Building things

I've always liked building things, lego as a kid, then models, progressing through to much bigger things like sheds, house additions and furniture later in life.
I haven't built a plastic model kit since I was a kid. Most of these were done rather badly when I look back of them now, parts that didn't line up and glue everywhere were the main problems. Back then, the only glue I knew about was the stuff in small toothpaste-like tubes of cement of lots of different brands. They all had one thing in common as I remember, they formed string like mozzarella on pizza, and it got everywhere. Ian at Hobbyland in Hornsby put me onto some glue that was a revolution to me, thin Tamiya glue in a bottle with a brush built into the cap. The liquid being thin enough that capillary action draws the glue to where it is needed, not all over the model in places it is not wanted. I'd always heard about this type of glue, but I was sceptical, how could it possibly work?
I also bought my first kit in a long time, an AR kits MLE wagon, something simple to learn on. With the benefit of years of experience in tool usage now coming to the fore, and sharp knives, and a variety of them, this kit went together really well. It also helped that the parts were very well designed to go together and the instructions were very well written. Soon I had a model that I can be proud of.

I painted this in Model Master Gun Metal, can't bring myself to attempt weathering it yet, still practicing that.

Flushed with success I moved onto a Silverman S truck. Same paint colour, this makes it a just repainted one, and my first play with adding hand-rails.

The instructions weren't as clear as the AR ones, but the design of the moulding was done very well, and I'm quite happy with how this one came together.

Sticking with 4 wheelers I picked up a Berg's CV model. This one has not been so well thought out, the pieces are quite difficult to line up and the instructions were quite vague. However I did manage to get a reasonable model out of it in the end.

Painted this one in Tamiya German Grey, weathering of timber with SMS grey wash and metal with Model Master Oak wash, rust paint on the buffers and couplers.

At this year's Forestville exhibition I picked up some un-made AR NGBF wheat wagons. I added a bit of detail, not too much, especially underside, it's nice having detail under there, but at the end of the day, you generally don't see it, it can come adrift in the case of a de-railment, or the 5 year-old's friends will open up the display case...

I did this in Model Master Grimy black, and done a not too prototypical logo on it. I grew up with the L7 logo and really like it, it's my railway anyway...

Recently I have made a Sivermaz NGTY wheat hopper, to play with a curved body wagon, possibly went a little too dark on the paint job here, Railey Freight Wagon Grey, with a bit of PTC blue oversprayed at the ends. Some SMS grey wash was applied all over. I'm happy with this rather dark heavily weathered thing. Once it was weighted to a similar amount to an Austrians WHX and fitted with decent bogies, it rides very well too.

This was one of my first paint jobs with an airbrush.

I am in the process of finishing off a Camco FO coach, this was done in Railey Tuscan with the airbrush, roof in the Grimy Black, with added seats from Olddog. extra weight in the form of sinkers were added into the toilets, hidden behind the platform entry doors, and in the battery boxes underneath. Just got to work up the courage to place long decal stripes under the windows. I have 2 more of these kits waiting to be built. No 2 of them will look alike, they will be in Indian red, with silver and navy roofs.

Lots more of these to come. There's something most satisfying about building it yourself, they may not be perfect, but sometimes that's the charm of them. Some of the quite expensive new RTR stuff to my eye is a little clinical and cold, too perfect really, which for a lot of people is what they want, I suppose.

Back to the future, rebuilding my first layout

This is where it all gets started. My layout that my Dad built for me as a kid, now being rebuilt for my son. My Dad was an electrical engineer, so all the wiring was spot on, even built an early pulse controller. Now 30 years or so later, I am a surveyor, and can see some of the geometry issues in the old layout, but we'll get to that later.

My son is now 5 and very keen on trains, 2 years ago I found my old Hornby stuff, still had the old set steel track for it, long since retired due to its ability to rust in Sydney's humid air. But it was all I could get in the car to fit in the house as it was all in pieces. I got rid of 35 years or so of rust with drastic means, a Dremel, attached some power, bought a new controller, the home built one was long gone, serviced an engine, and made one little boy very happy, and a not so little one travel back to the time when he first got it. We were hooked!

The new controller, a Gaugemaster Combi was a massive improvement in my memory to what we had years ago The trains hardly seemed to stall at all, once the track was good. In time most of the old Hornby, Tri-ang and Lima came out and was whizzed around to great delight. Most popular of course were the "steamies".

After a time the deficiencies of our layout became very apparent. The Hornby track was just sitting on our 8' by 8' dining table, and we really wanted to eat off it. The track also had a tendency to move about a bit. At least one train did hit the floor. Having found out the price of Peco flex track, i decided to get a board and make a more permanent track with the board and the flex track that could be put behind the sofa when not in use. It only took about 4 or so bits of track so was a very cheap upgrade.

Chirstmas came and with it I bought my son a Hornby Thomas engine. Christmas was at my Dad's place that year, so I thought it would give Luke a big thrill to see Thomas run around on my old, much bigger layout. It took a fair bit of work to get the track operational again after 20 or 30 years. Time had not been kind to the Peco nickel silver track, some serious polishing was required to make the trains run, but more importantly some of the plastic sleepers had become brittle with age, and where they had a set for a curve, they simply burst through and either broke through the fixing nail or popped the fish plates.

There also was no vertical transition to the slop part, so the track had lifted at the start of the incline. A particular problem as there was a point at each end of the incline.

I worked feverishly on it Christmas morning and managed to get the out loop going, and made one very happy boy watching, and driving, his new Thomas around the track.

Time went by and I ws trying to work out how to get it to our house, and where would we put it. Eventually I settled on a temporary home on the garage workbench, borrowed Dad's box trailer and got it up here.

Then off to work, repairing all the track, replacing most of the flex track and attempting to keep the points. It was then i discovered that on the right hand side the curve was too tight. I measured the curvature radius, it was rather tight and un-even, the old way to fix it was to extend the board, not by much, but would have to for reliable running on the outer track. The outer track would have the bigger stock on it, the inner loop was alway for the 4 wheeler Hornby stuff, this was raised, so not much chance of changing it, without rebuilding the whole thing really. So I put another 280mm off the end of it, which was about all we can fit in the garage, but would allow for a couple of storage sidings, one with a fun log unloader for Luke to play with.

In time, this layout is what will take all my practice ideas for what comes next. I intend to make a modular U-Drive layout for the kids, this can be taken to community festivals, church fetes etc. My aim is to make it fun and higher quality than a lot of them around which really look like cast-offs, often with grinding engines, un-reliable track work and dull scenery.

Further down the track I intend to make a small bookshelf layout, of some sort of shunting puzzle, as Luke really got into the NMRA one at Forestville this year. Finally I intend to make a modular exhibition layout, free-lance, based in the 1980's NSW, this is when I grew up, so that's what excited me as a kid.

I have called this blog Govett Ridge, as a nod to where we live in the north of Sydney. The various layouts may have their own name in time. Station names will be coming from either obscure place names around here or from the various Trig station names (remember, I am a surveyor). This layout will be called Poppy, as a nod to my Dad, called Pop, and Poppy was the name of an old trig in the district.