Wednesday 30th March 2023

Worklist:

Progress cladding of loading dock building.

Relay road surface of yard and access road.

Apply grass and scrub vegetation to final hillside area.

Stephen continued to work on the loading dock building. Door blanks prepared the previous week were trimmed and squared up ready to be fitted. Corrugated iron plasticard was slowly applied to several faces. A lot more to do, but it seems to be going ok.

Geoff was keen to re-cover to surface of the yard and access road in a material closer to the light stone being delivered from the quarry to the mainline sidings. He found a jar of ash-like material that neither of us could identify, but a reasonable match to the stone. A thin layer PVA was applied and the grit scattered over. The final effect will only be revealed once the dry grit has been vacuumed up.

The new grit had been discussed at length after the first test area was applied. The difficulty was the grit size, which scaled too large, but looked acceptable 'from a distance'. We'll see how it looks after the clean-up.

Geoff moved on to tackle the final bare hillside. Previously painted with brown water-based powder paint mixed with some PVA (to seal the paint). More PVA was applied to stick the mixture of electrostatic and hand scattered material.

The manufacture of front door steps is underway, which, once fitted, will allow the path to be completed.

(Note the weathered roof panels on the water tank roof frame).

Brickwork bonds for the managers house and the office

The last meeting was cancelled due to other commitments, but research into possible brickwork bonds continued, with a view to purchasing embossed plasticard sheet.

What are the likely bonds? English, Flemish and Stretcher are the first that come to mind, and all are available from Slaters. As previously mentioned, English and Flemish bonds require closers at corners and openings, but do offer an interesting elevation. However, inserting those closers would require immense patience. It is possible to omit the closers with English and Flemish bonds, with 3/4 bricks, but the opening width pitch increases from 110mm to 170mm, and are they authentic? Stretcher bond gives a cleaner, less-fussy look, possibly more suitable for smaller scales, but is it correct for the period the buildings were built?

    

Traditional left and modified right. The two headers on the jamb of the English option can be replaced by a full brick. 

Stretcher bond is often associated with modern cavity wall brickwork, but it has been in use for some time. These two adjacent houses, built in 1896, are in Epsom, Surrey and brickwork bonds alternate down the road between Flemish and Stretcher!

Stretcher bond

Flemish bond

Stretcher bond

The red brick detailing is also very appealing, and simple to achieve. The lack of fiddly closers and its simple elegance might just sway the argument towards Stretcher bond.

Wednesday 1st March 2023

Worklist:

Land Rover re-test.

Water tower.

Cottage interior.

Cottages footpath.

Factory sub-roof.

Stephen had worked on the Land Rover at home and now gave it another test run. It was better, but some adjustments were needed. The main problem was the fact that on the test rig at home, the road surface was level with the track surface. On the layout, the road surface was lower, meaning that the pickups were working harder, being depressed further and hitting the bodywork. The pickup arm extensions were trimmed shorter, to great effect. The vehicle smoothly ran up and down, comfortably pulling a couple of wagons. A repair and possible redesign of the coupling hook is needed.

Geoff gave the water tower columns a coat of black paint, then moved on to making the tank roof. This comprised an inverted 'T' section framework with 6 drop-in wooden panels covered in bitumen (he used masking tape for texture).

He then cleared a nearby scrub/grass area and created a very realistic loco ash pile.

Stephen made sure that having previously epoxied the nuts in place, the cottage holding down bolts could be un-done. The chimney breast was fitted into the derelict cottage. Following careful use of the PVA bottle, he then applied another layer of plaster to the building side of the footpath, to reduce the gap to a minimum.

Finally, he glued the remaining two sub-roof panels on the factory building. 

Brick bond choice for the two 'residential' buildings was discussed. Not having clad a 7mm building in brick plasticard before, Stephen explained his concern about how to form the correct brick bonding around the openings. Flemish and English bond would require the insertion of bats or closers, which would be fiddly to insert. It might be possible to omit them, with some cheating, so investigations will be undertaken. Sheets of the chosen brickwork and the factory corrugated iron would be ordered.

Brickwork details