The Heybridge Railway, 1889 to 1913

[simond]

or clingfilm, better yet, thin silver paper. And you get to eat the Kit Kat too.

 

[Richard Gawler]

heat shrink makes good hoses etc

or clingfilm, better yet, thin silver paper. And you get to eat the Kit Kat too.

Difficult decision. Go out and buy a Kit Kat or rummage through the stash of heat shrink. Or of course do both.

 

[Richard Gawler]

The heatshrink sleeving is really easy and applying a bit of extra heat makes it look suitably uneven, even moving in a gentle wind. Thanks Ken.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

better yet, thin silver paper. And you get to eat the Kit Kat too.

Will be struggling now as Kit Kats are no longer wrapped in foil with a paper wrapping.

 

[simond]

Mmm, I’d forgotten that. Toblerone.

 

[Lancastrian]

I can see two ways to continue this workbench thread. I can either try to paint the buffer stop (and each successive model) or just carry on with the building. I’m not very good at painting (might improve!) and I am waiting for warmer weather to spray primer outdoors, so I will carry on with the building . . .

Rewind to last January:



The yard crane for Heybridge Basin is from the Peco kit. I have shortened the jib a bit so the model looks better in the scene, not for any prototypical reason.

View attachment 213952
I have based the jib on a crane preserved at Ellesmere Wharf on the Shropshire Union Canal. The steel girders provided for the jib in the kit are wrapped up inside the white styrene to represent a timber beam.

View attachment 213949
I have added a brass spindle to attach the two stays. This arrangement seems to be more common than fixing the stays to the frame holding the pulley, as portrayed in the kit.

View attachment 213951
The rollers for the chain are brass wire, tube and 14 BA washers.

View attachment 213950
This all comes apart for painting.

I have picked up a particularly stupid habit of dipping the brush for Plastic Weld into the bottle of phosphoric acid flux, this being followed by pondering why the plastic joint has fallen apart. Also the brush carries contamination onto the model, hence the stains on the jib. Hopefully the primer will still stick

Richard,

Don't paint the buffer stop, stain it with diluted Indian ink. 1 to 1 with water should suffice, and you can build up layers until you get a nice old and worn look to it.

 

[Richard Gawler]

Richard,

Don't paint the buffer stop, stain it with diluted Indian ink. 1 to 1 with water should suffice, and you can build up layers until you get a nice old and worn look to it.

Ian's post is very important for my whole project. I often say to people the layout is "mid-1890s with the ability to extend to 1912" - and the infrastructure especially timber parts could look brand new or well-weathered.

I have just bought a bottle of Vallejo 'Smoke' (70.939) on the recommendation of an experienced modeller, and this is indeed a superb rendition of fresh creosote. On a test piece of bare ply it even tones with the laser scorch marks, though I have cleaned the worst of these off the buffer stops.

Creosote fades (though I suspect the Victorian stuff was sturdier than what we used to be allowed to buy in the UK) and the layout might look rather prissy if too much of timber is a uniform dark brown. I'm glad I haven't yet painted these most recent models, I had a hunch it would be good to tackle them together. I can buy some Indian ink when I go out for my Toblerone

 

[PhilH]

Richard,
I use black and brown shoe dye diluted in IPA (Alcohol) for staining timber. I think creosote does have a brown tint, so mixing the two should give a reasonable result. The ply you are using probably has a rather dense surface and the laser cut edges may be hard to disguise. For scenic structures like your buffer stop its probably better to use general modelling stripwood such as basswood or lime, and these take any form of dye very well. Also if you stain the wood before assembly you get some variation in the individual timbers.