Continuing...

Photo 7 - The first flight of stairs going in.


Photo 8 - A front on view.  The railings in the back were very tricky, especially getting those posts in place!


Photo 9 - The middle tier of decking is going on.  I checked around all the piles at front to give a little overhang.


Photo 10 - Even though I don't enjoy making up sets of stairs, finding it fiddly and frustrating (hence the jig) I opted to do two sets of opposite stairs.  In for a dime, in for a dollar!


Photo 11 - To get the stairs back far enough I snipped a little gap in the longways  railing behind and kind of threaded the railing into the step railing.  This was a very tricky job.  I cut a small 45 degree triangle from polystyrene to help with the stair instillation.  This kept the stairs at the right pitch while the canopy glue set.


Photo 12 - A view showing progress so far.  Still a long way to go and I need some more stringers.


More soon, cheers, Mark.

Hi guys.

Well, I made a bit of progress over the weekend.

Photo 1 - I destressed the Campbell decking by first running over it with a dremel with a wire brush attachment.  I then weathered it by painting wet on wet - thinned Golden titan buff, smears of Woodland Scenics raw umber, burnt umber and stone grey and a liberal wash with a dark isopropyl alcohol and Waproo black leather dye mix.  Here is the decking after the Woodland Scenics paints have been applied.


Photo 2 - I use a paper towel to blend somewhat into the titan buff.


Photo 3 - a liberal application of my AI mix follows.  I let this soak for a few minutes and then use a paper towel to lightly brush across the decking and remove the pooled AI.


Photo 4 - Here is the decking drying.  A few pieces were a little too dark, so I dry brushed with the Golden titan buff.


Photo 5 - Here are the ingredients.  I generally like to use individual boards for decking, but this would have cost over a hundred dollars and taken a week or more to get here, so I opted for the decking sheets which came with the Campbell kit, picked up on the second hand market.


Photo 6 - To help with the stair assembly I made up this crude little jig.


More soon, cheers, Mark.

Quote from: Philip on August 12, 2026, 11:34:19 AMIt is going to be a stunner!

Awesome Valance work!

Thanks, Philip.

I've enjoyed doing all the ceiling units and it is nice to see them starting to get finished off.

Cheers, Mark.

Quote from: Pennman on August 12, 2026, 12:12:18 AMGreat looking scenery Mark!

Rich

Thanks, Rich.

Cheers, Mark.

Quote from: Rick on August 11, 2026, 07:44:24 AMMark, your scenery is top notch.
Most impressive!

Thank you for your kind words, Rick.

Cheers, Mark.

Quote from: PRR Modeler on August 11, 2026, 07:38:23 AMWOW Mark. That looks fantastic. I know you mentioned a tramp steamer but don't hide all of this exceptional modeling.

Are you planning on adding "water" or leave it as it is?

Thanks, Curt.

Yes.  For water I will use heavy gel gloss medium, applied with a pallet knife.

Cheers, Mark.

Looking great, Larry.

Cheers, Mark.

Continuing...

Photo 6 - Here is where things are at.  You can see I have added more scenery.  The stones were collected from my trip to the Haast area in December last year.  I heated them in an oven tray for about an hour to kill any unwanted nasties.  I will likely add some more stones by the water.


Photo 7 - A view from the right end.


Photo 8 - A view from the left end.


Photo 9 - A close up.  I added various Woodland Scenics textures, some JTT foliage (which involved a fair amount of trimming off protruding fibres) and some Martin Welberg bushes.  You can also see the 8x8's are glued in position.  I had to cut the last few in half to give clearance for the 16mm base board on the layout behind the wharf.  I plan to add some more moss.  Remember, Shadowlands is built in an area with one of the highest annual rainfalls of anywhere in the world.


More soon, cheers, Mark.

Hi guys.

I'm trying to get my wharf ready for the next big layer of timberwork for the TrainZ meet this coming weekend.  Its another good practice area for my scenery skills, as with a triple tier of decking complete with hand rails, and eventually a tramp steamer docked at front, you wont see a lot of the scenery underneath.

Photo 1 - First up is a shot of my progress on the ceiling units.  Lots of filling, sanding, priming and painting.  And stretching!  Its hard on the back...  I'm pleased I chose to do it little by little.  You can see the two shades of blue I have chosen at the back.  My plan is to grade the lighter blue into the darker blue.


Photo 2 - A close up as the first layers of scenery go on, including the barnacles.  I started with sculptamold and added piles in between the bents for a retaining wall at back.  A while back I bought a pile of stripwood with a LOT of 8x8's.  They aren't a lot of use as I am not hand laying track and so I thought using some for a retaining wall would be a good idea.


Photo 3 - A view from further back.  I painted the water with about a 2:1 mixture of Jo Sonja's antique green and green oxide.  I then added in a small quantity of paynes grey, adding more for each gradation moving away from the wharf.


Photo 4 - The scenery products used so far.


Photo 5 - I masked the deck and then sprayed the rail with grey primer.


More soon, cheers, Mark.

Quote from: Michael Hohn on August 08, 2026, 08:03:26 PMMark,

Your wharf is very impressive.  I'm looking forward to seeing the whole scene when you're finished.  No hurry, though.

Mike

Thanks, Mike.

No - no hurry.  As long as I am having fun.  Actually, I just listened to the latest 'around the layout' podcast, which was about model railroading and mental health.  There are so many great aspects to this hobby.  The comment that struck a chord with me was about how much time I spend solving model railroading problems during my non model railroading time.  Especially while walking Wilbur.

Cheers, Mark.

Quote from: PRR Modeler on August 06, 2026, 07:28:13 AMThe dock looks fantastic Mark. The coloring is also very good. Somehow I keep overlooking this layout section of the forum.

Thanks, Curt.

I'm please you are still finding the layout section, eventually.  I'm hoping to make some good progress on the wharf next weekend at our annual TrainZ weekend.

Cheers, Mark.

This looks like a fun build, Rob.

The green looks very similar to Jo Sonja's antique green, which is one of my favourite colours to use.

Cheers, Mark.

Quote from: Jerry on August 04, 2026, 11:52:39 PMMark wonderful job and great coloring.

How did you manage to keep that plaster off the wood great job?

Jerry

Thanks, Jerry.

Um - I didn't.  I kind of worked the plaster around the piles using a pallet knife, bit there is a little bit of plaster on the timberwork.  I wasn't too worried, as Shadowlands is based on an area with one of the highest annual rainfalls in the world, and that means moss grows on everything!

Cheers, Mark.

Quote from: Philip on August 04, 2026, 11:39:45 AMLoad tested tough! Looks great!

Thanks, Philip.

Yep.  That's 10kg (22 pounds).  I clamped a stop on the table clamped my mitre saw to the table, so the three different lengths of piles are all exactly the same.  There was no wabbling when installing the bents, so the weight is evenly distributed.

Cheers, Mark.

Quote from: deemery on August 04, 2026, 08:03:40 AMThat's a great approach for doing scenery underneath a trestle!

dave

Thanks, Dave.

Yes, I plan to do all the scenery before doing any more of the wharf building.  I'm doing all my water dioramas with a base of 3mm MDF.

Cheers, Mark.