4mm Morfa - The race is run.

[Neil]

Little to report today, I've installed the base for the road I cut out yesterday. It's a sheet of thick grey card, the sort that craft and art shops sell for a couple of quid. I'm not sure if it would have been better to put the road in place then build the landforms up to it, or to hack, pick and bodge it into the landscape as I've done here.



There's a strong chance that whichever way round I'd done it I would have thought the alternative to be preferable; grass being greener on the other side. Too let to go back now, I'll have to exercise patience and let the pva I used to stick it down set thoroughly.

 

[Neil]

Compared to the smoke, mid Wales is quiet. Though it can be busy on a summer weekend, traffic noise doesn't dominate the day. Gulls screech, water laps, the occasional throb and splutter of Sulzer diesel provide a soundtrack for the scene. However late at night, when moonlight breaks the black of night, there are tales that a whistle, a rhythmical clank and a gentle hiss of drifting steam can sometimes be heard on the wind.

 

[Steve Cook]

Theres lovely
Steve

EM'd or delicately balanced?

 

[MartinWales]

Have you moved over to the Dark Side then Neil?

 

[Captain Kernow]

Is this the ghost of a long-departed Talyllyn Society special, or have you just been shopping...?

 

[Neil]

Over the last couple of days I've grollied up round the road, and extended the plaster/sawdust/pva hardshell to about half way round the inlet. Some thoughts have occurred:

1/ I've enjoyed slapping on the hardshell mix, a good fun way of getting the landforms in place.

2/ Future sticky ball work will have more glue in the mix, it's a bit too easily disturbed otherwise.

3/ Despite my earlier misgivings I think that putting the road in after the basic shape of the hills has worked. There's something natural about the way it swoops up and down, which may well have been lost if it had been too engineered. The thick card used won't conform to every change of elevation so high spots had to be dug down into and lows backfilled round the edges. Have a photo with a pair of BL's finest.



Here's another snap, of train in the embryonic landscape (note escaping not so sticky balls). .

 

[Jordan]

Tut tut, Neil.... Minus several brownie points for not having the Fitted wagons next to the loco.....

Coat on, /out the Fire Exit already......

 

[Neil]

The head of plaster has moved further north.



Behind this I'm applying a smoothing coat of plaster, pva and a drop of artists acrylic paint. It's a runny mix that's brushed on, thin enough to give a degree of self levelling, thick enough so it doesn't all arrive at the lowest point of the trainset.

 

[Simon]

I like the way the road drops down the hillside, very natural looking.

The work behind the train in conjunction with your fading backdrop work is really beginning to give the view some "depth" too.

Looking forward to seeing more

Simon

 

[Geoff]

I like the way the road drops down the hillside, very natural looking.

The work behind the train in conjunction with your fading backdrop work is really beginning to give the view some "depth" too.

Looking forward to seeing more

Simon

The road does indeed look very naturally, I like the way in which its width reduces as it drops down towards the hill and the gentle camber which gives the impression of it curving to the right between two hills.

 

[Captain Kernow]

I also like the road. The gradient on the model is probably quite steep in reality, if scaled up - reminds me of a certain rather steep road not too far from you, Neil!

 

[Neil]

Well it's been an instructive and fruitful weekend. Young Mr Cook arrived on Friday teatime, bringing with him his compact, travelling scenic kit. Once we'd unloaded the three boxes and one bag from his car boot, we had tea and then proceeded to play. To cut a long story short, by yesterday lunchtime the Abertafol corner had dry stone walls, coloured landforms, a rock-face, mud flats and a beach; so we went for a walk and to look at trains on the Talyllyn railway.









By this morning we were ready to deploy the 'flock it' static grass thingy. Here's Cookie getting the preparatory work under way.





The fruitful is obvious.



The instructive? I don't like static grass applicators (the electric fly swat and kitchen sieves are safe), in my hands it gives a too even yet less controllable result. Looks like I'll be sticking to sprinkling.

 

[Captain Kernow]

The scenic work in the first four photos is especially fab!

 

[y6tram]

Hope you did a COSH assessment befor you allowed Cookie to scale that height. No safety harness or hard hat in sight.

 

[MartinWales]

Or HiVis come to that! Tut tut Neil-no H&S officer? Oh Dear!

 

[Jordan]

The instructive? I don't like static grass applicators (the electric fly swat and kitchen sieves are safe), in my hands it gives a too even yet less controllable result. Looks like I'll be sticking to sprinkling.

To get a "less even result", mix different lengths & types of fibres together; either in the sieve as you go, or before putting in the sieve (a bit messy that way though).

 

[Neil]

Thanks Jordan; the green you see at the bottom edge of the pics is a mix of different fibres. Compared to my usual whirling dervish, fibre flinging the result was disappointingly uniform. Cookie said that with subsequent passes patches of longer, darker or lighter could be overlaid, but by that time I'd seen my arse about the horrid thing. I'm sure that in the right hands they can give a spiffing result, but seeing as I'm happy with the results I already get, I won't be frittering any of my time away trying to gain such expertise. It was however a most interesting experiment, and well worth doing even if only to work out it's not for me.

However rather than concentrating on the failure, can I direct everyone to the fantastic sand and mud banks which Cookie fashioned out of Das air drying clay.

 

[Neil]

More work, more photos. Can you tell what they are yet?



Does this help?


I f you haven't already guessed/worked it out, they're sockets ....


....... for trees. These splendid specimens are the work of the very talented John Farmer (aka. Charon, in these parts) who kindly and unexpectedly presented me with a few on his last visit. The question I hope you're asking is why sockets. Well the answer is that I have a place in mind for these ,front of house' quality trees, and it's not really here. For this location around the Abertafol inlet I need lots of trees, really lots of them and they need to be quick and easy, to give an impression of mass in the background. This location will usually be the background as from inside the layout this is to the far side of the tracks. I have an idea for background tress to be permanently planted here, but I also had an idea for a photo set up that I wanted to try. Inspired by old landscape photos and Country Life picture albums here's the composition that I was after.



I need to fanny around with the lighting some more, but I'm sure you get the idea, even with the bare landforms.

This weeks improvements have been brought to you courtesy of Messrs Steve Cook and John Farmer.

 

[Simon]

Nice framing - shades of Ben Ashworth up a tree?

Very clever and effective whatever the inspiration

Simon

 

[Captain Kernow]

Stunningly superb developments, Neil (& Steve) - great to see John's trees being deployed, too.