Garden Railway Forum

As previously said, I am an artist, not an engineer. One of my previous career activities was as a picture framer and paintings restorer which involved a lot of colour matching and ageing. All good experience for my present needs, otherwise useless!

What we missed yesterday hit us today! It has rained ceaselessly all day with strong winds and cold temperatures. My railway is now well soaked as the clay soil is slow in draining away excess water. This is not a lake, it is normally a slate footpath, now under 3"of water... ./myff/2027510/IMG...

philipy:120948 wrote:Peter,
Not being critical, but as one born and brought up in 'brick & flint land' ( The Chilterns) I'd say your chicken grit looks rather too pink in colour.

Hi Philip, this is the result.... what do you think?

Grant, the market hall was once a familiar site in many towns in the UK from as early as 16th century. They were built to house both indoor and outdoor traders selling goods. Upstairs in the covered market, often wool and other more valuable commodities were traded, also assizes and religious meetin...

Peter, How did you do the diamond leaded lights in the 1st floor windows? The diamond effect is made from placing clear acrylic sheet (at 45 degrees) on graph paper and running a Stanley knife blade along every line in both directions. This side is then placed on the inner of the window reveal and ...

Piotr, thank you for the feedback, I'm glad your wife likes my work too. All of my structures are made from my own imagination, but based on genuine architectural styles and with regard to structural practicalities. I am neither engineer nor architect but I like to think that I have made enough obse...

Despite the terrible forecast and the storms which have hit further east from me, the weather has been very pleasant here today giving an opportunity to remove the various non-permanent railway structures into their new storage.  Luckily I still have some spare capacity but doubt that will last very...

Sorry to hear that Tom, here in West Wales we have managed to miss out on the storm which was earlier forecast to hit us hard too, however it seems to have confounded the Met Office and gone further east.
I hope there will not be too many casualties reported on the Forum.

Hi Piotr, in answer to your question about painting individual stones, I can only say that I must lead a sad and lonely life, spending hours on end sitting with a paintbrush and paints and a bottle of red wine! The stones are made from embossed plastic and are quite well defined. Once the primer is ...

Grant, the scenes are just superb, particularly the last one taken at low level, everything looks just right.

Piotr,  apologies if my description was ambiguous, I'm not clever enough to paint three colours simultaneously, I paint one colour at a time on random stones followed by a second and then a third. However, at school, I was able to write 'lines' with three pens taped together whilst serving my, all t...

Thank you for your comments Piotr, I can see you are getting much satisfaction from your railway. There can be no perfect weather conditions for outdoor modelling no matter where you live. I can put up with the wet here and enjoy the dry all the more when (occasionally) I get the chance. I would not...

Peter, Not being critical, but as one born and brought up in 'brick & flint land' ( The Chilterns) I'd say your chicken grit looks rather too pink in colour. I think you are right there when looking at the grit against a stark white background, however, when the red bricks are prominent it will...

There are some general enquires about Plastikard (HIP) on other threads and I can show you some of the uses I have for the material during the construction of another structure to go in my village. As yet I am undecided as to whether it will eventually become the village pub or just a private dwelli...

Very impressive James, your railway has become well established with the planting and structures, everything looks just right.
Some nice trains there too!

Plastikard is (I think) the trade name given by Slaters. It is also known as High Impact Plastic from other suppliers. There are several 'how to' tutorials on the use of plastic sheet and the various solvents available to weld it together. I think the best way to learn is to try it yourself and see ...

Laurence, no doubt you are making the most of your coffee stirrers and producing some nice work, I can see most of your structures are not intended to be left outdoors so wood is suitable for this purpose. My concern for my own buildings is that they need to be left out in all weathers (except winte...

That building looks very effective and well made, currently I am concentrating on structures as winter sets in but would never consider using stirrers or any other wooden material as the weather in West Wales is either wet or very wet! Wood is not an option. My favoured material is Plastikard and so...

WOW!!!!! The crane is good but the layout and stock is just incredible..... there is some money's worth there no doubt but the standard of build just outstanding.

Hi Piotr and welcome to the Forum. I take it you mean the crane loco which is not any particular prototype, rather a mix of various ones which I found in a wonderful book on the subject. It is made of Plastikard and runs on a Lima '0' gauge power bogie with a battery pack towed behind in a purpose b...