Stephen was on holiday this week so Laurence & Geoff decided to take things quietly. (While the cats away etc. etc.)
Laurence had been building the retaining wall on the entrance to the Worton Court Mine line. All the timbering had been erected a couple of weeks ago so it was now time to fit some of the reinforcing channel to hold them all prototypically in place. This consisted of Plastruct 'I' beam and some 1:48 scale 1¼” diameter bolts; the latter representing the rock bolts which would have held the whole structure to the rock behind the wall. We had some discussion about whether to use channel section or I beams, but as the channel would need to be made by filing the rear two ribs of the I beams we took the easy route. Spacers were fitted in strategic places on the rear face so that the beam could be glued (Thixofix) to the wooden uprights. Bolt holes were drilled with a 0.8mm drill in a pin chuck and then Butanoned (?) to the beam. Basic painting followed, however this will be suitably enhanced with rust and detritus once all the beams are fitted. Eventually there will be two rows of beams.
Following some work on a friend’s layout Geoff decided to try out some paper maché for the scenery base. The advantage of paper maché is that it is light, hard and can be glued easily to the edge of a baseboard (or anything else). No more problems of plaster bandage (Modroc) coming adrift, cracking or becoming chipped. We used two parts PVA glue and one part water, plus lots of small pieces of newspaper. This was applied as a test section along the edge of one board. About three or four layers of newspaper was all that was needed. It dried hard enough to sand in about four hours. It will be given a coat of brown paint in the near future before receiving its scenic dressing.
Geoff decided to continue his construction of a retaining wall behind the rear corner of the gas works. The core is laminated from plywood and card to get the correct two brick thickness when clad with Slaters’ embossed Plastikard. Flemish Bond was used for the sides and the capping was cut from Stretcher Bond. Once all the pieces had been cut out the sides were stuck to the core using Thixofix, then the caps were fitted. It was at this stage that we discovered that the coursing is not regular and the mortar lines could only be approximately married up. Finally a wash of Butanone was applied to the joints and the whole assembly clamped up while we took lunch.
After lunch the caps were filed round to represent bullnose capping bricks. Then a very fine knife edge needle file was used to cut the mortar lines on the edges. If anyone looks very carefully you can see that the courses don’t always line up, but it’s almost unnoticeable. The bullnose bricks were painted bluish grey and once dry, white matt Humbrol basecoat was painted on and then immediately wiped off with a piece of kitchen roll. It seems to have come out well.
