Bovey Tracey in Devon. The building is still in existence as a heritage centre, so while on a holiday to Devon a couple of years ago I took a few photographs, to supplement various historical ones that can be found on the internet and in the various books I have. Using those various photos I drew up a set of elevation plans in QCAD :




Using my plans, I began to cut out the walls for the structure from 0.040" plasticard taking into account that I will be cladding the whole building in 0.020" embossed stone plasticard, so end walls for example are cut out some 0.040" narrower than on the drawing to accommodate the cladding that will be applied to the front and rear walls.

The window and door openings were scribed onto the sheet with a sharp scalpel/dividers, and a dampened (grubby) finger rubbed over the scribed lines to highlight them. The openings were then carefully cut and filed to size - where more than one window of the same size appears in an elevation, the dividers were set to the size of the largest one and any slightly undersized ones were carefully filed until they matched.



I have now cut out all of the main walls, but before I being fitting them together I need to reduce the thickness around the window and door openings to about 0.020" so that when the windows are fitted behind them they will not be set too far back into the wall. To do this I intend to mill a rebate around each reveal before the cladding begins.



Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

A little more progress on the Main Station Building...

As alluded to in the previous post, because the building is going to be clad in embossed stone plasticard which is 0.020" thick, adding this to the outside of the 0.040" main structure walls will mean that the windows and doors will be recessed some 0.060" (1.5mm or a scale 9"). I feel that this will be too much, so the area around each window/door reveal was milled away to give a roughly 0.020" deep recess in the main structure walls :


A few of the walls after cleaning off the "rag" caused by milling (a bit of a scrub with a fibre glass pencil) :



The main walls assembled (although the end extensions haven't been fixed to the main structure yet as I need to add the flat roofs to these before I fit them in place) :


Platform side


Non-platform side

Once the end extensions have been fixed in place, the next stage will be to fit the quoins around the wall corners, the stones in the window/door reveals and the plinths around the foot of the walls before the embossed stonework is fretted to fit between all of these - that'll keep me quiet for an hour or two I also need to cut and fit the internal walls between the waiting room/ booking hall and office.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

A little more work on the Main Station Building...

The plinths have been added around the building from strips of 0.020", this is simply to build up the depth of the plinth as they will be clad in further strips of 0.020" embossed stone. Before adding the corbels around the tops of the extension walls, lines were scribed parallel to the wall tops with the aid of dividers. The corbels themselves are built up with strips of 0.030" and 0.020". I felt that the thickness of the wall top wasn't quite enough above the corbels so added individual stones from more 0.020"and once fully hardened, the mortar lines around the corbelling was chopped out with a sharp scalpel.



The quoin stones around the wall corners on the extensions were tackled next. However, before the quoin stones could be added around the corners, dividers were used to scribe a pair of lines to delineate the edges of the stones using the corner vertical for the datum (the scribed lines on one side need to be slightly further away from the edge to take account of the 0.020" strips used for the quoin stones). Individual over-length quoin stones were then secured to one side of the corner using those scribed lines and left to dry overnight. Once fully dry, the excess was trimmed back to the edge of the wall vertical and further individual quoin stones added on the other side of the corner (once these were fully dry the excess was removed again to give the illusion of full stones at the corner). While adding these, similar sized individual stones were added around the door reveals.



To form the arch stones around the tops of the doorways, a patch of 0.020" was cut to be a snug fit within the quoins and the inside of the arch carved and filed in this patch to match the existing arch in the main wall. Once the inside had been finished, the patch was removed and dividers were used again to scribe the outside edge of the arch stones parallel to in inner arch. The excess around the arch was chopped away and neatened with a little filing before mortar lines were cut out and the complete stone arch fitted in place.



The window surround stones in the extensions were formed in the same way as the door arches - patches of 0.020" cut to fit between plinth, corbel and quoins and then cut, carved and filed to match the window reveal in the main walls.



Once the patch had a correct sized window in it, it was removed and lines scribed to delineate the surrounding stonework, including the sill and the arch.



The excess was simply cut away to leave a stone window surround that could be added around the window in the main wall.



Embossed stonework was then cut to size and fitted around the windows. I found it easier to do this in two pieces, making the join halfway across the window reveal. hopefully, the following images will illustrate.





Finally a photo of the "finished" extension housing the Parcels Office and Coal Store. Because the areas of plain wall between and around the double doors in the end wall were so small, I decided to cut individual stones from 0.020" plain plasticard in lieu of embossed plasticard for these tiny areas.



