Perfectionism versus Character

‘If you can’t say anything nice then don’t say anything at all’ goes the saying. Other strategies are available; amongst the most common is the use of ‘characterful’ to describe work that may fall short of what the viewer would expect. There is in our hobby an unspoken undercurrent of encouragement, or pressure, to raise one’s game.  More detail, more accuracy, sharper model making is the name of the game. I’m pretty convinced that these goals are the wrong ones. 

There are some model makers at the very top end of the skull and ability range who produce stuff close to perfection that leaves me cold. Even if exquisitely painted and weathered these paragons somehow mange to be devoid of life, while the imperfect lives and breathes. I’ve spent some time wondering why this should be so, my intuition (ok guesswork) tells me that it’s something to do with approach; the models being planned, measured, practised and crafted with nothing left to chance. The best materials and tools are brought to bear; skills are honed in attempt to guarantee success. 

Real life isn’t like that, imperfections abound. Even engineers accept imperfection in the tolerances specified and permitted, and that’s before nature wreaks havoc in its attempt to reclaim its own. There’s a randomness about the real world that perfectionism in a model fights against. Sterility lies not too far down the honed and perfected route. Real life, character and atmosphere are found in allowing the happy accident to flourish. Embrace the unplanned that adds to the model, take chances and remember it’s the art rather than the engineering that impresses.

Friendship

It's easy to deduce from the frequency of postings that stagnation had settled on Morfa. Whilst in essence this was correct I had completed the woodwork for the staging sidings over the summer, a not hugely demanding shelf bracketed out from the layout edge behind the high ground of Barmouth and Abertafol. A half-hearted start had been made on the entry pointwork, a left, right and diamond combo. As a consequence of such indolence the layout itself had been co-opted to serve as shelf and storage, until an e-mail fixed up visits from friends on two successive weekends. For the first visit I concentrated on tidying up, all that should not have been on the layout was put away and the rails cleaned.

Unfortunately what had till then run reliably well, started to stutter and fail. I was disappointed and resolved to sort out as much as I could before the next weekend. Realising that temporarily tacked down track can't be properly fettled, I took to adjusting, sticking and ballasting the Abertafol curve. While the pva went off, the entry pointwork to the staging sidings was finished, gapped and had its tie bars fitted.

By the second weekend reliability returned along with my motivation. In the weeks since, the remaining staging siding points have been built and will be shortly fitted. very little of the temporary tracks remain, just a yard or so to the bridge and the bridge itself. Completion of the dull but necessary parts of the layout lie tantalisingly close. Better stop typing and start track laying.

The hills are alive ...

Pictures being worth a thousand words this should tell you pretty much all you need to know about what I've been up to the last couple of days. What it won't say is how close to disaster the whole thing came. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with backscenes. I prefer to paint them, it gives a more coherent look having all parts of the layout made by the same hands but there's ever present possibility of unintended cock up snookering the whole show. At least the other difficult bits can be assembled as discrete units away from the trainset, only being applied if all is well. Backscenes are a bit too 'do or die' to allow for a happily relaxed approach.

Busy, busy, busy

Sunday; rush of blood to the head or a rare bout of enhanced work ethic and the backscene has had its unsatisfactory shade of blue covered up with two coats of white emulsion that will act as an undercoat for a warm cloudless cobalt blue sky. I have a thing about clouds on backscenes, they rarely convince partly because not everybody is a Constable and  partly because backscenes allow one to see a greater sweep of sky than real life and even with clouds well spaced out the backscene appears to have too many. The thirty foot sweep of sky backing onto Morfa would only exacerbate this problem. I've also completed all the fascia and finished painting it grey. Tidied up the layout a treat. 

A bridge too far

Well, hasn't winter just flown by? If you were to take a peek in my railway room you could be forgiven for thinking that not much had happened. You'd be both right and wrong. Trains still circulate, the scenery remains unstarted let alone unfinished and there's still an amount of 6mm square timber strip and coffee stirrers strewn about the place. However dissatisfaction with the Mk1 'proper' bridge deck set in and a Mk2 has been constructed to take its place. At present I'm part way through assembling all the timber piers from the aforementioned stripwood and stirrers. It's made a long process by having to wait for the PVA glue to dry on one side before I can remove the pier from its jig, flip it over and stick the reverse side together. There's a further wait for this side to dry before I can load up the jig again.

I have also been distracted by the delights of the Darjeeling Steam Tramway.

 Photos of stripwood and coffee stirrers are dull, so have a screen capture of the sort of stuff that keeps me motivated.