South Oak Road

Working forwards

With the backscene now in place it was finally time to start adding some of the main structures. As keen as I was to launch straight into the arches and associated cameos situated at the very front of the layout, good sense (and pretty well any article you read on the topic) tells you to add scenic elements to the back of the layout first. This obviously avoids paint being accidentally dribbled across finished foreground scenery or worst still wandering out of the room with a signal attached to your jumper sleeve!

The first element to be added to the background was a large low relief warehouse. This is essentially a standard build of my T026 Factory-warehouse kit with the addition of the excellent Brassmasters windows (packs A and B) that have specifically designed to fit this kit. The fret also includes some very nicely etched wall tie plates and crosses. I found it easier to spray paint these on the fret and then cut out using some fine snips. I then glued them to Scalescenes free grimy glazing sheet printed on to OHP film. I wasn’t 100% happy with how the painted etches adhered to the card back of the warehouse so decided to apply strips of cloth tape as well.

I also created simple downpipes using 1.6 mm Evergreen rod (No. 222) with fine strips of masking tape wrapped around the rod every 24mm to represent joints and wall brackets made from Evergreen 1mm strip (No.122). Spray painted flat black and with the addition of a bit of subtle rust staining (Tamiya’s weathering master pack C) they were then carefully attached to the side of the warehouse buttresses. The whole structure was then glued into position directly over the backdrop.