Monday, February 17, 2020

Late night measuring


Given the job of building one of the main buildings on the BRM Runcorn Salt layout, I decided I better make a mock-up. The trouble was, all I had to work on were some photos and no measurements whatsoever. The one I'm working on is the brick building on the left of this photo.


The prototype uses pre-fab modules for the main walls, so all I had to do was find a similar building and take some measurements. Now, these places have often been replaced, but one local to me is Shire Hall, home of Warwickshire County Council.


Measuring a building looks a bit suspicious, so I decided that nipping over in the evening, once most of the occupants had gone home, would be less likely to see me on the end of odd stares. So, at 7pm, I parked up and after 15 minutes with a tape measure, I had all the numbers I needed.


From these, I was able to draw out a single unit and then multiply this to give me an idea of the size my model needed to be. Then it was out with the cereal packets and the rest can be seen in this video, along with some ideas for the next steps.



4 comments:

James Finister said...

I could be wrong, but I think that building is still visible on the google maps satellite, though with an extension on the front view. That offers another way of measuring it using the tool inside maps.

If I've identified it correctly it looks like 10m wide, with the four main prefab "bays" being about 3.5m long

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.3288674,-2.756853,129a,35y,270h,39.56t/data=!3m1!1e3

Compound2632 said...

Now why does this put me in mind of "The Wrong Trousers"?

Chris Ford said...

Isn't a salt layout a bit niche?

Huw Griffiths said...

Hmmm ... "The Wrong Trousers" ... Wasn't that the Nick Park animation that featured a toy train chase - with the track being assembled as they went along?

Yes - definitely an all-time classic.

Now could someone please remind me: "What's wrong with Wensleydale?"

Of course, another Wallace and Gromit animation features a robotic "dog" called Preston - so it might just have been the other side of the Pennines.

("Minor local dispute" over the colour of roses, allegedly ... .)

Of course, there might always have been slightly more to this.

About 30 years back, I remember visiting Hull - and coming across a hoarding advertising the Yorkshire Post, with a slogan that couldn't have made things much clearer:

"News from abroad. Yes, even Lancashire."

That sounds really subtle - doesn't it?