Month: September 2015

More ‘flat’ grass has been replaced by sculpted mounds:

The ‘flat’ bits of grass were always intended to be a temporary stopgap, this is the original bit by the tunnel:

Work started by removing the old ‘grass’:

A template was made of the area from thin card (250g/m²):

A 25mm thick section of insulation board (Kingspan or Celotex) was marked up and glued to the card with Evo-Stik:

The board was roughly trimmed with an old kitchen knife to fit the card, the the top of the mound roughly shaped:

Then smoothed with a surform (this is a messy business!):

The use of the card “base” allows the edges to be smoothed to almost nothing.

Check it fits:

A quick coat of brown(ish) paint to avoid any of the white showing through:

The mound is then covered with a ‘grass’ base. I’ve used Javis ‘Rough Terrain Mat‘:

The mound is then stuck to the layout, and finished off with various ‘turf’ scatter, which helps to blend the edges of the mound into the layout.

The most recent project has been the construction of a row of terraced cottages from a Scalescenes kit.

These are squeezed in between the narrow gauge line and the viaduct – no chance of sunbathing in the gardens!

They are of course lit:

Finally, an overall view:

Finally, after many years (and a very wet Bank Holiday weekend), the area around the track in the goods yard is being finished:

The area to the right of the goods shed has also been improved:

and the area towards the tunnel:

and the area by the viaduct, though this is still a work in progress (those people don’t normally travel in an open wagon!):