Just Playing Trains

 Moving on from the smallest building, the next one along is one of the biggest. The photo shows the outer layer of texture over the thin card used to support it and add some small depth for the apertures. The main shell is plasticard, mostly 60 thou. This building is quite large, in fact the largest by area, and about four storeys tall, so it’s quite substantial by 2 mm standards. The blue card is the next bit of the support layer with the apertures already cut. I’ll be extending this to the right before adding the texture, lessons learned from the left hand side…

 A small advance with the smallest building in the mill complex I am constructing in 2mm scale. I’ve added a gutter and downspout, though I’m now thinking it would probably have had a header on the spout, or whatever they were called. Anyway it’s on, painted in “Works Green”, and looks the part.  Just brass wire and fuse wire to attach it. The gutter is card. I can’t stress the value of photographs to record progress. This was my second take after only seeing an off square door top thing, my brain has forgotten all the names tonight! Seeing models in blown up photos can really help with quality control. Now, onwards with the bigger buildings. In other news, the 08 (see last post) now has wheels turning in both directions, and the frames are ready to be fitted after testing and chemical blackening.

The wheels on this shunter don’t go round and round…. Some fine tuning of the cranks has lead to this issue being, at least partially, resolved. They now turn reasonably well, but only one way, so tomorrow we’ll look into that. Meantime, a short video.

 Mission creep is one thing, keeping the layout within the bounds of what's achievable, avoiding trying to add extras or push the time frame too far is part and parcel of our hobby. Another part seems to be the very strong (sometimes too strong) temptation to just start a whole new project. This is happening to me all the time. The recent discovery of the delightful new 009 diesels from Bachman and Fourdees, and a Hungarian C-50 designed by James Hilton has piled on the pressure to jump in and start something else. I'd love to do this, something reminiscent of the Hungarian logging scene with a UK industrial flavour. Time and lack of pennies will probably keep me away from these temptations for now, but this is a strong marker towards (one of) the next project(s) in the pipeline. Also, lest we forget, though not yet covered in this blog, I already have Greygates in 4mm (EM) in another box, and a sort of 2mmFS shelfie, also Greygates but I'm thinking this one may be moribund...

 I've bought a box for this layout to live in. Its the same 42 litre Crystal Box as the 4mm (EM) Greygates shed layout, and its plenty big enough for this plan. The Mill takes up about half of the length and a quarter of the area.  I've also ordered aB7 RH point (Finetrax) from the 2mm Association Shop 1, which will form the turnout for the sidings in the Mill, so with a bit of application, I should be able to build the back end of this layout once the kit arrives. My current task is cutting window and door openings for the biggest block, buildings 3, 4, and 5, and getting the brick texture prepared. Some Scaleglaze windows have also been ordered. With the decision over thee box taken, I've been able to press on with constructing the foamboard/mounting board sandwich baseboard. A layer of cork goes on the top. Today, while the glue was setting and between other things, I made a corrugated iron luchan for the top floor of the Mill - just placed on the photo, and its not on t...