Review new wagons.
Review water tower feed pipe and make a canvas hose.
Final weathering to Edwards yard and buildings.
Trees - titivate existing and finish a new one.
Review everything needed for exhibition.
Paint reverse faces of end backscenes.
Geoff had produced 4 of his new 4 ton block stone wagons and Stephen 3 of them. Geoff had gone for the 'heavy wear' appearance, applying considerable distressing to the timbers and Stephens' had mild dents and scratches.
Geoff had added the loco water tank feed pipe with an isolation valve and a tap. Stephen later added a canvas pipe using a length of black heat-shrink tubing.
Stephen displayed all of the 3D printed yard clutter he had painted and weathered, which will be added loosely, along with a few vehicles. Geoff now applied a mixture of weathering powders to the yard roadway, doors, windows etc. After 'refreshing' the foliage of the tree overhanging the bridge, Stephen added foliage to a small spare tree wire armature, which was then 'planted' on the front of the layout.
We then turned our minds to the exhibition, just 11 days away. Going through a previous checklist, we were able to tick quite a few things off fairly quickly. However, the new boards meant a few things had expanded or changed e.g. the spare controller was now the new board controller, so a new 'spare' was required. We checked through 'special' bolts and tools required for the new support frame. We seemed to have acquired a third box of bolts, but couldn't conclusively match bolts to boards. The answer was to separate what we could identify (backscene bolts) and put the rest in one box. After we set the layout up at the show, a proper sort-out can be carried out.
Equipment - Power supplies for the layout and lighting were assembled together with extension leads, RCD's etc. Tools, repair items, spares, were all identified and boxed up. An hour later we had a good grasp of the situation and were happy. We then discussed the route and timings for the trip down to Wilton, including hotel and exhibition hall check-in times etc. When finished, we were greatly relieved and could now look forward to the show. The final job was to paint the back of the end backscenes dark grey. These had several splodges of white paint when the front was repainted painted.
Stock will be checked over, cleaned and oiled. One more Wednesday and then were off!
