- Orphan Valley Model Railway -

The Fuel Depot Tanks The fuel depot tanks where constructed from a Tamiya Spray Can lid and a caulking glue tube section.  Comments below photos. I built up a slightly peaked roof using no more gaps on the small tank. The sides of the tanks where scribed and then Micro Mark rivet decals applied. The rivet decals work a real treat.   A brass roof was added to the larger tank and small details like breathers and openings. The tanks primed. The rivet decal sheets and testing basic placement. Building the wooden framework for the smaller tank. Bolt details added. More placement tests and the weathering begins. Hose detail added to the tanker. Hose made from 1.8mm solder and painted with matt khaki and dark greens. Also Oil black added on deck of flat car. Esso decal (created on Decal paper using laser printer) and white band added to the large tank. Some lighter weathering.

 Storm Damage Heres a few shots of the storm damage on Sunday 10th June 2012 into the entry to our residential area. Amazing how the big trees get snapped or up rooted. Poor golfers, the course is out of action for 3 days. And now there's another front on its way up the coast packing winds of 60 knots (110kmh to 125 kmh) or more. See what images the morn brings.

 Some of the mini scenes ....  Here are a few shots of some of the characters on the module. Of course...they are all busily at work. Charles hard at work repairing the walk way down to the spring fed water hole that the locos use to fill up their water tender with a hose. The artists wife making sure the hired hand spreads the gravel in the right places. Artist Tom 'Brushes' Borgland peruses his latest art piece on the verandah of his studio overlooking the Warrumbullen Valley. W.R. Edwards takes stock of the latest delivery of oil drums. His son Will Jnr does the lifting and moving work. Old William Edwards Snr waits for the Shay to clear the loop with the tanker delivery. Number 4 sits quietly waiting to place the tanker at the Esso depot. Will Jnrs brother Ronny heads out of the workshop after giving his Harley a tune, under the deft guidance of long time mechanic Danny Stedan. Remember to check out the video in the last Po...

The 95% completed module at the Exhibition. The Exhibition has come and gone. Very successful weekend. Over 22 000 people came through the gates. Here is a sneak peek video of how it looked and ran. It's better to view this at full screen resolution via the Youtube link. I will now endeavor to post up all the construction details and photos for those who are interested over the next weeks or so. So visit regularly to see how it all came together. Can't wait to get it more than 95% complete by adding in all those unfinished details and replanting the trees after the transport back from the exhibition. And a few more stills.... Looking down through the trees to the artists studio and residence. The passenger combine rolling on through. The crowd taking in the scene...the kids and adults reactions were very favorable. The Garages workshop being put to good use and the pooches being entertained. The late afternoon g...

Following on from the blog about starting to add vegetation and creating gum trees, here is a method of creating woody bushes that I have found works effectively and uses discarded material You will need: Drill some holes in offcuts of 9mm or similar mdf. Note the used basket liner on tray. a well used hanging basked liner that has been in the sun for a while and has past its use by date. coloured no more gaps flat black or dark colored spray paint spray adhesive various grades of scatter material or ground foams eg woodland scenics. Here is the process in photos. As always click on the picture for a larger version. Grap a little bunch of material and twist in fingers. Then apply some no more gaps and twist the base nice and tight. Pull the twisted base through the hole in the mdf as far as you can and then splay the tops out an then trim to shape with scissors. I also tried adding some extra twigs to create some sturdier branches. The tuck in...

This morning I have been working on some background trees to help merge from the 2-d background to the 3-d realm of scenery. A while a go I found in Spotlight these bunches of brushy plants used for bouquets  and home decoration. They were a beautiful pinky purple colour, but the dried flower heads formed a nice shape like a gum trees canopy and there was enough overlay to stems to create and illusion of depth. So with a bit of spray paint, and fine ground foam, this is the result. See notes below. I sprayed the pieces of bunch with some manor red to tone down the pinky colour. There are some dried sedum heads pn the bench as well. Design Master colours available from florist supplies give some good Australian greens. The finished trees after spraying the trunks with an off white tannish spray. I created a simple paper mask to spray through so the green wasn't overly effected.   The trees added in behind clumped ground foam and the foregr...

Here we go on a long blog entry.. got to start somewhere.  I am part of a group of modellers who meet on a Friday evening called ModofAu . Each year the group exhibits a layout at the Perth Model Railway Exhibition at the Claremont Showgrounds on the June Long weekend. This year they decided to go On30 .  So I thought I would join them and build one of the modules that would be combined to form a bigger group of modules around 16m long. Each individual module is 1.8m long by 60 cms deep. The track would enter and exit in the middle of each end and be linked together by a short section. The main theme of the collective layout was logging, but we had an open palette to what we designed and included on our individual module...so I thought this would give me a chance to try out some ideas and techniques for the Orphan Valley home layout. My area contains a valley, small pond for loco refilling, artists residence and studio, a small local fuel depot and dirt roads. ...