Railway Miniatures 1/87 German Lighthouse: Lighthouses – helping to keep salty sea dogs out of the briny

[Faraway]

2 hours ago, Bobby No Mac said:

I've been testing out paint on a kitchen roll tube and think I've settled on using AK Rubber Black, Vallejo Ivory and Vallejo Flat Red

Did you test the paints that were included with the kit ?

I thought the ones I got with my HMS Alert kit were quite good.

Jon

[Bertie McBoatface]

I like your choice of colours. 

[Bobby No Mac]

3 hours ago, Faraway said:

Did you test the paints that were included with the kit ?

 

I tried the black on the internal sections that will have windows but, like you said, very gloppy.

[Faraway]

4 minutes ago, Bobby No Mac said:

very gloppy.

I think that’s the point, they don’t soak in much. If they did, then the card/paper would delaminate or distort. 
Jon

[dnl42]

This looks very good! 

Looks like an excellent subject for the medium.

[Col.]

Nice to sea more good progress and your paint choices do look good 

[Bertie McBoatface]

Art thou becalmed, me hearty?

[Bobby No Mac]

On 01/02/2023 at 11:28, Bertie McBoatface said:

Art thou becalmed, me hearty?

 

Aye, Master-at-Arms. there's been some rough old seas away from the bench, but there'll some updates this weekend.

 

In the meantime, this has been brought to my attention:

 

 

"I saw a fridge, once"

[Bertie McBoatface]

Oooh. I enjoyed that. Thanks.

[Mjwomack]

On 1/8/2023 at 1:09 PM, Bertie McBoatface said:

(I'm not buying a paper boat until I see it done!)

Yep, You just keep telling yourself that. As card and paper are a tree product, along with wood. You've actually done a couple already- it's just that the card was VERY VERY thick and not well processed😁

 

[Bobby No Mac]

So, finally time for some updates from Roter Sand...

 

While test fitting the first of the three cladding parts for the middle section of the tower, I encountered a problem.

 

 

You see the bottom has no edge for it to adhere to and conform around the curvature of the tower. So I had to improvise and make one, cutting two circles out of good old cereal box card and gluing them together.

 

 

They were cut into quarters and then trimmed so they would slot into the four segments of the tower.

 

 

 

 

A small recess was cut to allow room the doors.

 

 

An unexpected benefit of all this is that by keeping the fit of the door recesses quite tight, it aided the gluing process of the cladding because the doors locked into the slots quite nicely and helped to hold it together while the glue set.

 

 

Meanwhile, I've also been faffing with the base. The smoothness of the card was troubling me because the real thing - often under water - is really gnarly and heavily chewed up by the sea. To try and rough it up a tad, I tried a technique I've seen armour modellers use to imitate cast iron turrets - stippling on Mr Surfacer (I used 1000 as it was what I had to hand, but I understand the 500 variety is more suited to this method).

 

 

 

 

I went over it all three times to get the desired effect and, for a first attempt, I'm pleased with the result. Then it was time to glue the base to lower section of the tower.

 

 

And a quick look at how it stacks together so far...

 

 

Incidentally, that sack of parts behind is just a small fraction of the weirdness that's coming for the top section. Stay tuned.

 

Portland Bob

 

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

1 hour ago, Bobby No Mac said:

the top section.

 

I'd forgotten about the top section. Da da daaaaaa!

 

That was clever. Improvisation with the cereal boxes. 👏

[CliffB]

This is looking very impressive.  I'm sure that if I was building this, it would be heading for Pisa by now!

[TonyOD]

This is looking fantastic! Greta improv work with the cereal box.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

       Gidday @Bobby No Mac, it's coming along very well. The use of the cereal box cardboard was a good idea. I've used it in the past when making buildings for my son's train set, about 20 years ago. I found that by gluing two pieces together, coloured face to coloured face the curve of each is cancelled, and it's easy to work with. (Sorry if I've mentioned this earlier).

       The use of the Mr Surfacer seems to have had the desired effect. I've had the same effect (unwanted in my case) with enamel paint that's going off.

Following with interest.       Regards, Jeff.

[UberDaveToo]

Perhaps a little inspiration from my brother Mike's Flickr page:

 

 

[Bobby No Mac]

21 hours ago, UberDaveToo said:

Perhaps a little inspiration from my brother Mike's Flickr page:

 

 

 

Cool, not seen one with spiral stripes before. Kinda like a lighthouse crossbred with a helter skelter.