With the end extensions "finished" the next phase will be to perform the same operations on the walls of the main central section of the building. This will be done in exactly the same manner as described but I have no doubt will take somewhat longer.

Ian

 

[Steve Cook]

Superb piece of work Ian
Having had a small dabble in 2mm before returning the relative comfort of the larger scales, I'm very impressed with what you are achieving.
More power to your elbow!
Steve

 

[Ian Smith]

Over the last couple of weeks further progress has been made on the station building for Modbury. With the end extensions complete, strips of 0.020" were added around the main part of the building to pack out the plinths at the feet of the walls, and the corbeling was built up along the tops of the long walls wrapping a few mm around the ends from further strips of 0.020" and 0.040". These were all added over length, and once the solvent had fully dried were cut and filed back to give invisible joints.


The embossed stonework was then tackled on the ends of the main building before the end extensions could be fixed in place. The embossed plastic sheet being cut to fit between the previously added quoins, and corbels. I found this far easier to do in smaller sections than trying to fret it all out from a single piece.




Once the embossed stonework had been added to the ends of the main part of the building the end extensions were secured in place. However, before I secured the end extensions I had a bit of a re-think on their roofs! I have no idea what the roofs of these extensions were actually covered in, so I decided to remove the initially fitted flat piece of plastic that I had built the walls up around and substitute it with a slightly sloping piece that had some 0.010" square strips added to it to represent a lead covered roof. This sloping section stops 1mm short of the back wall to provide an internal gutter. A hole drilled through the back wall and into this gutter will eventually lead to carved conductor head at the top of the drain pipe that I will add after the walls have been painted.

The stone window and door reveals of the main building were done in the same fashion as those on the extensions - a piece of 0.020" was cut to fit between the quoins/plinth/corbel, and the windows and door ways replicated onto this blank. The stonework surrounding these reveals was scribed and cut out before the individual stone reveals were added around the reveals in the main wall.


Once the window and door reveals were in place it was "simply" a matter of fretting out embossed plastic sheet to fit around the stonework of these, marquetry fashion.


With all of the walls complete, a start was made on the roof of the main part of the building. The barge boards at the ends of the roof appear to be some 9" or so deep, so in building the model I had taken this into account making the walls the right height to allow a 0.060" thick roof to sit directly on top of the walls. Each half of the roof was cut to size and a suitable angle scraped along the edges so that they butted together at the apex and had vertical soffits. Further pieces of 0.060" were cut to match the angle of the roof apex, and these were secured to be an interference fit between the end walls.


The lower ends of the barge boards have a "squared off" shape to them, so small oversize pieces of 0.060" were cut to fit around the corbels that wrap around the building end and secured to the underside of the roof.


Once these were fully dry (left until the following day), they were carefully cut, filed and sanded to shape to provide the "squared off" ends that I was trying to replicate.


With the main section of roof now complete, the next stage will be to add the bits that will form the underside of the porch on the approach side of the building. This will also need to include the wooden supports for the porch. Additionally, the gutters will be formed and added to the soffits before the roof gets its slate covering, but that will have to wait until I can work out how to manufacture and fit the squat octagonal chimneys.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

Since the last instalment of the main station building build, I have been doing various other things for Modbury :

• Re-painting all of the baulks on the track with a wash of thinned Precision Paints Track Colour (Weathered Sleepers) as I felt that the brown colour initially used was far too stark.
• Removing the "Simpson Springs" that I had fitted to the leading wheel of my Metro Tank, and replacing with a top-acting wiper of copper/beryllium strip which bears on both the leading wheels and the leading drivers.
• Building an add-on box to the control panel which houses a press to make switch and a multi-way selector switch for the various uncoupler electro-magnets to replace the push to make switches along the front of the layout.

But back to the Station Building ...

The canopy at the rear of the building is an extension of the main roof, so the underside was boxed in with 0.020" plascticard and stone projections added to the wall. The actual supports for the canopy were arcs of timber and I originally thought that I could form these from 0.040" square strip bent to shape. However, despite warming the strip I found that it had a tendency to fracture slightly and refused to hold the tight bend required. After a quick re-think I decided to form the supports from 3 0.010" strips laminated together, the laminating being done in situ.


The next operation was to build up the chimneys. The bases were formed from solid plastic with a V filed in them to fit over the apex of the roof. These then had 0.020" plastic added around them which subsequently had stonework carved into them.


The chimneys themselves were octagonal in shape, so some 3mm square plastic rod had it's corners scraped off to provide the octagonal shape required before being cut to length for each of the 3 individual chimneys. These embryonic chimneys then had small pieces of 0.010" strip added around the tops to give the decorative fatter top lip. These pieces were added over length and when fully dry were cut back to size and the missing one or two added afterwards (it was impossible to secure all 8 in one go with them being over-length).


