A Titanic Paint Job

Slow progress has been made recently preparing the Titanic for launch. The model is pretty much finished, as you can see. In this photo the lower part of the hull had been sprayed with Halfords red primer and then masked using "normal" masking tape from the same source.

There was then a pause while I sourced black and white spray paint, B&Q do small cans of enamel but they were out of matt white. So in the end I brush-painted the white, which proved very fiddly and tedious, and required 2-3 coats. In the meantime I had found some Tamiya masking tape (from the Squires stand at Bognor last week), so used this for the white along the top of the hull.
 

The result after a couple of coats of black is shown above, as the masking tape is peeled off the lower hull. The white-black border is crisp and clean, however there is some slight intrusion of the black over the red. Not really enough to worry me, but clearly the Tamiya tape is better, and with hindsight I should have stripped the masking from the lower hull and re-done it with the Tamiya tape!

Now on with the rest of the painting, which looks to be even more fiddly and tedious...

Narrow Gauge in Bognor

Yesterday was the "SWING" Show organised by the South Downs 7mm Narrow Gauge Association. It's a nice little show with a good selection of narrow gauge and industrial layouts.

"The Loop" by Giles Favell is a 7mm scale layout depicting the interchange of a slate-carrying NG line with the standard gauge. Although the scenic area is just 4' by 2' it packs a surprising amount of operation and detail, and the scenic work is superb.

Khan by Julian Evison, is an 009 layout set in what is now Nambia, south-west Africa. Based on a might-have been development of a real line it depicts a steep climb up a mountain range, which makes for a distinctive and original model, that is fun and serious at the same time.

Halfway by Ken Jackson features both 0-16.5 and 09 (on the higher level) in a small space.

I could go on - there were lots more excellent layouts and live steam in the garden too - but I've posted pictures of more layouts here. I very enjoyable show, with good trade support too.

A family day out in Burgess Hill

On Saturday I visited the Burgess Hill exhibition, for a change with both kids and the wife in tow. I don't think I've ever visited this show before, but there were some good layouts so it was worth a trip over the hills. In fact there were around a dozen layouts, and narrow gauge was for once well represented, in fact a good range of scales and themes were on show. Here are some pictures of my favourites.

 

Pagham Harbour by Richard Glover (009) was an inspirational layout for me when I started in 009, showing how much atmosphere and realism could be created modelling a fictional scenario in a small space. Richard later rebuilt the layout - slightly larger but keeping the same atmosphere - and it was good to see it close up. Well, I say close up but despite being a mere 6 feet or so long, it seemed to have a big crowd in front of it!

 

 

Andrew Knights of the Wealden Railway Group is a prolific small-layout builder (no really, he's built more small layouts than me!), and was showing Sonne, See und Schmalspur, a German sea-side scene in H0e. A fine example of a fun layout that shows what can be built at home.

 

Whiteoak Light Railway (0-16.5) by Martin Coombs depicts a freelance industrial narrow gauge railway, but rather than the usual rural idyllic scene the layout is framed entirely by grimy industrial brick buildings. In fact there is no back-scene, the buildings just continue up until their tops are hidden by the upper pelmet, a cunning ploy that enhances the hemmed in industrial feel. As well as the fine buildings it features a superb model ship, and hosts a selection of unusual industrial locos - mainly diesels made from kits and conversions of Bachmann US outline models.

So just a handful of the layouts - it was a good show, and even the wife and kids enjoyed it. Perhaps more on that another time!