Happy Easter

A very Happy Easter to all my followers and readers.

Tony

An Industrial Narrow Gauge Adventure - the layout part thirty-one

In this update I have added the roof and barge boards plus some small detailing to the tar paper and supporting strips of wood. The next step will be painting.....

The last two images show the low relief back scene against the office wall - which gives an idea of the effect I am looking for.

Tony

Airfix Beam Engine - part two

Following on from this earlier post I have added a 1/27.7 (or 11mm = 1 foot) workman to the Airfix Beam Engine model and think it works better than the 1/56th or wargame scale figure shown in the original post.

The original model was sold as either a 1/32nd scale or 1/45th scale model so seeing it alongside a 1/27.7th scale figure seems to work. The workman is a heavily modified 1/24th scale figure and is available to purchase as a resin figure from me - see this link for details.

Tony

An Industrial Narrow Gauge Adventure - the layout part thirty

The next stage in reproducing the low-relief back scene building was to add the wooden retaining strips that hold the tar paper in place. These were constructed from thin strips of scrap wood about 2 - 3mm wide and glued in place with superglue. Prior to fixing them in place I used coarse sandpaper to add some wood grain texture along the lengths.

The two short ends were modelled in a similar manner.

Tony

March 22nd 2018

Yesterday Sue and I attended a wedding at Craig-Y-Nos in the Swansea Valley, The building complex was very impressive with loads of memorabilia of  Adelina Patti. For more details see this link.

March 22nd is my birthday and this was a double celebration. The above image shows some of the gifts that I received as birthday presents. Thank you for all of the presents as well as the money and vouchers.

Tony

Book Treasures and where to find them - part two Oxfam Book Shops

In this second Bookworms feature I am highlighting not one but a group of Oxfam charity book shops - but in particular the Oxfam bookstore in Harbourne, Birmingham.

I have featured this shop in an earlier post but yesterday Sue and I drove up to Harbourne so I could drop off some spare model making books and magazines and browse the shelves to see if there was anything I wanted as a birthday present. I think this is one of the better run charity book stores, well stocked, efficiently run and very well laid out. On this occasion I purchased a boxed set of Dan Brown's Inferno CD talking book but there were other books that caught my attention, particularly military history and as featured in the earlier post a wide range of Role Playing Game guides and books.

The shop can be found on the High Street in Harbourne the full address is;

Oxfam Book Store

171 High Street

Harbourne

Birmingham

B17 9QE

I should also mention two other Oxfam stores that I regularly visit;

Oxfam Book Store

74 Hertford Street

Coventry

CV1 1LB

Which has a great selection of transport books and the widest selection of fantasy books and fantasy art books of any charity store I have ever visited.

Next we have the Oxfam Book Store in Cirencester where I found my White Dwarf issue No. 2.

Oxfam Book Store

7 W Market Place

Cirencester

GL7 2NH

Obviously there are more, but I find these are a few of the best. The stock is always changing and I would recommend popping in when ever you are in the area. Should you have any others that you would like to recommend. please include them in the comments section.

Tony

An Industrial Narrow Gauge Adventure - the layout part twenty-nine

I have used a cheap sketch book (bought from The Works for just 99p) for the tar paper cladding. The paper is quite thick and takes PVA glue well. I have cut the paper into scale widths and torn the edges to simulate the wear and tear seen on the original (see earlier post). Once the paper was in place, I painted on another watered-down layer of PVA glue and acrylic texturing paste to ensure it would not peal off and add some additional surface texture.

The image below, shows this in greater detail.

Tony