Progress on the scenics!

Earlier on in the week, I had booked Friday off to prepare things ready for a weekend away with the Army Cadet Force. It turns out that plans where changed and I only needed to go on the Saturday. So, I decided to spend a few hours on the layout.
Firstly I attached the back board that runs along the ‘Blaenau’ end of the Works board. Then I tipped the layout on it’s side and started to work on the cliff face; here is how I did it.

1) Basic Shape.
The basic shape of the rock face was made up using polystyrene blocks, trimmed to size and shape using a sharp hobby knife. I found that the type that the blade ‘snaps off’ is the best, as the blade can be extended to several inches long. Perfect for cutting all the way through and giving a nice, clean and mess-free cut!

2) First Cover.
I first covered the polystyrene with a thick(ish) layer of filler; abut 2-3mm thick. This was done on all of the ‘flat’ surfaces. On the top and corners, a bit more was added to ‘blend in’ the blocks.

3) Little Details.
Finally, the tool used to apply the filler was used to shape the filler to the shape of the rock face.

And finally, here is a photo of what the area will hopefully look like! Here is a England engine (Welsh Pony or Prince, undecided yet) taking a load of empties back up the line.
The keen eyed readers will notice the cliff face (and tunnel) at the end of the layout haven’t been made. This is because I still need to run the track to the edge of the board and make a ‘tunnel liner’ to look like the inside of a tunnel.
Hopefully, I will get that sorted Saturday evening or Sunday.

Oh dear.... the control freaks are at it again...

SOPA or the Stop Online Piracy Act.
I'm sure everyone has heard of it by now. If you don't know what it is, it's well worth reading this Wikipedia page
If it goes through... in theory, they could delete Google, as people could find pirated movies and music etc through Google. This COULD effect things such as this and thousands of similar blogs, Picasa, YouTube, Gmail and any service/website that is run by Google.
In my mind, the only good thing about this is the jokes that have been coming out. The best in my opinion, (please, no offence intended towards people with dyslexia) “The STOP SOPA protest might lead to some smelly dyslexics”
Personally, I think the Act shouldn't go through. It will mean that if someone downloads an illegal copy of Michael Jackson's Thriller song, they could spend more time in prison than his doctor. It would give the US Government control of what people do, see and share over the internet, which I think that they have no right of doing so! I think the internet is a place where people should have the right to express their feelings, have fun Facebooking, Tweeting and YouTubing with the moderate safety barriers that are in place at the moment, there’s nothing wrong with them, they just need to be enforced a bit better.
There you go... rant over. Please leave a comment, to let people know your opinion on the matter.

Photos

Here's a link to a album of the photographs taken by Paul Martin (EDM Models).

Some progress on 'The Baby Tal'

A few months ago, I had a trainee stoker turn, the driver on Blanche was Paul Martin of EDM models.
He mentioned that he designs and takes comissions to build kits for his 7mm Blanche, Linda, Charles and a Taliesin kit. I asked him if he takes commissions for 009 kits and we started to discuss the possibility of constructing my Backwoods Taliesin kit, he kindly agreed and the kit was handed over.
I had a update off him earlier and some progress has been made. There is a small problem with a Crosshead slipper / guide, but he will sort that out with Backwoods Miniatures.
Most readers will be confused about the title ‘Baby Tal’ It’s the name of the page which Paul’s uploaded onto his website, as it's a 'baby' compared to his 7mm models! Once there is some photographs uploaded, I will ask Paul if it is ok to copy them onto this blog.

So, a very nice Christmas surprise, and on that note I would like to wish all of the readers Merry Christmas, a happy new year and would like to thank all of the readers for taking interest in what I do, the blog just passed 12'000 page views earlier on today (a figure I never thought I would achieve). Before anyone asks, the photograph is from the Earl being used as a plough and point defroster at Tan Y Bwlch last year.