I do like a bush!...

Having a few moments in between jobs on the Vincent while bits dried, I came across my stock of rubberised horse hair and other scenic essentials.  So I cut a small piece of it and shaped it up to fit the inside corner of the chimney on the Lengthan's hut.  I'd painted the chimney (made of Foamex) last night and turned a brass chimney pot for it.  Today I painted some green staining where the bush will be and put in some cracks with a knife point.
I then painted the horsehair with gouache paint green so there was a slight tinge of green with the brown of the horse hair.
Glued on the model with Evo-Stik which is perfect for this kind of irregular material.

I'd decanted some used tea bag innards a few weeks ago and left to dry on the top of the gas boiler in little plastic pill pots. Today I had a look and they've all dried beautifully, so I tipped them out and found some as fine, some as less so and some clumped together like flower heads, so I masked the body of the hut with cut paper, sprayed with Harmony hair spray and sprinkled with the tea.  Driven on by my success I did much the same with the short length of shrubbery along a natural line on the lockside.  I find that the essence is to carefully shape the stuff with sharp scissors and use plenty of separate pieces, not one long line.  Also, allow some tealeaves to fall onto a darker painted sward beneath and just outboard of the hedge where muck and bullets lie.  Here's the result.

More weathering needed on the stucco of the chimney stack yet, but generally I'm happy with this. I may now add more colour if the hair spray is set, especially to the hedgerow.

Do what yer like then...

I never do anything particular at the weekend, just go with the proverbial flow.  So, I had a go at the wooden model of Heather Bell which is lined up for the Lantern Yard set-piece.  Another plank in the chine layer on the near side (canals don't do port and starboard, just near and off-sides).
That dried quickly so I cut another two and glued them into the stern post rabbet. I'll leave them now over night to really harden off.  Pear being such a hard, close grained wood, takes a while for PVA glue to reach a decent bond.

The big bits of wood are the engine beds, which were made of solid oak in the real boat, 16" x 6" and the full length of the cabin and engine 'ole.  There was an old, original, chamfer on the insides of these up where the original Petter 15HP semi diesel flywheel was.  You can just see the scarph joint on the end of the plank.  These were 2'-6" long and placed so as not to weaken the hull anywhere.  This pattern of plank ends was known as the shift of butts, except that was on Nelson's ships. I doubt if the canal boat builders at Nurser Bros. gave it a second thought, but when I restored Heather Bell I certainly did.  I still have the scale drawing labelled "Shift of Butts plan".  Pompous sod that I am.

So....that sits on Lantern Yard, glue drying, what next?  

Ah, yes, I do think that the caff is not that obvious a chamber of epicurean delights without some mention of the fact on the structure, so painted "CAFE" on the wall and to make it interesting I put a crooked arrow under the word to indicate that the end door was the one to use, the side door having been permanently blocked to stop people risking life and limb under the wheels of a narrow gauge industrial loco heading for its night's resting place under the shelter next to the caff.

I also set the model more positively into the filler base and added a paved gulley and drain hole at the front as well as behind. The one behind actually drains the sloping area twixt cafe and caravan.  There is no guttering on the cafe, hence the gulley.

Finally, meant to be tomorrow's first job, but I just couldn't wait to see it, I removed the foil wrapped 12mm diameter copper tubes from the Milliput lining of the cylinders in the taped together Vincent crankcase halves to see what had resulted.  Well, not too bad, but some filling will be needed to smooth it all out.

Anyway, here are the two "cylinder barrels" in position. Nice positive location.

Pictured in the bright sun in our lounge this cold day.

Chim, Chim, cheree...

Sang the lovable Dick Van Dyck when he affected that excruciating Cockney accent in Mary Poppins.
My cafe and cafe caravan needed chimneys, so out with the brass tube and the brass shim.  The caravan one had a slope filed off the end so it would accommodate the slope of the caravan roof and was soldered to the shim, which, once the slope was aligned, was trimmed to a square.

On the cafe, because the fiction is that this one is still in use, so would need a witch's hat cowling to keep the rain out. I turned a collar that would fit the flue pipe, then cut 3 gaps with fine files in the top until I had three spikes to which I could solder a turned cone with a recess into which the legs would fit. I glued the cowl to the legs as soldering would have melted the first joint. 
The whole thing was then pushed through another piece of shim and all fitted to the roof.
Painted and then weathered with powders as whilst soot may be black, wood burner tar is actually a rather nasty brownish colour, so that was brushed on flue, roof plate and roof, as it is pernicious muck that runs everywhere. Ask me how I know!

The caravan flue, but now out of use.

Both loosely in their places on Lantern Yard.

I finished the cafe with 240 grit wet and dry sandpaper cut to a scale yard width strip Evo-Stikked on.

The caravan now has fake plywood sheeting around it's base to stop draughts and a set of steps has been made to get up to the floor level.

