Develop Goods Shed platform.
Create sleeper retaining wall.
Reform road crossing infill.
Geoff and Stephen arrived for the first meeting of 2015, but Laurence was still convalescing from the dreaded Christmas flu. It turned into a proper modelling session - no heavy engineering or structural work - just a bit of modelling.
Over the holidays, Stephen had produced the base of a dock for the goods shed. Apart from shaping the bottom to account for a sloping ground, it fitted nicely, so a scribed timber deck was added.
The holes in the wall at the back of the dock needed to be infilled, but instead of using timber cladding, as first planned, a brick wall to match the end wall was formed of balsa clad with matching Flemish brick bond plasticard. This was capped with a thin ply strip, which did the job. After review, it was agreed that the space over the dock end, where road vehicles would reverse up to, could be in-filled with a timber valance, to match the open side of the building. A step will be formed in the cut-out around the central column and the new additions painted and weathered, to blend them in. A buffer-stop will be added at the end.
NB: The steel frame sections of this building are typical of John's modelling, as they have been milled from solid steel and silver-soldered together.
Geoff reviewed the adjacent, truncated slope and decided to make a sleeper retaining wall. Offcuts of wood were put through the band saw and cut down to standard gauge sleeper size, then sanded and stained.
Once glued in place, sections of rail were fitted to represent buttressing. The wall will be continued across to the adjacent board. The previously shaped foam block was glued in place and various ideas for shaping it and incorporating other features, like the rock casting, were discussed.
While other assemblies were gluing, Stephen stripped out the centre timbers of the wide road crossing next to the goods shed. This originally had a surface mounted Kadee magnet, which was removed. The remaining timber was removed and new strips inserted. The original stripwood was left plain, which was unrealistic, so the new strips were scribed into planks and nail-holes spiked.
