Thoughts on a suitable workspace.

[Scubaidh Dubh]

I've been fairly inactive in my modelling of late apart from a few mild stabs at my one trick pony piece of stock weathering but even that has been fairly half hearted due to my refusal to squander daylight working up in the loft during the light half of the year when it's mostly too hot anyway. Most of what I do is done in the increasingly cluttered and chaotic spare room and that chaos saps enthusiasm too.
In fairness, from late March I have been fully engaged (enthusiastically) in my garden and a whole lot of related sub projects. It's fair to say that with this and my ever growing gaggle of seasonal part time jobs I'm rarely indoors enough to think about modelling! This also provides me an excuse not to do all the big indoor jobs! Of course, once we get to the autumn this will all start to re-balance and with no work commitments in Jan-Feb there will be more time for modelling.
Back in my old days in Carlisle I had a dedicated shed for the purpose, known unofficially as 'the kennel', as some of you may recalI. I currently have nothing of that nature here and I miss that mainly because when I do weathering work, I prefer to do so in daylight and it also kept the messier aspects of modelling out of the house. Whilst it would be nice to have some kind of shed again, it would be a costly exercise, perhaps less if I knock up one myself. I shall need to ponder the possibilities.

I apologise for the rambling nature of this piece, but it's essentially a first exercise after a long absence of the hobby in my day to day routine and the first attempts to gather up a train of thought about where I want to go with my modelling in the new season.

It's paradoxical that 20+years ago, modelling and studying the railway was the one thing in my life that gave me confidence and purpose.
Now, all this time later, content, settled and confident in life, I find it's my modelling and its direction where that confidence needs restored. It's not a true crisis in the grand scheme of things but it would be nice to return to some level of the kind of workbench productivity I had back then although I am so embroiled in learning to grow my own produce these days that I suppose that's as important an interest to me now.

Anyway, that's enough freeform gibberish from me for now.
I'm just hoping it will start some conversations about practical options derived from the experiences of others.

 

[John Duffy]

Dave it is good to hear you are thinking about your modelling again. I am very fortunate that I have space for layouts but that has never stopped me plotting, planning, scribbling and sketching. The winter modelling season does though impact on what I can be doing as it gets rather cold in the attic and projects tend to then be forced into the body of the Kirk.

A theme that I have been thinking about a lot recently is why most of our layouts look like layouts. By that I mean our default space tends to be considered as a flat surface that we build on. We have all seen hundreds of layouts that are various sizes and shapes but are all fundamentally a plan (looking down) that has a 3D surface. We might well view it side on, but it is none the less a "plan" rather than an "elevation".

Recently the idea of using Ikea type shelves has become quite popular. My personal taste is to be tempted by these as they can act as a stand alone project or be made to run with a little fiddly-track. The point I'm getting to is that these can be worked on in the living area of the home without being disruptive. If I were wanting to kick start an activity, I suspect my go to would be one of these sorts of projects, which on completion could also be used to display a finished model. This last point, I find, really helps me. In that 1) I can admire my latest work in a setting rather than a bare stage and 2) it lets me take some photos.

Before I started building sheds etc. I would probably go about a little scene that could be mounted as a shelf (like a piece of art) but also provides you with a bit of inspiration and motivation.

let us know how you get on.


John