Chains, chains, everywhere man is in chains!...

Well, if not IN, then involved IN.
I was sent a pack of bits made by Tamiya, the well know over-pricing experts, for a 1/6th scale chain meant for their Honda kit. I needed this for the Vincent model because I have to make the sprockets to the correct pitch and that will be entirely governed by the chain available.
The pack was woefully badly packaged and so one of the 4 identical sprues was totally useless. They renewed that, which told me that the chain was £34 including p&p, which is frankly, taking the piss I reckon. Anyway, we now have a good, unsmashed pack which I am putting together at the rate of an inch a day and that's more than enough for something so complex and tiny.
Here it is so far, in it's little jig which is on each of the 4 identical sprues.

I have also been making brackets and plates for the Vincent master.  They all look different dependent upon which pictures you choose in the books, so I've done a kind of compiled average.  They look serious enough to be correct!

Last evening I spent some time adding gutters to buildings that needed them.  I started using my special press, but the aluminium I have is too thin and deformed and the brass shim a little stiff, so the punch broke!  I got enough shape from the punch to finish them anyway and then a bit of brass rod bent to represent a downpipe.  Still need the gutter support brackets, but  got the downpipe brackets done.  It's amazing what a difference something like a simple gutter makes to a model. My punch does scale 6 foot lengths with the ribbed, joggled joint section (the discernible "bump").

You can't beat Speedos...

Having made the sub cover on the right hand side's engine casing main cover, I then realised there was a big speedo drive on that.  So, seven turned brass bits later and some fiddly soldering, here's the item on the newly sprayed cover.

Some nuts, bolts and plugs turned, 6 sided and added where I can. Some will have to be added when the models are assembled as they'd hook in the mould and break it.

So nice when everything ends up the same colour.

MRJ's latest...

Regular readers will know I'm a huge fan of the work of Gordon and Maggie Gravett.  Apart from his books, of which I have a couple, Gordon is a delightful guy to have a chat with, which I did when he was displaying Ditchling Green at the Spalding show a few years ago.  He has Austin 7s made from kits for which I did the masters on the layout, so that was a good ice breaker.
Their latest layout (the French Pempoul was in between and I didn't care for it much, being French) is known as Arun Quay and is a beautifully observed depiction of an East Sussex estuary quayside and it's little locos and stock.  In 31.2mm gauge (I don't begin to understand why) it still looks very finely made.  The buildings, as ever, are superb. Sussex flint perfectly depicted.  Small stores and workshops only. Nothing flash or big.
But for me, the really clever bit is suggesting the river by painting it at the back of the narrow board and merely suggesting it with a railing and a very quayside type of building. Not for Gordon the obvious and usually ill portrayed wharfside splash of fake water with an even less well modelled boat.

Just check that brickwork.  Gordon uses the very longwinded method of covering a core with Das clay and then engraving the bricks in to the surface.

Alas, I don't have a scanner, so can find no more pictures than these on the net that will open.
Everything done to one high standard.  Anyone can do this with sufficient care. But very few bother.

Now, thanks to the blog's very good friend, Frank who is a magician with these machines has found a way of sending me the Flikr pics.  These are from Phil Parker, btw, another model railway blogger.
Here is the one I really wanted to show.

That small office and the railing next to it just scream "riverside" at us and the old boy fishing, leaning on the railing is perfect.  Apparently his old overcoat is modelled in Milliput with a belt from the foil of a wine bottle cap.  Proper modelmaking.

Perfect observation of the little black shed.  And a really delicate railing.

Railways might be the excuse for this kind of scenery, but it's barely necessary to have such a wonderful set-piece.

These picks from Phil's Flickr album.

Sweet Gene Vincent...

I'm sure I've mentioned that I am making a 1/6th scale Vincent Black Shadow in brass (mainly).  This is a BIG model!
I've had to buy several sizes of brass rod for frame members and turn down from half inch bar.  I also ran out of 1/16th" sheet and got the last offcuts from a local engraver, but soon used that up and have had to buy more.  Bloody hell!  have you seen the price of materials these days?  Ebay had to be trawled for what I considered a decent price.  Every price hike is dent in the coffers.

Here's the latest work on the Vincent model. Engine crankcase halves, covers and sub covers.

I used car body metal bashing techniques to make the crowned shape in the teardrop shaped cover and the round clutch cover.
The metal is heated to red and allowed to cool down, then with a pear shaped box wood dressing mallet (but a ball pein would do) the metal is hammered into a dip in the end of a log or a dip in a lead ingot which I happened to have. Neither will mark the outside of the piece.  Then the cover is silver soldered to a rim made of a strip of 1/16th" brass and all rounded off with files.
Where the shapes are too complex to make without extreme difficulty and waste of now expensive brass I've done them in Ureol and Milliput epoxy putty.  These parts will be moulded in silicon moulds requiring no heat to make them.