The gutters were formed in my usual way of gouging a 0.9mm trough near the edge of a sheet of 0.030" plastic, then scraping the under-side away to form a "half-gutter". The other side was cut off square so that it could be secured to the soffits. The exposed end of any gutters being filed to a half-round section for the end couple of mm of the gutter. Although not shown in the next photo, the very ends of the gutters have 0.005" capping pieces welded on and trimmed back to size once fully dry.


All of the stonework of the building was painted in a mortar colour, and once dry had various shades of grey and occasional fleck of red dry brushed to pick out the individual stones.


The next stage was to get the glaziers in... On the smaller back windows I decided to use a bow pen to draw the glazing bars but on the larger windows I've skrawked the glazing bars into the clear plastic, then filled them with chocolate paint. Once the paint had dried for a few minutes several cotton buds were used to buff the paint of the surface of the glazing but leave it in the grooves.




The window frames themselves were fretted out of 0.005" plastic sheet, and painted chocolate.




Once all of the paint was fully dry, the frames and the glazing were united with canopy glue.




And once the glue had dried the individual windows were fitted into the recesses in the back of the walls with more canopy glue. (The roof sub-section has just been plonked on top of the walls for the next photo, and will only be glued in place once the interiors have been fitted).


I still have the toilet windows in the end extension and the windows on the platform side to fit, and also the doors all need to be made and fitted, but am feeling quite encouraged by the way that the building is coming along.

Ian

 

[Heather Kay]

 

[Peter Insole]

Absolutely superb work!

I'd be uneasy about gluing the roof on though. What would happen if one of those delightful windows got accidentally knocked in, or a flippin' fleck of dust appears and adheres in an awkwardly visible place (as they are frustratingly wont to do)?

In the past I have used the chimneys, with rods threaded at the ends, passing down to the floor to firmly clamp the roof on.

Future emergency access assured!

Pete.

 

[Ian Smith]

Seems some time since the last update, but I've not been completely idle!

The main station building is now pretty much complete (just one down pipe on the rear of the building and the lead flashing around the chimney stacks to do).

Since the last instalment, which only had the windows fitted, the doors have been fretted from more 0.005", and fixed to the glazing material with canopy glue. The arched frames for the glazing above the parcels and coal store doors was added separately.


The double doors for the entrance to the booking hall/general waiting room were constructed as a closed pair.


The double doors on the platform (viewing) side, I decided to model as open. This meant fretting out two individual doors, which were attached to pre-folded glazing. In this instance, the door frame was painted and attached within the building first, and once set, the doors were painted and fitted behind the frame (before they were fitted, simple door knobs were added from short lengths of 0.45mm brass rod - I defy anyone to notice that they just spigots of brass wire poking out and not fully formed door knobs in 2mm scale!)


I should add that any paint that strayed onto the glazing was easily removed with the point of a cocktail stick.

In parallel with doing the glazing, I was also slating the roof. The slate strips were drawn up in CAD (Countess size), with double width ones at the gable end. A feint line half way up was also included to aid with having a consistent overlap and keeping the rows parallel. The CAD file was printed out on an A4 sized self-adhesive label, and the individual strips carefully cut out. Before fitting to the roof, each slate was half-separated (i.e. cut from the bottom up to the feint guide line).


Down pipes have been bent up from 0.5mm phosphor-bronze wire. Fixings being formed from simple twists of single strands from multi-stand cable (about 0.2mm dia.) Effectively, a strand was doubled over, the tail ends trapped in a pin vice, a piece of the PB wire passed into the loop, and the pin vice spun until the tails break off (always happens at the pin vice jaws).


These fixings were soldered in place on the down pipe by suspending the down pipe in such a fashion so that the fixings hang down on what will be the wall side of the down pipe. Gravity helps to keep them in the right place and at 90 degrees to the bend in the pipe.


Once made, the down pipes were attached to the building by drilling holes through the walls in the relevant places for the fixings. The two rain water hoppers on the rear of the end extensions were carved from 0.060" plastic, and once hollowed out were given a backing of 0.010" and fitted to the tops of the down pipes. All of the down pipes were painted in situ, a small brush and a steady hand being quite useful, but a slip of paper behind the pipe can also help reduce the chance of slipping and applying paint to the wall! In the event that any paint does get on the wall (I managed to do all mine without), a brush moistened with thinners will lift the spilt paint quite easily so long as its not allowed to dry too much.

