Category Archives: Scales

All scale information

1:43.5 (7mm Scale), Australia, O Scale, Site seeing

Site seeing – February 14 – with a difference

Leave a comment

Site seeing with a difference this St Valentines Day. The family headed for the ocean today to Geelong Victoria. While we were down that way I took the opportunity to visit K & L Model Railways Hobbies & Model Construction Supplies of 81 Ryrie St, Geelong VIC 3220.

All I have to say is – what a surprise. The shop is small, but what it lacks in floor space it more than makes up for in stock. They have a great range of O scale parts, kits and so on.

Had a chat to the owner to the owner this morning and I’ll be back there again once I have a bit more disposable income.

With K & L’s assistance I’ll be building a rake of O scale (7mm:Foot) NSWGR 4 wheel RU Grain wagons (see a photo here: Offsite Photo).

These cars have been on my build list for some times but not being able to find a local source of Brass ‘W’ irons and sprung axle blocks has meant that I’ve had to hold off on the build.

With K & L’s owner assuring me that he can get me everything I need the RU planning process can begin. I expect to build the first body out of styrene, then I’ll cast the remaining bodies before tackling the chassis out of brass section. This will make mounting and securing the ‘W’ irons much easier.

All the best on a lovely ‘cool’ summer Saturday in Ballarat.

Layouts, S Scale, Scenery

The difference that trees can make to a scene

Leave a comment

The difference that a few trees can make to a layout scene should never be underestimated.

Over on the Port Rowan layout blog Trevor has just completed the planting of trees at St Williams, where (unlike the original) the layout bends around the wall.  use the link below and look at the two pictures on the page. There is certainly more than trees going on here, there’s light and shadow and a fence and some other additions to the scene.

But Wow! What a difference has been made by the addition of the tree armatures.

Check out that post: Link Here

But wait, there’s still more. Check out his second post from a couple of days later: Link Here

Trevor now goes into the scene and really shows some of the visual differences the trees make. I’ve never met Trevor, and we live on totally different sides of the planet, but I feel tied to his style of modelling.

Hope that you are having a good evening where ever you are.

HO Scale, Layouts, Personal Layouts

The new layout boards are complete!

Leave a comment

Originally Posted on the Old HVL blog March 24, 2013

OK, so a little about the design and build of the layout boards.
In general all wood is fine quality pine dressed all round (DAR). The board top is 12 mm ply (1/2 inch), while the sky board is 6mm (1/4″) ply. THe legs are “L” girders using 1×2 and 1×3 DAR pine glued and screwed on the along their length. At the base of the leg is a glue bock of 2×1 DAR pine which is used to locate a T nut, with a 5/16″ bolt as a leveller. The nut for the 5/16th bolt mounts on the top of the glue block locking the bolt in place once you’ve levelled the board. I’ll be building a better foot arrangement at some point in the future that is easier on the floor, most likely a wooden ball with a 5/16″ nut through the centre of the wooden ball.

All of the side and end rails are 3 x 1 DAR pine and these have not been glued, but have been Kreg pocket screwed together. The ply was then glued and screwed to the box. Nice, tight and very rigid. There is one rail across the board in the centre  of 2×1″ DAR pine, this has also been Kreg pocket screwed to the sides and the top was glued and screwed tothis also. The skyboard is glued and screwed to 1×2 pine DAR which acts as a stiffener and mounting point on the back of the main board. Mounting to the rear of the main boards is achieved using Kreg pocket screws.

The legs are mounted to the main board using 3 screws on each side to the sides. The top horizontal board bears the weight of the main board above; while the bottom horizontal board acts as a bearing face between boards and allows the boards to lock together using a wooden clamps from offcut of the hozontal boards and 1 x 2 DAR pine. Think an inverted U locking the two legs together. Nice, tight, simple and about 3 months in the planning.

Overall what are my impressions? Very happy to be over the hump of the work. The boards are light and strong. I can lift them fork lift style on my own without hurting myself and as I have a 50 year old back; this is a good thing. Thanks to my wife (Janette) for suggesting the mounting height for the sky boards. At 400mm above the plane of the board they are high enough to be at or just below my eye height, and with the 2×1 stiffeners behind allow easy mounting of lights that will hang out over the board for better simulation of daylight.

I’ve a few sketches and such to put on the gallery site later in the week. This should give you an idea of how the parts look. More photos will be coming before I paint everything later this month or during April, depending on the weather. Well a great day in all, now some remedial work on the old boards to bring them up to spec and height, and then my work is done.