Neil's HO workbench - Been back to Belgium

[Yorkshire Dave]

The water look good Neil.

Nice to see the water rippled (whether by accident or design) as if it has been caught by the breeze. Much better than the millponds usually seen.

 

[Neil]

The ripples were designed but by no means certain, given the troubled development of the water.

 

[Neil]

Well the Mercedes has been through the paint shop and gone all green, apart from those bits which aren't.

 

[Neil]

Now largely stuck together again. Still some work to do though, most obviously around the front wheel arches but also the wheels themselves need tweaking to sit better.

 

[NHY 581]

Nice to see things coming along Neil.

There is something to be said for a bit of Continental modelling. I have some Czech stock. One day a small, pre 1989, Czech layout may emerge as a change from my usual Southern/S&D/Midland offerings.


Rob.

 

[Neil]

I'd like to see that one day Rob. It's good to step away from the comfort zone from time to time; as I get older I find I'm doing so more often. Not sure where my comfort zone is right now to be honest.

 

[Neil]

More tottering towards completion, the track over the tributary now has a proper bridge to support it. Just to recap, the starting point.



The beginnings of the bridge deck in plasticard and plastic sections. I was fortunate that as the tributary narrowed towards the rear I could slide the bridge in one piece in then lift it up to span the gap.



However before fixing I thought it a good idea to paint the track; the paper is ther to protect the river from paint splashes.


The bridge too was painted before slotting into place. The track over the bridge is a section of set-track chosen so that I could solvent weld the bridge deck to the underside of the sleepers.

 

[Neil]

Though I've yet to finish the last building I've been putting together, the shipping office seen just behind the van in the photo above, I thought I'd better press on with another as an exhibition deadline is looming. I chose the first building at the other end of the layout, a small theatre and concert hall inspired by this far bigger example in Bruges. The starting point is an Artitec facade picked up from their stand at Ontraxs a few years ago. I'm pretty sure it's actually supposed to be a church but the design bears at lot of similarities to the municipal theatre in Bruges.



Whilst Artitec have done most of the hard work I'm still left with the job of turning a low relief flat into a 3-D building. Because of it's location on the layout the right hand wall (looking form the front) will be largely blank, the left hand one will be very close to the bridge so the lower half will be little seen. However the back will be on view from my operating position at the rear. I've concocted a fictitious, yet hopefully believable rear, deliberately plain to contrast with the fancy front.



The side next to the bridge will be seen and here I wanted to introduce a row of blind windows to beak up what otherwise would have been a rather plain wall. I've also continued some of the detailing from the front, but with the volume turned down a notch or two.



I've now reached about as far as I can go with this one until I next visit Aberystwyth for a fresh tine of Halfords white primer as a base coat for the pale stone finish I intend to use.

 

[Neil]

Saturday was a red letter day as the first bits of green sprouted on Vischkaai. Actually they sprouted in conjunction with a spot of ballasting. Here I'm part way through the process.



The beige strip is silicone baking sheet which is helping me avoid sticking the two baseboards together.



Like the ballast before I've flooded the grass with dilute pva to seal it in place as I don't want wispy bits breaking free and clogging up the stock .



The finished thing looking towards the town centre ....



.... and in the other direction too. Finally here's a screenshot from streetview showing the look I was aiming for.

 

[Neil]

This afternoon's project has been to turn this ....


.... into this ....



... inspired by this in Bruges using the Triang Hornby brick built overbridge.

 

[Neil]

Over the past week I've been weathering the type 81. Almost there.


Also finished the basics of the theatre.



Than had a go at being all arty farty.

 

[Neil]

The latest work on Vischkaai has been the construction of this sectional concrete wall to separate the quay from the industry behind it.


It's based on this example from Ghent. While the date of the layout seems to have arrived at the early/mid sixties and the streetview image is from just a couple of years ago, I'm still happy to go with the blue and off white paint scheme as I remember a similar combination on a garage wall in York in the sixties. Finally an end on view of the layout showing how the quay relates to the rest of the layout. You might also notice that more vegetation has sprouted.

 

[Osgood]

The curved waterfront and scenic boundaries are so ...... Arty Farty!
And the tall slender buildings look so Emettesque but so appropriate.
The whole thing is eye candy for sure!

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

You're certainly capturing the Belgian feel with the layout.

