Sandy Shores - Beach Building

With apologies for the delay in posting - as you can imagine, I've been somewhat busy getting the layout up to a decent enough standard to show to the public. Having only a two week deadline meant long days (over 12 hours), late nights, and at times frustration. I know a lot of modellers realise that deadlines sort of ruin the fun of this fantastic hobby - and, whilst I am inclined to agree, I also can't help but point out that deadlines are a very good way of getting stuff done!

With very little railway modelling having been done over the past year, it was actually only the deadline that really pushed me to make decent amounts of progress. I've done a hell of a lot more because of it than I otherwise would have done. And in fact, I've even tackled jobs that I've been putting off - that perhaps would've otherwise not been done for many months. But on the other hand, longs hours and a seemingly everlasting list of things to complete does induce a lot of stress. Stress which this hobby is supposed to suppress.

So yes, deadlines are great for getting stuff done... but not so great for your sanity!

Anyway, enough of that, let's focus on the progress for the past few days. Let's start off at the beach; and a reminder of how it started off as:

Above: As you can see, not only is there a large gap underneath the lighthouse, but the beach lacks any form of proper boundary with the stream. But let's sort out the beach height first:

Above and below: So as is always the case with major landforms; the first step I take is to make a rough template using old newspaper. Due to the fact the beach will slope towards the front of the layout, in the end, you'll see that the front bit of the template wasn't used:

Below: Once I was happy with the basic shape, it was glued with PVA, and left to cure for a few hours with some weights on top:

Below: So, whilst that was curing, my attention turned to something else - layout lighting. A while back, Michael Campbell posted on his latest layout thread his results with 4000K LED strip. You may remember I had originally used cheap RGB LED strip; but was never truly happy with the colours (despite that the RGB values could be adjusted). The results of his purchase seemed to produce much more natural colours than I have ever managed with any lighting rig I've made; so I followed suit! As you'll see, the result is pretty much spot on in my opinion...

Obviously, colour is hard to perceive through a photo, and even more so through a monitor, but it's clear to see the improvement! Not only do the colours seem natural, but the lights are very bright, and very little would be needed for a layout like this. In one of the upcoming posts, I'll show you the final set up. The photos above and below were both taken at night, with the only source of light being the LED strip.

Below: Now going back to the beach (since it's had time for the glue to cure), it was time to use up the rest of the clay I had and cover the whole thing in it. In actual fact, I'd probably recommend something like Polyfilla for this since clay gets quite heavy, but for a small layout like this, it's not really a concern for me. Anyway, I was also keen to cover up any holes under the groyne, and also to show that some sand would have spilled through the many cracks!

With a small amount of clay left, it seemed a shame to waste it; it's then that I realised the transition from the beach to the stream was somewhat poorly executed. A little while later, and we have the beginnings of the small sand "cliffs" caused from erosion that form the bank of the stream as it carves its way through the beach.

After that, it was the standard method of painting, gluing play sand on, then lastly a thin wash of more paint to form the necessary look and texture of the beach. With only 3 days left by this point I had the sudden realisation that I should really be getting the first signs of water on the layout. First though, I wanted to add a little more texture and some slightly more realistic colouring into the stream bed. Given that the stream at this point would just be carved out of the sand, I sprinkled some play sand along the stream, and then set about repainting it to give a smoother transition from the murky pond to the almost clear sea. The final photo below shows the first of many (about 5 or 6) layers of PVA to go on the water areas - it's still drying in the photo; hence the murkiness.

So that'll be it for this post; the next one will show the next couple days of progress. For now though, I need some sleep after all these late nights, and a full day of showing the layout (I'll post about that eventually, when I am able to catch up!).