Winter challenge 2024 - The South Tellynott wedge

[Mark Dalrymple]

Wow! Nice work!

Thanks, Philip!

I've been working on benchwork, planning, cork laying, track laying and electrical work over the last few weeks.  This hobby has so many different facets to it.

Cheers, Mark.

[Mark Dalrymple]

Looks good, Mark.

Thanks, Michael.

Hopefully there will be a decent amount of progress photos soon...

Cheers, Mark.

[Mark Dalrymple]

Mark, this is an ambitious project but you've shown in the past that you're up to the challenge.
I always like how you build mock ups and are very careful with laying things out.
I'll be here for the rest of your progress.

Thanks, Rick.

Yes - the laying things out was a major hold up.  I had to at least get a feel for what would happen in the whole area - not just the wedge.  As often happens when doing this I hit a bit of a brick wall.  Fortunately, there is a good amount of time for this challenge, although it is still disappearing too quickly.  Funny - the older I get the faster time seems to move...

Cheers, Mark.

[Mark Dalrymple]

Hi guys.

Thursday saw me carrying on with my Faller brewery kitbash.  I had primed and then painted the brick sections with Plastikote super primer, grey and then top coated by sponge painting using Vallejo model color acrylic RAL 3009 (cavalry brown).  Next was to repaint/ touch up the window sills with a grey.  Last week during our Thursday afternoon modelling session I had decanted some of the spray paint to use, but didn't like the nastys, so during the week I zipped into the hobby shop to try to match the primer grey.  I came home with Tamiya color acrylic XF-54 (dark sea grey) and XF-83 (medium sea grey).  Some experimentation showed that a 50:50 mix of these two colours gave a pretty close match for my primer colour.  So this Thursday, while modelling at Trevor's, I started on my touch ups.  I soon discovered that if I took too long - more than around a minute - the brick paint colour underneath softened and started coming off, creating a nasty mess.  I told Trevor of my woes - him having spent half his life as a professional painter - and without looking he said "don't tell me, you are using Tamiya acrylic over the top of Vallejo acrylic.  Tamiya isn't a true acrylic."  Anyway, he came up with a number of different fixes, but the one I deemed easiest was to add a drop of isopropyl alcohol to my paint mix (around 3-4 drops of each colour and one drop of AI - using a pipette) and mix up.  This helped the paint flow and gave me enough working time to paint the sills without problems.  If you take too long the AI would evaporate and the aforementioned problems would begin again.  A long winded tale - but perhaps some useful information.

Cheers, Mark.

[Mark Dalrymple]

Hi guys.

This weekend just gone was our 2fatpossums weekend where our modelling group gets together over the weekend for some laughs and a good dose of modelling.  I took the opportunity to assembly a few of those 700+ parts!  I made a base for my mock up so I had it in front of me as a reference and then got to it.  Each piece had to be trimmed from the sprue. the tags cut and sanded off and then the paintwork touched up.  I also sanded excess paint off the back of the pieces.  I fitted, doing extra sanding/ trimming as required, and when happy, glued in place.  I glued all the brick pieces on first - working on one wall at a time, then followed up with the grey detail pieces.  The window sills and feature parapet wall cappings required the concrete sections to be painted grey first.  I then glued the red windows in place.

Photo 1 - Shows a wall with the parts glued into position.  There were 10 of these walls to do.


Photo 2 - Shows the grouting process.  I use a soft brush to add white soft pastel chalk.  I gently work this into the brickwork.


Photo 3 - I then use the natural oils on my fingers to work the chalk into the grout lines.  I use a couple of soft brushes to remove excess along with gentle blowing.  Once happy I give the wall a light spray of pastel/ pencil fixative.


Photo 4 - Shows on of the central main walls once grouted.


Photo 5 - And the side wall at the right end.


On Sunday afternoon I got some assembly done, but haven't taken photos yet.  It was a great weekend, lots of fun and good company.  We are also doing a group purchase of some Modelu figures which Trevor can then print in 1:87, 1:64 and 1:35, which was a nice distraction.

More soon, cheers, Mark.

[ACL1504]

Mark, Cheers,

The brick work looks great. The structure is one large one but coming along nicely.

Tom 

[Rick]

Brick color and grout are very convincing.

[GPdemayo]

Looks like another winner Mark.....

[Dave Buchholz]

Beautiful work.  Now where's the beer?? 

Jerry

Ditto here. Where does the line form?

Glad to have found your  posts on this forum after the demise of RRL. I've always been impressed with your thorough planning.

Fifth Dave to the right

[Jerry]

Mark great work on the brick work.

Jerry

[PRR Modeler]

I really like this build Mark. Excellent brick and mortar modeling.

[Mark Dalrymple]

Mark, Cheers,

The brick work looks great. The structure is one large one but coming along nicely.

Tom

Thanks, Tom.

Yes - there is a lot of work in putting it all together.  The fit is pretty good.  I'm having to sand off excess paint and I had to trim a number of windows to get them to fit into their rebates, but generally things fit together like a glove.  The lack of words makes things confusing at times.  There is a thin card section that folds and glues to the inside of the walls.  This is shown assembled with the walls assembled but how one goes about doing this is a mystery.  If I had my chance again I would try a different approach.  I guess the manufacturer assumes the builder would have cut their teeth on a few small Faller kits first.  But I like to leap in the deep end!

Cheers, Mark.

[Mark Dalrymple]

Brick color and grout are very convincing.

Thanks, Rick.

I use the pastel/ pencil fixative as I find dullcote dissolves most of the chalk.  I still have to go easy with the spray can.

Cheers, Mark.

[Mark Dalrymple]

Looks like another winner Mark.....

Thanks, Gregory.

I'm hoping it will set off the scene nicely.

Cheers, Mark.

[Mark Dalrymple]

Beautiful work.  Now where's the beer?? 

Jerry

Ditto here. Where does the line form?

Glad to have found your  posts on this forum after the demise of RRL. I've always been impressed with your thorough planning.

Fifth Dave to the right

Thanks, Dave.

I'm please to have you following along.  There are plenty of bars and breweries in Tellynott - we shouldn't run out of beer...

Cheers, Mark.