Most Victorian/Edwardian station buildings always seem festooned with enamel signs. I found some suitable ones for c1906 online (a website that not only has images of the signs but also rough date and importantly the size of the sign). Some of these were printed on an inkjet (having reduced them to scale size, obviously). The backing of the photo paper was carefully removed to thin the signs a little, the edges and back were touched with a rust coloured felt tip to disguise the stark white cut edge. Before the signs were added to the building, battens of 0.015" x 0.010" plastic strip were fixed to the walls (after painting them) as the signs were invariably attached to battens on the prototype.

The company notice boards (which were also attached to the battens) were made up by attaching strips of 0.015" x 0.010" around a backing of 0.005" (the strip being secured vertically around the perimeter of the 0.005" back board). Once complete these were painted chocolate, and notices from more self adhesive label attached. The notices themselves were simply made from dots of ink from a rotting pen with a 0.1mm nib. Once fully dry these notices were toned down by giving them a wipe with a brush that had been dipped onto a used tea bag to take away the stark white of the self-adhesive label.


WT won't allow more than 15 images in a single post, so images of the finished building can be seen below...

Thanks for reading.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

Images of the completed building that couldn't be put in the previous post...







And one final one showing the rather rudimentary internal detailing :


That's all for now. I can now move on to finishing the platforms and the bedding them into the surrounding scenery.

Thanks for reading.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

Despite it being particularly warm out in the workshop/railway room, I have made a little progress on Modbury. A few trees have been made and have been installed in my wood (there are now some 10 trees in an area about 6"x3"). These are all twisted copper wire, and have the finer branches and twiggy bits from Woodland Scenics "Polyfiber". The polyfiber is cut into finger nail sized pieces which are then teased out and fixed to the ends of the wire with PVA. Once the PVA has dried, the whole tree is sprayed with primer, this allows the straggly bits of polyfiber to be seen and snipped off with nail scissors. After this the tree is sprayed with a grey-brown before the flock is attached with cheap hairspray. A final spray with matt varnish seals the flock in place (after any flock stuck to the trunk and branches is carefully brushed off).

Here are some photos to illustrate the progress to date (the board was brought out to use natural light for these) :






As can be seen I still have some way to go!

Progress has been made on the other board too. The up platform has been made and installed (unfortunately I forgot to take any photos). Getting this platform made and in place has allowed significant progress in the area behind the station building - the topography could be finalised, and with the lie of the land built up and carved to shape. I've even managed to apply the static grass around the station approach. Hopefully, I'll get around to taking some more photos tomorrow of this area.

Ian

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

It really looks like a late Victorian scene with stark areas of green representing the reclamation by nature of the scars left by the building of the railway .

We complain today about new motorways leaving scars across the landscape but we forget the railways did (and still do) the same when built.

 

[Ian Smith]

Over the last couple of weeks progress has been pretty good - it needs to be since Modbury is booked in for it's first public outing at the Swindon Railway Festival at the Steam museum in September!

So, the Up platform has been built and installed. As is usual for me, this is of plasticard construction - I've used Peco stone platform edging for the face, although a couple of mm had to be shorn off the bottom edge to lower it enough for a 2mm scale height platform (as one would expect as it is marketed to be used with Peco track with its thick sleepers and massive height rail). The top surface is 0.030", and the rear edge along the goods shed road I've made some strips of blue brick paviours which are set above a platform face of slaters embossed stone.

For the area around the building itself, I shied away from blue brick paviours, and instead skrawked 3'x2' stone slabs in 0.040". The area away from the slabbed section were painted with some black paint with polyfilla sieved onto it, and once dry the excess was removed and the whole then painted grey (I wasn't happy with the colour in the "natural" state), and was followed by a weathering of pastel chalks. The stone slabs around the building were painted individually in a "sandy grey" (or my take on such a shade) as that is what is described in the "Great Western Way" for this surface. The main station building simply sits in a hole in the slabbed area.

With the platform screwed into place (from below), the topography behind the building (including the station forecourt) was built up (or rather carved out of the previously laid insulation foam). Any areas that needed to be filled or added to was done with DAS air-dry clay. Before the application of static grass, the road surface was added with more paint and polyfilla. As with the platform surface, the colouring was blended in with more chalk pastels.

With the up platform in place, the down platform was similarly finally screwed down - I made this platform and building about 12 months ago so it is quite satisfying to finally get it installed. To minimise the chance of inflicting damage on these pre-built items I decided to work from the back of the layout forwards (with the high backscene in place, work on the rear of the scene inevitably means leaning over whatever is in front). Again the ground behind the down platform was made good with DAS.