Up until the last 10-15 years years or so Belgium maintained a certain air of unkemptness. I noticed this when travelling and without knowing where the borders were you knew by the state of the buildings when you had crossed into the Netherlands or Germany - everything looked smarter!

 

[Jordan]

The curved waterfront and scenic boundaries are so ...... Arty Farty!

I hadn't appreciated just how 'curvy' this layout is, until that end-on view was posted!!
Love the weed-strewn track too.

 

[Neil]

Unfortunately over the weekend, thanks to an upset stomach, I've been more farty than arty but I have managed to temporarily relocate Vischkaai from my upstairs playroom to the garage.



One of the possibilities this offered was the prospect of a plain sky blue background to photographs.




Looking at photos from both locations I think something strange is going on. The other clutter in the background of the upstairs images, though inappropriate for a Belgian cityscape, helps con the brain into imagining something is going on beyond the confines of the baseboard. The garage pictures give a detached, isolated look to the layout. Not sure which is the most effective.

 

[Lyndhurstman]

Unfortunately over the weekend, thanks to an upset stomach, I've been more farty than arty but I have managed to temporarily relocate Vischkaai from my upstairs playroom to the garage.

View attachment 109746

One of the possibilities this offered was the prospect of a plain sky blue background to photographs.

View attachment 109747

View attachment 109748
Looking at photos from both locations I think something strange is going on. The other clutter in the background of the upstairs images, though inappropriate for a Belgian cityscape, helps con the brain into imagining something is going on beyond the confines of the baseboard. The garage pictures give a detached, isolated look to the layout. Not sure which is the most effective.

Lovely, Neil
Interestingly, The clutter appears to me to give it focus - make it central in the eye-line. Because everything else is extraneous. And therefore not important. Something akin to the blurring tool (Tilt Shift) on Instagram. Whereas the garage shot tends to homogenise the layout with the background.

Smashing modelling, how ever you look at it

Cheers

Jan

 

[Jordan]

Unfortunately over the weekend, thanks to an upset stomach, I've been more farty than arty....

Too much information!!!

The "clutter-vs-plain" dilemma is verging on the related "backscene or not" question.
My own preference is for a backscene, to give a layout extra depth.

 

[Neil]

Vishkaai took a two day mini break to the Corris Railway Society's exhibition in Machynlleth. By and large it worked well apart from ten minutes worth of mystery electrical problem on the Sunday morning. I took with me a pair of uncoupling paddles which work well with my tension lock equipped OO stock. They were a bit more hit and miss with the smaller droppers on the standard HO couplers and occasionally became blocked by end steps on some vehicles.


Back home I realised that the lifting loops were pressed steel or tinplate and perhaps I could lift from the top rather than trying to raise them from below. I ordered a couple of sets of small neodynium magnets, 1mm and 3mm in diameter. I found suitable tube to mount a magnet in, plastic for the 3mm magnet and aluminium for the 1mm version. The 3mm magnet was a bit clumsy in operation but the 1mm in it's aluminium wand was fine enough to use with precision.



It's small enough to accurately target the lower loop, which when lifted takes the upper one with it. The vehicles can then be parted and the magnet withdrawn. As the smaller magnet is also weaker than the bigger one it doesn't take the wagon with it.

 

[Neil]

In early August I realised that it might be a good idea to sort out better stock storage and transport than bubble wrap and a stacker box. Twice I successfully bid on metal flight cases, twice I received piss poor excuses why the cases were not able to be delivered (I suspect my winning bids were too low) so I cast about for an alternative. Under the spare bed I found an old musical instrument case I'd picked up for a fiver in a junk shop. I think it must have held a trumpet. I stripped out the furry lining and built compartments from corrugated card, then lined the compartments with strips cut from a yoga mat.

All seemed well but after taking the stock to the exhibition over the bank holiday weekend the case remained unopened for a week or so. While no damage had been done I noticed than on opening and removing a few pieces there was some resistance to come out as though the foam was a little tacky. To the touch all was fine. Worried about the long term prospects I've lines the compartments with paper stuck to the foam and to stop items sliding about I've been cutting sponge inserts.



The top level is a tray, reinforced with brown paper adhesive strips, the sort you dampen to activate. I've still to cut inserts for the bottom row of vans.


The bottom level is glued directly into the case. As the compartments are deeper here the foam inserts take on more complex shapes to stop the stock rattling up and down. The class 81 rests on a sheet of polythene so it can be easily extracted, the permanent coupling between loco and tender makes it very tricky otherwise.