Tuesday, 2 February 2010

After Finishing The Blog,

it was on with the trains, I decided to jump the gun a bit by putting one or two tufts of grass on one of the rock faces,
a bit difficult to see in the photo, but they looked quite realistic on the model,
now to the right hand tunnels, still looking like a snow scene,
and the other side of the river,
when I first decided on the layout I should have factored in that Diana can not reach the middle of the layout along with some parts of the bends, so chair needed! I also put in one or two light wash brown 'streams' to give the appearance of water seeping from the ground,
I was still having trouble with the ballasting, getting it to stick on the sides of the track bed underlay, so I bought a tub of latex hoping that would do the trick,
so a coat of glue along the slope of the underlay, like so, then pour the ballast on,
meanwhile Diana is moving along with the rocks,
all I can do now is wait till tomorrow to see if it works,
this has been the problem, the slope of the underlay and non-stickiness of the glue means that the under felt shows through,
this is what I am hoping the new glue will achieve,
Diana is really getting the hang of how to 'age' the rocks, then time to get ready to meet Joe,
we decided on a meal at Cherry's as it was Monday Diana fancied the lobster special, for starters we all had the salad bar help yourself,
Joe really helped himself!
for Diana just a small salad, there was also a complementary starter of fried fish,
then Diana's starter arrived, 2 river prawns and 2 rock lobsters,
followed by a half kilo lobster,with a full accompaniment of vegetables,
Joe had breaded pork,
and for me a lamb shank,
"Cheers!" from all of us,
then for desert Diana had a Tiramisu, for the two of us including a watermelon drink for Diana and 2 glasses of red wine for me 1,200 baht,
then home to watch a couple DVD's, the Jasmine was still smelling so nice,
whilst at Tuk Com we bought 2012, a great disaster movie, especially the reference that some one made, 'you mean all those people carrying the world is ending boards could be right!'
there are a number of DVD's that for some reason I could not buy in the UK, Joe very kindly ordered them for me in the States last October, things like Hill Street Blues, SOAP, The Odd Couple (all TV series), to name a few, the good news is that the first one turned up today! Rare Birds, I had a copy of it before but it some how went missing, great Gaelic Modern music, a strange but compelling story line and a real feel good factore, the other good thing about it is that I could not think of anyone better than William Hurt to play the lead role, then off to bed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Stan

For the ballast put it in position, then use a little hand pump water spray filled with diluted PVA. The fine spray settles on it and soaks in and sets. It does make the ballast darker.

You obviously need to go round afterwards wiping the tops of the rails and let it dry before running any trains.

From the photos you seem to be doing a great job.

Take care

Robert

PattayaStan said...

Dear Robert, I tried using that method but it still disturbed the ballast, but now having secured the ballast on the slope of the under lay I am hoping it will hold the wetted ballast in place, but many thanks for the tip, best regards, Stan and Diana.