[UberDaveToo]

3 hours ago, Bobby No Mac said:

 

Cool, not seen one with spiral stripes before. Kinda like a lighthouse crossbred with a helter skelter.

That's the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, the National Historical Society paid a bundle to move it inland about 15 miles, lock, stock and keepers house about 25 years ago, the outer banks shift enough that it had become under threat of becoming submerged...

Edited February 8, 2023 by UberDaveToo

[Bobby No Mac]

Been making some headway with the fairy tale castle top section of Roter Sand with quite a few sub-assemblies.

 

Firstly, the three windows:

 

 

 

Typically, the instructions are a little vague and part 'F' doesn't exist. From what I can work out, I think it's meant to be calling out two different clear parts for double glazing - 46a (rectangle), and 48a (curved top). 46a goes on top of 46 and then you add the framework:

 

 

Then the arched frame fits in snuggly:

 

 

Then the 48a glazing goes on top of the arch frame:

 

 

 

Meanwhile, the outer window frames were painted 'on the sprue':

 

 

Then parts 48 were added to the windows (49 will go on after the windows have been fitted to the cladding).

 

 

More to come shortly...

 

Portland Bob

[Toryu]

Very interesting and skillful modelling process. I like working with paper and cardboard myself. Great to follow.

[Bobby No Mac]

39 minutes ago, Toryu said:

Very interesting and skillful modelling process. I like working with paper and cardboard myself. Great to follow.

 

Thanks. I'm enjoying working with a different medium. So much so I found myself today pondering scratchbuilding a Borg cube out of card for the Karmen Line group build. 

PS. I like what you've done with the banner 

[Faraway]

58 minutes ago, Bobby No Mac said:

 

Typically, the instructions are a little vague and part 'F' doesn't exist.

 I found the same with my Shipyard (same company, different name) model. Although sometimes they quote a part that is actually further on in the instructions, and not a stage that has gone. VERY confusing.

Jon

[Bobby No Mac]

More sub-assemblies...

 

Onto the oriels - the three turret thingies.

 

 

No problems here. Two of them are identical, the third is slightly different to accommodate a different lantern window arrangement.

 

 

I've also started painting the cladding for the oriels.

 

 

They'll need another coat or two before I fit the windows. Speaking of which, I built up the frames for the letterbox shape windows 'on the sprue' because it seemed slightly less fiddly that way. It was still very fiddly.

 

 

While I had the airbrush loaded with red I've been spraying the cladding for the middle band on the middle section and the top section.

 

 

Earlier I did the white for the middle section and the lantern rooms.

 

 

Moving onto the lantern rooms... The big one:

 

 

Some more guesswork was required about part 83b - not mentioned anywhere in the instructions but is quite obviously a mirror part to 82b (they serve as a shape for the lantern window frame to conform to later) . It goes on the underside of the upper 82a (which I think should be numbered 83a to make sense, but ho-hum). Thankfully, they are easy to place because the positioning is marked on 82a. Here's the completed structure upside down to show the location of 83b for anyone building this is the future:

 

 

Then on the secondary lantern room:

 

 

Same problem with this one with part 101b. Also hit another snag. Up to this point I've been dry fitting all assemblies before committing to glue, but this one was too fragile. Because of this, mine doesn't quite look like the one above because 94 and 95 need swapping, but it was too late change by the time I realised. On reflection, I should have tried using white tac to hold it together. We live and learn.

 

 

Daren't look to see if this is going to cause problems further down the line 

More to follow...

 

Portland Bob

 

 

 

 

[Bobby No Mac]

Just a few more loose ends from this week. I started on the roofs for the lantern rooms. Quite straightforward so far.

 

 

Also embarked on this madness:

 

 

 

Luckily the parts go together in numerical order. To ensure all the holes line up, I'm dry fitting the parts to the top section tower and gluing them together - but avoiding putting any glue near the tabs so I can remove both blocks when they're set, and make it easier to go back and add the cladding. 

 

 

Hopefully I'll get a few moments during the week to get all these layers together. Then next weekend all these sub-assemblies and pre-painting will coalesce into something that looks like a lighthouse... that's the theory at least 

 

Portland Bob 

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Bobby No Mac
To change lose to loose. What a loser!

[Col.]

That's impressive progress you're making and much of it despite the instructions.