Garden Railway Forum

Hmm, not sure that I entirely agree on acrylic paints being colour fast. My own observations are that the quality of the paint and more importantly the shade of paint makes a huge difference to the longevity of it. Red and variations of the shade seem to fade the fastest but I've found also that the...

Indeed they are commercial - standard Peco chairs (usual disclaimer). I also thought that sleepers on what is supposed to be a steel deck just didn't look right, so as I had a number of the Peco chairs left over from my brief brush with turnout construction I used those. They are secured to the deck...

Andrew, yes I left the rails long on the turntable deliberately as in my case I intend to remove it after each operating session and that would not be possible if the trackside rails ran over the t/t masonry. Also theoretically it should allow for longer engines to be turned.

That's one of the things that I like about garden scales, at the usual viewing distance one doesn't notice how glossy or matt anything is. I think that you are concerning yourself unnecessarily about the gloss on the paint and anyway after a few weeks of our typical autumn/winter weather it will be ...

Crikey, with that level of brilliance there's no mistaking the go signal!
Or is that just an illusion created by the camera?

20181002_152046-01.jpeg For various reasons I have not yet had the opportunity to experiment with SBR and the summer is fast receding!!! However I have managed to build this turntable from a Swiftsixteen kit (usual disclaimer). For some reason the stone colour paint that I've used on the turntable ...

One thing that certainly impresses me with your railway is the nice neat edges between the trackbed and the grass. If that was in my garden the blackbirds would have thrown half of the ballast onto the grass in their search for food and the cat would have dislodged the remainder as he used it as a l...

Well it seems to work when applied to things like the "Parry People Mover" but I suspect any slip coach in 16mm would need a fairly substantial flywheel to store enough energy to move it more than a few centimetres. Maybe an interesting winter project - maybe not, I've already got far too ...

There really is no substitute for the separate painting of overlays in different colours to give a perfectly crisp finish. This project is looking very good and I'm eager to see the finished article.

The Bachmann range are quite well detailed and more importantly a good match to scale, but sadly for me they are all too modern in appearance. My particular modelling era is the 1930 - 50 period and track workers in hi vis jackets just don't fit the bill. Modeltown do have a fairly good selection th...

I must say I am a little disappointed here Rik, here's me thinking I'm going to see a step by step conversion when all of a sudden after the first saw cut the wagon is finished ;) Seriously though, another brilliant conversion, do you plan these in detail before you start or do you just make it up a...

Softer and easier to rivet. Looking at your photo, it looks to me as if your buffer beam assembly is a resin or 3D printed material which is quite soft in comparison to the rivet. I presume that your riveting is not structural just cosmetic, so why not glue the rivets in place? A lot easier and quic...

Thanks to you all for all the good ideas. Today I thought that I would begin my experiments with the SBR so get every thing out ready and it then starts to rain :( . Oh well I can't win them all. But realistically I suppose it isn't the best time of year to do something like this, maybe I will turn ...

Peter, those drain gratings look brilliant did you produce them yourself or are they some kind of commercial item? Tom, I really do need to fix the ballast as the local birdlife i.e. pigeons and blackbirds will be scattering it in all directions otherwise. I have covered the ground underneath my &qu...

20180909_154545-01.jpeg The weather has been kind this weekend so I've managed to get the trackwork into place and lightly secured with brass screws to allow me to run some trains to see if there are any obvious problems with this arrangement before starting to ballast. The timber pieces that can b...

Yes it is cheaper, but the main reason I used it is because of its size. It is ideal for what I wanted as a top surface to the "baseboard". Also not visible are small gaps between the planks to allow for water drainage. As you say time will tell but I honestly don't think that any potentia...

DSCF1174-01.jpeg After a summer of decorating and all sorts of house maintenance issues which are of no interest here, I have at last managed to finish the "baseboard" part of my railway extension. This will accommodate a three road terminus with all the necessary run round facilities. I'...

Thanks to you both, brilliant solutions. The pro tool looks a very handy tool to have in the workshop for all sorts of other applications and would you believe I never thought about using a Dremel. Obviously a brain malfunction as I've been using mine over the last couple of days for cutting the tra...

Dazza, having followed your description of how you are operating your points I wonder if you would be good enough to answer a couple of questions for me. I have now got some gear casing and stainless wire ready to do a similar arrangement on my points, I'm wondering how you cut them. The gear casing...

The method that I use to store buildings over winter is to put them in stacking plastic crates and then those in turn are stored in my summer house. I realise that this is an added expense but in my case I had these left over from a house move some years back and looking on t'internet I see that now...