Construction Aplenty

I had my planned Friday off work this week and that gave me an opportunity to do a few jobs and pack the car for a Friday Night modelling session at Geoff's, and a Saturday Clinic at the Club.  But before packing I needed to do some painting of a couple of models.  First off the production line was my scratch built model of the Murwillumbah Cement Silo.  I just sprayed the base of the silo a green colour.  That was followed by the scratch built fuel tanker inspection gantry which was hit with a grey primer.  I still need to add some hoses to this model and then fix it to the layout.  The stairs were out of my spare parts collection and had quite a number missing.  I added the missing stairs just lately.

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My inspection gantry.

 

This angle shows the bracing for the end iron.

 

I took my silo to Geoff's on Friday night to do some additional work on it.  My plan was to cut out some styrene ends to close off my pipes on the roof of the structure and install the visible rings onto the pipes.  The cutting the ends from 0.010" styrene was easy, but getting my 0.040" x 0.040" rings to stay attached to the PVC pipe was difficult. It just lifted back off the PVC pipe.  Maybe I should have tried either 0.020" x 0.040" or 0.030" x 0.040" styrene, as it may have wanted to keep its original shape less than the square size styrene. Or maybe I could have cut some nicks in the underside of the styrene to allow it to take the curve that I was stressing it into more easily.  Eventually I got most of it to stick, and I was going to use some blue plumbers glue today to really give it some sticking power, but on inspection, the small plastic bottle of my blue glue had dried up.  I think I have some MEK somewhere in the shed, but the styrene bands are now fairly well attached.  I also started cutting out some more styrene for the roof top structures.

It was quite funny at the Modelling Night modelling session as two other attendees were also working on cement silos and we were all on one side of the table.  Grover and Darren were both working on their own Walthers Medusa kits.

This is the progress of my scratch built Murwillumbah Cement Silo.  I know I am going to have fun with all the pipe work that I plan of installing from the roof to the ground.

 

While at the Club yesterday following my Son's cricket match in the early morning, I was doing a small amount of work on the Clubroom HO layout with PK when I saw a Walther's Medusa Cement Silo sitting on the layout in its box.  I thought, why don't I start another project?  You can never have too many!  So I left a note on the layout advising that I had it and took it home and today I have assembled the base unit.

During the lead up to the F1 on TV today I put this together.

 

Back to yesterday at the Club and my main reason to be there was to present the next skills session.  Yesterday it was to encompass painting the base and applying various scatters and sands to give a base covering.  These sessions are to encourage member to have a go and improve their modelling skills and techniques that they can then use on their own layouts, or on the new layouts we are building or planning to build in the clubrooms.  Here is my diorama so far, which is the subject of our monthly presentations.

My diorama thus far.  There will be a bit of a creek, a roadway on the left corner, and a railway line crossing the creek on a timber bridge on the right hand end.  There will be a couple of trees added as well.

A photo taken from the other side.

 

There is a rather impressive rock wall on the new HO clubroom layout that was going to be repainted a lighter shade of grey, as the creator was not totally satisfied with his initial paint job.  But before this is done, and because it was going to be re-painted, I thought I might try and hit it with a few colours of acrylic paints that I had with me for my diorama to see if I can resurrect the wall and get away from the repaint.  So I sought permission and got stuck into that yesterday at the Club.  I think it might have gone some way to reducing the dark grey colour, but I think it will still be repainted.  Anyway it kept me busy for about an hour yesterday.

 

On the way back home from the Club I dropped into Jamie and Tristan’s house to pick up a sheet of 1.5mm thick ply which they laser etched to look like 5-6” boards for my road overbridge that I am making for the Club Layout.  I could not find the correct material for my road overbridge, so they helped out by creating some for me.  I think they should put this in the local hobby shops!

This was done by Tristan on his laser engraving machine.  It is very impressive.

Today I stained this with my standard stain while watching the F1 race on TV this arvo.  I also stained the last few pieces of wood  required for the bridge piers and the main beams to support the road.  The plan is to install the bridge at the Clubroom in a month's time as part of that meeting's skills session - building a trestle bridge.

Last week I replaced the support mechanism for the LED lights above The Risk.  Here is a photo.

The light support from Glenapp Loop to The Risk.  Much more stable.

 

So as you can see I have plenty of projects running concurrently.  I plan on doing a lot more to both cement silos next Sunday, as Saturday is my son's cricket followed by a running session at Anthony's Layout in the arvo.