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Don't forget to read our latest modelling tips and unboxing videos located at the bottom of the newsletter.
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Railway song of the week
Reader Alan Rutler contacted us to suggest "Last Train Home" which is one of the most iconic compositions by American jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, released in 1987 as part of the Pat Metheny Group album Still Life (Talking). The track is widely celebrated for its evocative, almost cinematic soundscape that blends jazz fusion, world music, and ambient textures. The piece opens with a distinctive, mechanical rhythm created by a synthesised train-like drum loop, immediately invoking the feeling of a late-night journey. The live version sees Pat playing an electric sitar. Click on the picture to discover it:
Embossed cardboard sheets are
large sections of card with realistic portrayals of various building
materials printed on them, they are often used by scratch builders to
create retaining walls, tunnel portals, platform edges, buildings and
just about anything else you can think of that in real life is made from
brick, stone, cobbles, tiles or slate.
They are made from strong card and embossed to create a 3D effect,
they can be easily cut and shaped to make intricate shapes or layered to
give depth to a feature.
Due to their excellent value compared to their plastic equivalent or
ready to place models, card sheets have also gained popularity with
modellers that have large expanses to cover such as lengthy retaining
walls.
They are easy to use and offer a wide variety of styles and building materials. While you can see the whole OO range here, here are a few examples from Noch in 00 gauge including weathered, red brick, Industrial walling with graffiti, irregular pavement, limestone wall and clinker varieties.
And not forgetting N gauge, of which you can see the full range here, here are some options including modern pavement, clinker and quarrystone walling.
Moving away from recreations of man-made structures to ones fashioned by mother nature, there are many ways to create boulders and rock faces including, using traditional papier-mache covering a wire-frame,
carving some expanding-foam or foam-bricks and covering a cardboard
skeleton with plaster cloth, all of these methods provide brilliant
effects when done correctly.
However, there's a way to create equally impressive rock faces that involves little more than scrunching up a piece of paper to create them.
Wrinkle Rocks are a variation of textured walling sheets, but, instead
of bricks or stones, the sheets portray rugged, natural rock
formations.
Strangely the sheets come out of the packet smooth and flat, not a
very convincing rock face you may say, but here's where the innovation
kicks in!
By simply scrunching the sheets up you can create a texture that perfectly mirrors the angles and appearance of a natural rock formation,
the more you scrunch, the better the effect, this leaves you with a
very convincing rock face that takes mere seconds to create.
The sheets come in 45cm by 22.5cm sections and are specially
formulated so that the laminated print will not deteriorate, crack or
split in any way during the scrunching process no matter how much
punishment you give them. Fixing the sheets to the layout is done using a
quality PVA adhesive so as well as being quick, the sheets are easy to use too.
There are many designs to choose from including:
- Grossvendiger, this sheet has a grey rock face in appearance with a subtle sandy effect
- Sandstone, with a beautiful copper colour seeping through bringing the design to life and looks amazing
- Seiser Alm, for damper locations with hints of vegetation beginning to take hold in the crags
- Wildspitze and Grosslockner designs for fine or coarse rock formations
Noch has evidently put a lot of thought into not only making their product easy to use but also into its appearance and finished effect.
- What is a DCC decoder CV?
- What is a back to back gauge?
- What is best: flexible track or set track?
- What is a Co-Co wheel arrangement?
- How do you "plant" a model buiding?
Do you need to order?
Send us an email or give us a call to check availability or to reserve anything, whatever scale you model in. As usual, if we do not have in stock what you are looking for, we will order it for you and you will get it fast (usually within a week if the manufacturer has it in stock). We place weekly orders with most suppliers.
Remember, you can park for free for one hour on the High Street. So no excuse not to come and visit us!
Upstairs Downstairs is open Tuesday to Saturday 10am till 4.30pm. Obviously, our website is open 24h a day and we can post to most locations, including Europe, USA and Australia.
Upstairs Downstairs
3 Pier Street
Sandown, PO36 8JR
Isle of Wight
Tel: 01983 406 616
http://www.trainshop.co.uk or find us on Facebook
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