details and scratchbuilding 7-8/365 hours of Model Railroading

Posted on January 19, 2018 by gordy87

The night before I flew down to the NMRABR meet in Benson I thought I would just add a couple more figures to a structure I have built for my Structures AP (See Achievement Program pages). I found the standing figures on ebay for a very reasonable price.

I then decided to add some grafitti decals to the side wall, oh what a mistake that was the MDF laser cut kit did not like microset and the wall buldged and was ruined. So i took a sheet of 20thou plasticard and made a new wall, which i then painted and weathered its rough but i had to be up at 4am for a flight. I’ll spend a few more hours tidying it up before i take it to springfield for judging by AP assessors.

Track laying – 4-6/365 hours of Modelling Railroading 2018

Posted on January 19, 2018 by gordy87

I started my N scale project layout in Dec 2017, as I need to lay 25ft of track for my NMRA AP Civil certificate which I have challenged myself to achieve in 2018.

Before the holidays I built a 5x1ft scenic baseboard laser cut kiy by Tim Horn. I have designed the track plan using Anyrail software, 1) to confirm I have laid suffiecient track and 2) so that i could print off the plan 1:1 and lay it on my benchwork. I also between Christmas 2017 and New Year managed to lay the roadbed and get that painted an burnt umber color ready for track laying and ballasting to commence.

For the AP i just need to lay and ballast the track but I want to make this layout available for public display so it will also be finished to a good standard with fully detailed buildings and scenics. If nothing else it will account for a few more hours of Model Railroading fun.

So I spent another 3 hours towards my 365 hour goal, track laying, my approach is to first drill the holes for the point motor rods using a 4mm drill bit and then to temporarily secure the track with pins before dry fitting all the rail. Once I am happy that the rail is all to the correct sizes, I will add the feeder wires. once all the trackwork is ready to be laid and has been electrically tested, I will paint and weather the track before securing it with white glue and then ballasting.

This is as far as I got in my three hours.

3/365 hours of Model Railroading 2018

Posted on January 13, 2018 by gordy87

As you will know if you have read my new year new goals post then you’ll already know that i have set myself the goal of documenting 365 hours of modelling or model railroading activity on this blog.

So how did i spend my 1st hour of modelling in the new year well having aquired Florida Springs a HO switching layout built by Chris Gilbert over the holidays i had to do some spring cleaning in my workshop to mount the layout. Not necessarily modelling but its essential i can test projects in my workshop and also run some trains when the mood takes me so its model railroading activity associated with the hobby in my book.

Well having emptied my shelving units and moved everything around i had the scenic section in place.