Drystone Moss: A 006 pizza - track ballasting

Ballasting is one of those jobs that I wasn't looking forward to, mainly because it has a reputation of being tedious and easy to get wrong. In the end I quite enjoyed it, but then I haven't really got much track to work on. I started by experimenting with loose ballast on a bit of scrap wood before letting loose on the pizza.

The usual method, laying the ballast then wetting with water with a drop of washing up liquid using a sprayer didn't work for me, the sprayer wouldn't mist as much as needed and the ballast clumped together as soon as the water hit it. I then tried using an eye dropper instead of a mister, that had the same result. Maybe our washing up liquid isn't suited to the task. So, after watching a couple of youtube videos, I tried a 50/50 mix of water and meths. That did the trick so that's the method I used. For glue I first tried watered down PVA, and again I wasn't happy with the results so instead I used WWS (War World Scenics) static grass layering glue applied with another eye dropper. This worked well.

The tools used;

Note that one eye dropper has its own bottle, handy as I filled it with the water/meths mix. The brushes were used to move the ballast around. The large spoon is sold for melting sealing wax in, the middle sized one is a Nuffield spoon and the smallest is a Tamiya paint stirrer. All three proved their worth adding ballast where needed in the quantity required. The back of the Tamiya stirrer also found use gently tapping ballast in place.

I found that by doing short sections at a time, 4-5", and allowing the glue to dry for a few hours I could do about 3 sessions a day. By not doing too much in one go I wouldn't get bored and could keep up what I hope is a reasonable standard of work.

Woodland Scenics fine grey was chosen, I wasn't sure what to use so I went for a middle-of-the-road choice. I deliberately kept the shoulder uneven, I want the track to look unkempt without affecting the running of small mechanisms so grass between the rails is out (for now).

Rocks next, but first, a brew

Paul.

A Big-Big yellow Ruston

 Many years ago I had a small collection of SM32/16mm stock, mainly Saltford Models locos, a few waggons from the same stable as well as a few Binnie skips. All that I still have in storage in my mother's loft. One loco I never owned was a Tri-ang Big-Big Ruston. That is, until now.

I picked this one up from a stand at the Bakewell exhibition, for a quite reasonable £20;

It's actually a good representation of a Ruston LHT if you can ignore the lack of a jackshaft, the underlength body and the un-prototypical sloping cab front. 

The condition is pretty good for such an old loco, these were basically toys designed for rough handling.

The switch on the right hand side is for forward and reverse, and is designed to be activated by a lineside post. On the other side there's an on/off switch, which again can be activated by a post.

The body clips on at the rear and is held in place with the lever above the front bufferbeam. On mine the rear clips are broken, as is the part of the bonnet that the lever slides into. Not a big deal to be honest, and to be expected.

The battery contacts are tarnished, and in one place green with corrosion. I'm hoping that this will respond to some careful cleaning.

I rigged up the contacts to my mint tin controller fitted with crocodile clips and, with a wall wart set to 3 volts, gave the loco a test run on the table. It runs rather well!

I do like the paint on the lights;

My plans for this are simple, just a strip down and clean up leaving it pretty much as I bought it. I may however fit a battery box for a couple of AAs, I don't have a garden railway and therefore I don't need either speed or power.

There's an article in issue 100 of Narrow Gauge & Industrial Modelling Review about this model and the tipper waggons that accompanied it. 

Paul.

Drystone Moss: a 006 pizza - forming the landscape

The inspiration for Drystone Moss comes from a place called Drystone Edge, which is located in the Staffordshire Moorlands close to Buxton. It's an area that I know and love, hence the fact that I've used it as inspiration for this project. It also gave the pizza its name, losing the Edge and adding Moss as there are a few areas of local moorland that end in Moss. I have of course played fast and loose with geography and history, no railway was ever built in the area (and if there was 18" would never have been considered) and the terrain would have been unsuitable anyway. However, worse crimes have been committed in the name of narrow gauge modelling...

This is how the area looks;

Drystone Edge is a ridge, situated close to the more famous Axe Edge;

The ridge is best described as bleak, especially in winter, but for some reason I'm drawn to bleak. I've been up there on foot and on the fatbike.

Obviously I'm not modelling a ridge, but more of a hilltop with a tramway contouring around it, running between here and there through the middle of nowhere.

The landform is made from expanded polystyrene packaging, carved to shape with a Woodland Scenics hot wire cutter and a snap-off blade knife;

The lines are there to mark out a path to the summit, where there will be a small rock formation;

I spent a lot of time carving, thinking, asking my wife Dani for her opinion, before glueing the landform down with UHU POR. Then I covered the polystyrene with a thin layer of filler, doctored with PVA and a mix of mars black and burnt umber artists acrylics;

In the photo above you can see where I've carved a hollow.

The underlying soil is peat, quite dark in colour;

To represent that soil type I mixed up more artists acrylics (Daler Rowney), again using burnt umber and mars black with a dash of warm grey;

As for a reason for a railway, there have been coal mines on Axe Edge as well as peat cutting (the peat was used in the local spas for bathing in!), nearby Orchard Common also saw some small scale coal mining and there was gritstone quarrying and lead mining locally as well. So, my excuses are in!

Ballast next, but first, a brew;

Paul.