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Wednesday 14 September 2011

The Kawarren Project...

 
As I mentioned earlier, one of my main modelling interests is in Victorian Railways narrow gauge operations, primarily the operations of the Beech Forest line, or "The Beechy".  One of the points along that line was a stop called "Kawarren", located about 20km from Colac.  From a modelling perspective, it was an interesting point along the line due to the unusual shape of the goods shed there (with the added on covered loading side), and the way it was a meeting point for a 2'7" horse tramway (pictured above) that delivered lime from the nearby lime pits, as well as a couple of other timber tramway lines converging as a delivery point for loading to the narrow gauge line. 

I have intentions to bring this part of the Beechy to life as a future exhibition layout.  I am not setting any deadlines on this one though, as I have several hundred gum trees to make, as well as all the locomotives and rolling stock.  I started with what will likely be the only structures on the layout, with the goods shed and mallee shed ("station" of sorts), and have built them into a diorama, which is about 50cm x 50cm.  One of the other reasons for doing this diorama was to also have a testing piece for the gum trees I'd been making.  They had previously just been on storage boards, so it was nice to see how well they worked on a proper scenic piece.  I'll upload a couple of quick pics of the diorama now, but there is still a fair bit of final detailing to add to the scene (such as NQR 203, as in the photos above, and some more stuff stored around the shed, like wagon tarps and misc goods).  It will remain as a diorama for some time, but is intended that it will eventually become the focal point of the future layout.  The figure is one of the MK35 guys that I mentioned in a previous posting, with the horse one of Ian Lindsay's fine castings.  It was a fun and challenging one to build, since as a stand alone structure, all the attention was going to be on it, so I detailed it as finely as possible.  Where able, I have tried to match the boards to the photos (as far as split or broken pieces, from the two sides of the shed that were visible), and have finished it with a peeled paint which I was able to reference from a 2 second grab on some archive film footage of the line.

Cheers,
Dan








6 comments:

  1. G'day Dan,
    Great looking diorama ... I especially like your gum trees and am curious to know how you made them. Good to see that you also started a web bloggie sort of thing ...

    Cheers,

    Jeroen

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  2. Hi Jeroen,
    I may cover the gum tree construction in a future update, but its a fairly lengthy tutorial (not too difficult to make them, once you know how, but explaining the process easily can be a bit wordy and complicated). Essentially though, they are Sedum cuttings, that have had a fair bit of extra shaping and colouring...

    Cheers,
    Dan

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  3. Tony Reidpath, narrow minded in Bali1 November 2011 at 15:55

    Great work as always Dan.
    Is was wondering what is your prefered building medium, strip work of Balsa? plus our corregated iron home make or store brought?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Tony,
    I suppose I would say strip wood in most instances (although the boards on this Kawarren shed are actually lasercut boards I had the guys at Outback Models do for me...the ply grain is really nice, far better than basswood if you ask me). The normal basswood I would use is far stronger for working with than balsa, especially when using such fine scale profiles.

    I certainly have used a lot of balsa in models before though. If you refer to some of the photos of the mine area on our Dolly Varden layout, most of that was balsa. When built over a card shell, the balsa has its strengths, but over a fully framed structure, I would usually lean towards stripwood (which Black Bear Construction company do good supplies of in bulk...I can add a link to it later on).

    The iron sheets I use are normally commercial, as rolled by VR models (now also supplied through Outback Model Company).

    Cheers,
    Dan

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  5. Tony Reidpath, narrow minded in Bali3 November 2011 at 02:53

    Thanks dan,
    I read your comments on Mario's website about how happy you were with the OBM's ply. I have just started (before I headed back to work that is) on my Thurgoods model, I too like the graining on what I have done so far.
    Interestign comment about the basla on a card shell makes perfect sense when you think about it.
    I have a large supply of Balsa and stripwood but not a proportional amount of time.
    Perhaps if enough of us ask OBM will offer sheets of sized ply?

    Cheers
    Tony Reidpath, Narrow in Bali but currently in the PNG Jungle.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Tony,
    The lasercut ply sheets have one issue...cost. Cut time on an A4 size sheet is fairly long, and the 0.4mm ply is rather expensive (was handy to have some good mates with a lasercutter!) I certainly love that particular ply, but getting it is a slightly trickier issue. Have fun with your Thurogoods kit.

    Cheers,
    Dan

    ReplyDelete