Phew! It’s been a busy few days. Why? Because I’ve been distracting myself by building an exhibition standard model railway. The reason I’ve been distracting myself is because of an agent. He’s going through some of my stuff and I wanted something that would stop me impatiantly pacing up and down or hassling him via email.
I started with the woodwork (a fairly unexplored area for me – the last extensive thing I made of wood was a record flight case back in 1997) and then moved on to track and electrics. Now, electrickery is another grey area to me, but I have to say that despite the frustrations, I’ve got quite good at it. Indeed, I’m now really quite good at soldering now too.
The layout required sixteen switches to be wired to twelve points (some of which were rather complicated three-way points and a double slip), around half of which were a complete nightmare sent forth from hell electrofrog points. There are two isolating sections for locomotives and I’ve also managed to work out and wire two polarity switching circuits for a rather complex piece of track.
I feel I have acheived much, even if my delightful model railway looks rather spartan and devoid of scenery. That will come later.
Test the track thoroughly before embarking on the scenery – make sure it is as smooth as you want it to be. Now is the time to do that.
For scenery (and ballasting) use Surgical Spirit (sprayed or dripped with a pippet) to ‘wet’ the things that need to be adhered with diluted white glue.
Acrylic Matte Medium is a good (but more expensive) alternative to wood-glue/PVA. Gloss Medium is good for glazing lakes and rivers. Both available from art shops.
Only work on your layout when you are in a good mood. Run your trains if you are in a bad mood.
Good luck!