How To Model Farm Hedges & James May Rebuilds The Flying Scotsman

Morning gang!

How's things? Hope you've had an amazing week… We've had quite mixed bag of weather this week. When the sun's out it's lovely and warm, then the next minute it's drizzling and back to the more prototypical Cornish liquid sunshine! In fact, as I write this on Thursday morning, I'm sat in the dining room at home, while the ladies of the house have popped into Truro, watching the rather heavy drizzle! Sunday's looking pretty good though, so if it's not too breezy we might take the paddleboard down to Pentewan or Portmellon maybe for a couple of hours.

It's been a pretty normal week at HQ, with orders going out like clockwork. Scott's been busy tidying the laser room in between juggling the machines. Jess has had the lurgy this week, so has been working from home all week, rejigging things on the website. There's still loads to do but hopefully, by the time we get to silly season next month, it'll be all ship shape.

We've also had deliveries from several suppliers this week including Gaugemaster & Peco, with fresh stocks of some of our flower packs and glue also due in next week with a bit of luck. And Stu's been busy listing some new lines we've had arrive in stock from Noch & Faller which are brilliant for creating cameo scenes etc.

Ooh… while I think about it… we want to tailor our newsletters, particularly the new Wednesday evening ones, to your specific preferences… We had some feedback this week which has been really handy… and while these weekend newsletters are quite generic in terms of the video content, we're hoping to start tailoring the Wednesday ones a bit more so they're more relevant to your interests etc. So look out for this coming Wednesday's email (once we've figured out how to do it) which will be a short “tick the box” type questionnaire about your interests, the scale you model in etc.

New Product Development

This week has mostly been spent fiddling about with some larger scale (1:32) farm bits and pieces as we mentioned in Wednesday night's email, so there's not been a lot of time for what I'd call “normal” product development. But from that project will come several new products which will hopefully be available in a number of scales over the coming weeks. I'll get some previews posted up in the RailwayModellers app over the next week so you can see what we've been up to and what's on its way.

We did get chance to convert another of our OO kits over to N gauge this week. Brian emailed a week or two ago about getting the factory gates in N, so we've converted those over this week.

In the meantime, it's over to young Sam for this weekend's videos.

Good morning! I hope that you have had a good week and as always, make the most of the weekend. It's been a rather nice week down here in Cornwall with minimal showers and good temperatures. This week, I've been doing my usual bits and pieces with the website, RailwayModellers, social media, custom jobs for you wonderful people and a little bit of product development.

Currently, I'm working on some accessories for those of you modelling the 1950s and 60s so keep an eye out for those.

Ooh and before we get properly stuck in to the main videos… here's the Dylington School Holidays update from James & his Grandson…

A lot of you may know the channel DIY and Digital Railroad which I have featured many times. Jimmy posted an announcement video, click here for that, saying he's taking a 2-week break. He mentions in the video that he's going create mega compilations of tutorials and other information so I'll be sure to feature those in future newsletters.

As I said last week, we have been creating some videos for YouTube, Facebook, X and Instagram. This week's video is a short one going over some of the best glues we recommend for model making, as well as one for the KX054-OO Tony's Cart Shed kit. I've been debating doing some voiceovers for these videos to make them more interesting so let me know what you think about that idea.

With all that being said, it's time for some videos.

Quick and Effective Farm Hedges

For the first video this week, here's a nice tutorial. Hedges are an essential part of the British landscape. In this video, Julian from Station Road Model Railway takes us through an easy and cheap way to make effective farm hedges. This tutorial (and many of the others on their channel) is well-made and presented. With this method, you can easily produce enough hedges for a large layout. Plus it doesn't take long at all!

The Return of British Rail

I sound like a broken record at this point but here's a video from Jago Hazzard. I'm going to avoid talking about politics, however, with the election that has just taken place, an interesting topic was that the railways are to be nationalised once again. In this, he discusses how things used to be when they were previously nationalised as well as his thoughts about the future. Jago says in the video that he has spoken to people in the railway profession and many seem to think this is a good thing. Let me know what you think of this in the comments. How are the railways going to be affected by this? 

End Of The Hobby - 6 Months Later

Right, this video is quite long at 40 minutes but I can't resist. I absolutely love Top Gear and especially Captain Slow. In this series, "Reassembler", James rebuilds classic items from lawnmowers to model trains. This time, he rebuilds a 1970s Hornby Flying Scotsman Train Set which he owned for over 40 years. The train itself has 138 parts. If you have some time to kill and are interested in the locomotive side of the hobby, check this video out.

Railwells 46th Model Railway Exhibition

This might be the longest title in the Exhibition Coverage so far - The Wells Railway Fraternity Presents The 46th Railwells Model Rail Exhibition. This event took place on the 3rd & 4th of August 2024 at The Wells Town Hall. 15 layouts were at this exhibition in a range of different scales (some which I've never heard of before) including S4, P4, PZ, 0g and the usual OO and N gauge. Alongside the layouts, there were 16 trades and 7 demonstrations. The video I've selected comes from theghostontheline and they do an excellent job capturing the exhibition. You can even watch it in 4k!

For up-and-coming exhibitions, you can click here.