Finally, the platform fencing has been installed. This is the Ratio product, and was glued together to suit the various locations before installation. The fitting itself was facilitated by super-gluing short lengths of 0.3mm brass wire next to the posts, these "pegs" were glued in place in the platform surface. It should be added that the fencing was painted before installation. I've also added a couple of running-in boards on each platform. These were inkjet printed onto photo paper, and fitted to posts of 1mm square brass (the bottom of each post being turned to provide a round spigot to enable an easy fit into the platform surface, the tops being filed to a flattened pyramid shape).

As well as the platforms and surrounding environs looking somewhat more complete, I've also installed the signal box a few inches beyond the end of the down platform.

To finish, some photos ...


Towards Plymouth. A busy moment at Modbury, a down goods waits in the platform road while an up passenger occupies the up platform.


Looking across the Plymouth end of the platforms.


With the up passenger departed, the down goods awaits the road west.

Hopefully in the next week or two I can finally complete and install the goods shed - since this was the first building I started, it really is about time I got it finished!! Once that's done, a cattle dock needs to be made so I can finish the groundwork in the goods yard.

Ian

 

[adrian]

That is really coming together now with those buildings in place.

 

[Ian Smith]

That is really coming together now with those buildings in place.

Adrian,
Thank you, only the signal box and small building on the down platform are fixed at the moment. I've still got to put some lighting in the main building, so that is merely slotted into its hole in the up platform and the roof only clips on at the moment. Obviously the goods shed still needs finishing before that can be secured, but I do feel like I'm making good progress!

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

Just another couple of photos of the current state of Modbury. These were taken on my phone the other day so may not be brilliant quality but they do allow a sort of eye level view (if you're about 11mm high)


A view through the road over bridge at the Plymouth end of the station (looking towards Newton Abbot). Please forgive the background, the other scenic board is on my workbench while I'm adding trees to the wood.


A view towards Plymouth. Luckily for the cameraman the other baseboard being on the workbench means that he's unlikely to get taken unawares by a down train

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

Over the last couple of weeks I've finally built and installed the last posted signal on Modbury. This one is the Up Advanced Starter and Shunt Ahead signal sited on the embankment. It has been built to my usual recipe : a milled post, a cut-off 4mm handrail knob for the finial ball, and various MSE components for the arms, ladder, balance weights, etc. In addition, this signal makes use of a custom etch shunt ahead arm and "S", and of course various bits of wire and tube to allow the whole thing to function and look like a signal.

Unfortunately, I ended up having to solder the balance weight arms solid on this one (the other signals all have moving balance weight arms) because the two drive rods kept interfering with each other at the balance arm connections - after all the wire (rod) is simply bent through 90 degrees to pass through these rather than a forked joint as per prototype! So the drive rods on this signal pass straight through the baseboard to the rocking pivot below the board. This pivot has end stops (it passes into a hole drilled/filed in the U channel below board which limits the throw). Hopefully this can be seen in the photos below.


Up Advanced Starter / Shunt Ahead signal sited on embankment (along with Down Home)


Side view to show the ladder, platform and handrails


The under-board pivot arrangement - hopefully it's possible to see how the pivot arm movement is being limited by it passing into a hole in the U channel


Servo control - a pivot in the servo arm (horn) allows the rotating motion of the servo arm to be transmitted into a linear push/pull motion. This push pull is applied to the signal pivot via an angle crank, using thin guitar wire to absorb any excess servo throw


Another view of same


The servo control boards - one for each signal. The pre-set potentiometers allow easy control of the endpoints of the servo throw and are switched in/out with the relay.

I still have to cover the signal base with ballast.

Ian

 

[Ian Smith]

In addition to the signal described above, I've also been trying to progress the Goods Shed a little more - actually to get the roof complete! There's still quite a bit still to do - down pipes, sliding doors, and paint the chimney pot (which was added part way through taking these photos).


View of Goods Shed in its location


Closer view of Goods Shed - The handrail on the steps is simply soldered up from fine wire in a jig


View through the station towards Plymouth


View through the station towards Plymouth


View through the station towards Plymouth


A view that the public can't see (hence the backing board held in place to hide the detritus behind the signal box)

Thank you for looking

Ian

 

[adrian]

Congratulations, that's all coming together rather nicely. Funnily enough I was thinking about this earlier in the week as on our holidays round the south west we drove from Lands End via Plymouth to Slapton Sands. So we ended up driving through Modbury and one eye was on the road and the other was trying to spot any signs of the railway!