Newbie intro and a couple of questions

[brookleigh]

Hello All,
Name is Roger, I,m a Retired BT Radio communications Engineer.
I,m located just south of Gloucester and my main interest is  GWR  1940 onwards.
Please excuse me if this is posted in the wrong section but I am unfamiliar with the Forum and its Protocol.

I have a couple of very Newbie questions if anyone can offer guidance...

1/  The station that I am modelling had a car park area of very compacted gravel......how could i simulate
      this?

2/  My limited (at the moment) rolling stock and locos are from Graham Farish......is there an easy way of
     uncoupling carriages without taking them off the track?

Regards  Roger

[ntpntpntp]

Hi Roger and welcome!

1) You could try very fine sand, or maybe fine emery paper suitably coloured with washes.

2) Get a dentist's probe (loads of them cheap on ebay and on tool stands at model railway exhibitions)  and use this to lift one of  the couplings.  I tend to use a pointed probe, but one with a small flat "spade" end could work well to lift the coupling by the little piece sticking down underneath.

[Newportnobby]

Hello Roger, and welcome to the forum
I'd go with what Nick says unless you want to go the whole auto decoupling with magnets etc.

[keithfre]

Or there's the Peco manual uncoupler.

[RailGooner]

Hi Roger and welcome aboard!

[Delboy]

Hi Roger,



You will find us a friendly and helpful bunch. Just fire away with your questions and someone will always have the answer.

[brookleigh]

Thank you All for the welcome and guidance.
I hope I will be able to contribute something to the Forum

Roger

[Bealman]

G'day from Australia, Roger, and welcome to the NGF! 

Good advice above.

[Malc]

From one Comms engineer to another, welcome to the forum. If you are going down the sand paper route for your car park, don't get it too wet when painting. I found the abrasive came unstuck from the backing. Try the sand method instead. A light coat of PVA glue mixed with water (about 50-50) with a drop of washing up liquid will stick it down.

[brookleigh]

From one Comms engineer to another, welcome to the forum. If you are going down the sand paper route for your car park, don't get it too wet when painting. I found the abrasive came unstuck from the backing. Try the sand method instead. A light coat of PVA glue mixed with water (about 50-50) with a drop of washing up liquid will stick it down.

Thank you, Malc...
I will be going down that route

Roger

[chrism]

From one Comms engineer to another, welcome to the forum. If you are going down the sand paper route for your car park, don't get it too wet when painting. I found the abrasive came unstuck from the backing. Try the sand method instead. A light coat of PVA glue mixed with water (about 50-50) with a drop of washing up liquid will stick it down.

And, as an added bonus, you won't blunt so many knife/scalpel blades 

[brookleigh]

From one Comms engineer to another, welcome to the forum. If you are going down the sand paper route for your car park, don't get it too wet when painting. I found the abrasive came unstuck from the backing. Try the sand method instead. A light coat of PVA glue mixed with water (about 50-50) with a drop of washing up liquid will stick it down.

And, as an added bonus, you won't blunt so many knife/scalpel blades 

When I was gainfully employed, I was issued with a standard medical scalpel and a few dozen Swann-Morton blades..they remained unused until I recently started in N gauge....I found it useful   to glue a strip
of 400 grade wet & dry paper to a strip of wood and, at regular intervals, just stroke the edge of the blade along the abrasive paper to restore the cutting edge...blades seem to last a lot longer.

Roger

[Rabbitaway]

Roger

I have tried a few approaches to get effective gravel hard standing and concluded that better results can be achieved than using sandpaper or fine sand on its own.

My approach is a first layer of n gauge ballast (let it set) and then a second layer of fine sand, all applied with the standard PVA method, then watered down acrylic gray paint finish. A bit more work but good results, look at farm yard photo below

[brookleigh]

That farm scene certainly looks effective.
I am currently experimenting with sand/pva as advised both direct onto the baseboard and also onto
some Javis textured paper.

Roger

[honestjudge]

Or there's the Peco manual uncoupler.

Has anyone ever got these to work effectively?