Continue with timber retaining wall.
Continue with bridge and tunnel walling.
Start ballasting.
Fit the tunnel magnet.
Amend the wiring at the end of the line.
Laurence prepared the rest of the timber sections of the retaining wall, cutting to length and staining to match the existing. Gluing them in place and applying the steelwork won't progress until the tunnel mouth decoration has been completed.
Stephen moved the bridge and tunnel mouth stone sheeting along (a bit):-
Bridge - the extent of the facing stonework surrounding the mouth was determined and the plastic sheet cut away. The material for the applied facings was discussed and layers of thin card agreed. A template was made and Stephen decided to work on this at home. The top edge was roughly shaped to the top of the wall line and a small section 'invisibly' added at the highest point. It will be cut down to suit the final wall line in due course.
Geoff had a go at ballasting, using 4mm scale chippings. The original Cottesmore ballast was industrial cat-litter (for oil spills), which John used to supply from work. It comprised a mixture of sizes, which the 'mainline' ballast doesn't have. We'll review the completed section in due course and see if it can be 'softened' a little. It looks good though!
Stephen was keen to have a lighting feature down the mine tunnel and had been searching for tiny LED's. 1.8mm and 2mm units were found at approx. £2 each. However, Christine, his wife, came up with a surprise - a Wilkinson mouldable LED pack that she was using for free-standing Christmas decorations - £3.50 including the 2 AA batteries required. The loose wires between the surface-mount LED's were twisted together and the moulded plastic surrounding each LED was disguised with matt black paint. At a scale 14' between lamps, they will need to be adjusted, but the effect was perfect!
The final embellishment for the day was when Geoff cast a couple of units from a proprietary rock mould used on a school project. It comprised one large and one long-thin strip, both of which will be used on the tunnel area - superb.
Whilst the board was vertical, two outstanding items were attended to. The magnet on the mine line was made up and fitted in place. The original Cottesmore wiring scheme required the last 6" of track to be separated from the main board sections. This allowed them to feed the adjacent board, as described elsewhere. These feeds were repeated to feed the fiddleyard, but it confused operations. A few snips and resolderings joined the ends to the sections on the main layout and moved the end sections into the fiddle yard.
The editor has been chastised for implying that the gluing of the platform edgings was a little late. Delving through the archives, it was noted that the edgings were manufactured in January 2014. First post on the blog!
