Backscene.
Just Geoff and Stephen this week as Laurence was recovering from overexerting himself on a DIY project.
Painting the backscene was the priority of the day. Geoff had purchased some matt white emulsion and two match-pots of grey. He had also primed a spare strip of MDF for practising. Stephen prepared a diluted mix of the grey paint and using pad of quilt wadding, attempted to create a cloudy sky scene. Neat grey and white were soon added to create highlights. It was very experimental, but a semblance of clouds appeared.
Both were happy enough with the effect and decided to have a go on one of the actual panels. The completed panel was soon touch dry, so it was loosely bolted into place and left to fully dry over lunch. Post lunch, the clouds had lightened very slightly - the effect was very 'Turner-like', i.e. a bit on the sketchy side, rather than realistic. Maybe, a softer effect was required?
Geoff got his airbrush out and had a go using the thinned emulsion, but it clogged the gun immediately. He then used thinned enamel paint, which was much better. The effect was much softer and soon it was decided that it was preferable to the first attempt.
Stephen roller painted over his panel, but due to residual water in the roller (we think) the finish was not as smooth as before. Geoff will sand it down when dry and re-coat using an oil-based paint.
That morning, Geoff had started 3D printing a cow using his newly assembled printer and over lunch, its progress was monitored.
During the afternoon, it finished. After removing all of the support material, it was clear that further experimentation was required with various printing settings, but it was a start.
Geoff had also completed painting and weathering his new train that comprised a 'Tin Turtle' Simplex loco and a rake of KB Scale skip wagons. Kadees are fitted to loco and end wagons, with link and pin couplings on intermediate wagons. Brass weights had been glued into all wagons, ready to receive their ballast loads.
Stephen had located a potential source of connectors for the additional wires required in the loom and Geoff had ordered some 6-way units from Rapid Electronics. Primarily for PCB mounting, these were for 5mm pitch boards, which we thought would be easier to handle than the smaller units. After trimming some of the protective casing and lugs off, the socket end was soldered to a piece of PCB. They worked quite well physically, so we'll do a full wiring test next week.