That's it from me. I hope you enjoyed these videos. Feel free to let me know what you think about them in the comments or via email (sam@scalemodelscenery.co.uk). You can also send me any videos that you enjoyed or made yourself. Have a great rest of your weekend!

New Stuff

Right then… what have we got that's new this weekend then? Let's see…

• LX442-N Large Wooden Factory Gates - Type 1 - N/2mm/1:148
• LX443-N Large Wooden Factory Gates - Type 2 - N/2mm/1:148
  We finally got around to converting these over to N gauge this week after Brian twisted my arm. They've come out really nicely and we've even managed to get the latch handles or whatever you call them to work in N gauge! They're a real masterpiece for something so small…  Fancy a pack? Click here to order yours. They're also available in OO/1:76 scale here too.
• SX025 Glue Stand
  We released these a while ago in limited edition, black painted MDF, but we've had so many requests to bring them back… So we've done a bargain priced plain MDF one so you can keep all your kit building glues tidy and to hand. Of course, you can keep them in plain old natural brown MDF, or you can finish them in any colour you prefer! Maybe we ought to create a Gallery Of Tool Stands and see how creative you guys can get? Daft idea? Yeah probably not my best… Anyway… grab yours now here.
  
  If you need to stock up on glues, we also have a stand and glue bundle here.

Back In Stock

Lots of stuff back in stock this week… too much to list… but here's a small selection…

• Humbrol AV0100 Weathering Pens Set
• Faller 151684 Seated People (Pack of 8) - OO/HO
• Gaugemaster GM1670 Hay Bales (Pack of 18) - OO/4mm/1:76
• Gaugemaster GM632 Budget Needle File Set
• Gaugemaster GM760 The Mountains (Small Backscene) TT:120 / N
• Gaugemaster GM758 Town Scene (Small Backscene) TT:120 / N

New Items Into Stock This Week

• Gaugemaster GM462 Post Boxes (Pack of 2) - OO/4mm/1:76
• Gaugemaster GM464 Litter Bins (Pack of 3) - OO/4mm/1:76
• Gaugemaster GM469 Fordhampton Wall Mounted Floodlights (Pack of 3) - OO/4mm/1:76
• Gaugemaster GM476 Quarry Stone Walling (72cm) - OO/4mm/1:76
• Gaugemaster GM477 Field Stone Walling (70cm) - OO/4mm/1:76
• Gaugemaster GM478 Garden Stone Walling (71cm) - OO/4mm/1:76
• Gaugemaster GM450 Assorted Boats - OO/4mm/1:76

Popular This Week

• Servo Animation Starter Kit
  These proved really popular over the past week… You probably saw them in last weekends email but they're so darn simple to set up and give you everything you need to add a bit of basic movement to a layout or diorama. The kit comprises of : SG90 Micro Servo (the bit that does the moving), a Simple Servo Control Board, Micro USB cable and a laser cut Universal Servo Mount. It takes about 2 minutes to build the servo mount and about 20 seconds to plug everything in and you're ready to roll!
  
  There's no power supply included but you know that old USB phone charger you've got sat in the drawer that you though might come in handy one day? Well now you have a use for it! Just make sure it's capable of delivering up to 500mA at 5v… it should be printed on it somewhere… so anything greater than 0.5A or 500mA and it's perfect for the job. An old iPad or tablet charger will definitely work.
  
  The servo control board that comes with the kit has a built-in micro-switch for triggering the servo as well as solder tabs for connecting an external momentary switch and an external, hardwired 5v dc power supply should that be your thing. So you can build an entire control panel if you wish. There's also a micro-potentiometer on the board which you can adjust to control the length of travel of the servo. Just give it a twist and you can adjust it from a couple of degrees, up to a full 180 degrees. The speed of servo travel is however fixed on these boards, but they're great for testing new ideas, learning the mechanics of layout automation and experimenting with new ideas.
  
  What you use the servo to move is entirely up to you… points, signals, doors, gates, lifts… anything you fancy. Doesn't even have to be on your model railway… you can use them for all manner of things on dioramas. And priced super keenly at just £11.99 for a set, they're an incredibly cost effective way of motorising points etc.
  
  Fancy having a play? Grab Servo Animation Starter Kit here… and the world's your lobster (complete with moving head, tail and legs if you fit servos to it! 😂
  
  Want more than just simple animation? Martin, the inventor of the Modulus system that we looked at a while back is making great progress with bringing it to market. It's been a challenge, but it's finally seeing the light of day… If you'd like to know more and speak to him about using it on your layout, you can contact him via the Railway Modellers Club here.

Right, that's about it for this edition of the weekly news. We're off our with the dog for an hour, then we're working today so we're off down to the unit to get some more done on these 1:32 scale farm buildings and accessories… Then Sunday we're gardening and hopefully enjoying a bit of sunshine.

Have an amazing weekend folks… And of course…

Keep on shunting…

Justin, Tina, Elizabeth, Lola & The Team

P.S. This weeks newsletter header comes from Knutsford Ian over on the Railway Modellers community with this rather wonderful black & white shot of our Backstreet Garage kit which he's just finished building.

P.P.S. Missed a newsletter? You can read all of our recent newsletters online here.