GARDEN RAILWAYS

Crowfoot station building

Crowfoot signal box

Bramley Bank shelter

Bramley Bank signal box

Bramley Bank buildings

PHOTO PENDING

JigStone constructed crew hut for the goods yard.  Yet to be painted and finished off. 

PHOTO PENDING

Scratchbuilt girder bridge.  Made from bolted together Aluminium from B+Q, primed and spray painted GWR loco green.  This bridges will be supported on Jigstone constructed retaining walls.

PHOTO PENDING

White metal yard crane for goods yard.

BUILDINGS and STRUCTURES                 

Initial building programme

          It will be fun and interesting to scratchbuild buildings for The CLR but, to get things up and running I've identified a minimum requirement of real estate that will be constructed from kits to save time.  The minimum requirement is for Crowfoot station to have a station building and a signal box with a crew hut and a crane for the goods yard while Bramley Halt has a passenger shelter and a small signal box.  Crowfoot station is a wooden Brandbright kit while the crane is a white metal kit from Back 2 Bay 6 (not yet built).  All the rest are resin kits except for the crew hut which is my first building from JigStones.   

Resin kits

          After being used to the high standard of plastic kit parts in the Wills and similar ranges in 4mm/ft models I was surprised at how much work was required with these garden scale kits to get a reasonable finish.  Clearly any completed job has to be weather proof and so resin walls, roofs and floors etc. are held in place with super glue, while 2 part Araldite sets and provides a solid join.  External corners are filled with external polyfiller and a lot of filing and use of a Minicraft drill with a variety tools is then required to get the stone courses to look good.  Araldite is used to fix windows and doors etc. and all internal corners and doors and window are sealed with external 'no nails'.
Painting
          After cleaning parts then priming with spray acrylic paint the rest of the painting is by hand mostly with acrylics with the odd part painted in enamels, if a gloss finish is required. 
          Stonework on the resin kits is painted by coating it with an acrylic mortar colour then picking out each stone in one of a number of colours then the mortar is redone with a very small brush.  
           Roofs are fun with plenty of weathering and greenish mould etc.   I don't know yet to what extent the real weather will add to this.  

Wood kits

           Crowfoot station building is a wood Brandbright kit.  Compared with their resin cousins these kits are a dream to put together.  Of course all kits are worthy of being worked to get the best from them but with these kits the most work is cleaning out the cut outs for the windows and doors and a little bit of fine sanding of the parts.  I constructed the external framing separately and Araldited them in place once the building has been painted.   I put together the outside Gents loo but our puppy dog decided to adapt it in a way  he does so well so I used the undamaged bit to fix some fire buckets to.
Painting
          Once the main building parts are well glued and sealed, I primed all walls, roof and floors twice with car primer and twice with top coat for the cream colour.  Blue and yellow parts are hand painted acrylic. 

White metal kits

          NOT STARTED  I have bought a number of white metal accessories from a variety of manufacturers but the yard crane for the goods yard is a brilliantly detailed and heavy beast in this scale and I'm looking forward to putting it together, photograph pending.

Jigstones

          Jigstones are a system of casting moulds from which stone or brickwork can be cast from cement to build large scale buildings and structures.  Some moulds are for casting finer items such as window frames and doors and instead of concrete, resin or similar should be used for added strength. 

          After practicing with some borrowed moulds I've bought a set of my own from Back 2 Bay 6, and I have to say they are very expensive.  However, I wouldn't have bought them if I didn't think they would be a worthwhile investment, once I've learned how to use them effectively.