O Gauge Quaymasters Cottage - finished

Another little piece of modelling I have finished off recently is the Quaymasters cottage. This building will sit at the front of the layout and act as a scenic break towards the tiny fiddle stick where I have the point levers and DCC controller. This project has been a long one, due to the house move and various house renovation tasks that have got in the way. I think I started building this sometime in 2022 but any momentum was continually broken with other domestic tasks!

This side faces the viewing side of the layout, with the office door open, so the interior can be seen.

This is the track side, which faces the backscene. Ironically I prefer the blue door on this side compared to the black door on the viewing side - typical!

The kit comes from Fair Price models, which provides a basic wooden shell. Once built the shell was coated with PVA glue and a layer of polyfilla was added. This was sanded down and any imperfections were infilled, before a final sand off. The exterior walls were then painted a dark grey, before scribing the polyfilla with a sharp point to create the stonework. The stone colours were dry brushed onto this base, before a quick varnish and the application of a couple of weathering washes. The windows/doors/interior details were then added, before the roof was glued down and the the roof tiles added. The roof tiles are thin card cut to shape, which then had some base colour coats added, with some dry brushing on top. The guttering is from Modelu, with some plasticard downpipes.

The cottage with the basic stonework scribed.

Without being too critical of my own modelling, there are a couple of bits I could have improved - namely the overhang of the tiles to the guttering - it is probably 1mm to short. The Modelu guttering has quite a thick edge and I did not account for his when placing the tiles on. However, otherwise it is all good and for now I will have to live with the guttering! The interior and lights really add an extra dimension to this model and as the building will be positioned at the viewing edge of the layout - these interior elements should be visible.

The interior of the Quaymasters cottage.

With the internal lights switched on.

So another modelling project ticked off for the layout. I am looking forward to placing this onto the layout and blending it into the scene. One of the skills I wanted to develop with building the O gauge layout was my capacity to scratchbuild/detail buildings. I feel these skills are slowly starting to get there and I am feeling more confident about tackling other building projects for the layout. However, the time and space to set up the layout just does not seem to arrive at present. Hopefully towards the end of August I will manage to find a week of time, but the next tranche of layout detailing might have to wait until September. At least that will give me a little time to finish off the class 33 so I can have a few trains to play with....

O Gauge 12t GWR open wagon

 Over the last couple of weeks I have managed to put the finishing touches to another wagon for the layout. This wagon is a GWR 12t open wagon that I finished in BR freight grey, with a fair amount of weathering, befitting a wagon in 1970s condition before withdrawal. The wagon was built from the basic Parkside kit, which was a Xmas project a couple of years ago.

Finished 12t open wagon, in 1970s condition.

Whilst painting the wagon, I attempted to produce a faded base livery, which was applied by Railmatch enamels from an airbrush. Over the top of this I used various AK Interactive washes to pick-out elements of rust and weathering streaks, before applying transfers and sealing up with a couple of coats of Matt varnish. The transfers were Railtec and went on perfectly! The final two varnish coats had a dab of matt black and sleeper grime added respectively, which has really helped to unify the finish.

Ready to roll on the layout!

The interior floor.

So another wagon is ready for the layout, which is fantastic news. The rolling stock is starting to get to a critical mass now, whereby I actually have enough stock to run some trains! This wagon will run with several other open wagons,  ferrying materials up the line of the quay. A future task has to be attempting to fit some removeable tarpaulins to these wagons, although this is for another day (I have already had one disastrous attempt at this!!). 

Hopefully there will be more progress to report soon, although the hot weather is limiting the amount of modelling I can do at the moment. However, several other projects are close to being finished and I really need to get the layout set up soon to push on with the detailing. Fingers crossed I can get to this over the coming weeks.

The Platform Shelter

I cannot believe its July already and I still have not get the layout set up this year! I was planning to take a week off towards the end of June to sort out some of the detailing on the station/quay front boards and this still hasn't materialised. However, in anticipation of finally getting the the layout set up complete with turntable fiddle yard (which is built!), I have been finishing off various buildings ready to install onto the layout.

The open shelter front facing the prevailing south-westerly winds across the estuary!

The first completed building is a small platform shelter. This was built with offcuts of formboard and some plasticard strips, with very much guestimated dimensions. The shelter has been painted with varying colours over the last few months, with base coats added via of the air brush of any old shade of colour left in the airbrush after painting something else. Following this, some hand brushed streaks were also added to the sides and ends, before sealing up with some matt varnish. In the centre of the interior is some ducting, which will allow a light to be fitted. I am not quite sure what to use for the light - it requires something suitably dull and uninviting! Anyhow a job for this week is to buy a small lighting unit, which I can glue into the roof.

Side end view.

This is the back of the shelter - which will face the backscene - it will generally be out of view unless a photo is taken along the goods line on the back of the platform.

So something finally finished off and ready to place on the layout. There are various wagons that are also close to coming out of the paint boxes, alongside finishing the quay masters cottage. So some good progress and it feels brilliant to see some models finally being finished off...time to book a weeks leave off work me thinks! In the meantime, if I can get the class 33 sorted out and put back together then I will at least have a couple of locomotives to work the layout....