Sometimes your hobbies have to take a back foot!

Sometimes your hobbies have to take a back foot as other things need doing. That is the case at the moment with the cloakroom/downstairs toilet rebuild taking up much of my time. Not that I am doing the main work but just being there to hold onto things, get items and sort out some of the more mundane things that I can do such as painting the door whilst it was out of its frame so that the floor could be laid. Anyway, the result of todays work is a floor in place, a radiator mounted and working and the first of the cabinets fastened to the back wall.

Hopefully the toilet will be working by the end of tomorrow. I can stop crossing my legs then!

Filler, sanding, paint and an empty wallet!

Filler, sanding, paint and empty wallet describes most of my weekend! No model making, just cloakroom/downstairs toilet this weekend as Mrs. Woody has now emptied my wallet following the purchase of paint yesterday. Never the less we have some colours that we seem to both agree on which is unusual However, before getting to the point of applying said paint to the ceilings and walls there was a great deal of preparation to do. I did start last night with by filling various holes and blemishes so that the filler would be dry in the morning. I also applied a mist coat (very watered down paint) to the new plaster to seal it. Not the easiest thing to do when the lights have been disconnected and you are working by a portable light.

This morning it was down to sanding the mainly dry filler. There was a lot of filler to sand too such as this.

In fact after three hours I had collected this amount of sanding dust.

At least with all that out of the way the painting could commence with the ceiling to start with. May as well get the neck ache job out of the way.

Two coats save that a new look and made the place brighter. Was it going to stay bright though?

Mrs. W are I did take a bit of a risk with this colour and initially I was not sure but only painting a small amount never paints the full story!

With the whole room done it looks much better and once the floor and fittings go in it should all harmonise - hopefully! But, as I told Mrs. W I am not painting that room again for many years so we have to like the colour!

When self levelling doesn't level!

On occasions, you wonder how a product managed to get its name. Take self levelling screed for example. You presume, that if you follow the instructions, that when you pour it onto the unlevel floor it will do as it is named and self level. However that was not the case with the rebuild of the cloakroom, which appears to be the posh way to describe the downstairs toilet! With the freshly installed plaster board plastered, it was time to level the floor. Phil mixed the product to the instructions and poured it out in the far, most of level part of the existing floor.

Now you would think that it would flow out and literally find its own level. Not this stuff! Phil poured a second batch to see if it needed more mass. That didn't work! The stuff just sat there as though it wanted to be a hill!

Finally, Phil had to venture in and start prodding and troweling to get the stuff to move.

Finally he managed to get it spread but there were still some humps!

Luckily, when it dried, which was quite quickly, the self leveling product remains soft so Phil was able to use a scrapper and level off the humps, Later in the day Marty Cat decided to investigate as he was sure there used to be a litter box in there!

 Next job for me is to get some filling of small holes done and then do some painting once Mrs. Woody has decided on a colour!

Meanwhile, back in the Man Cave, slow tunnel sub-base progress has been happening. The tunnel inner walls are being constructed.

Trial fitting has taken place.

And it all seems to work but I will need to fill the hole on top from my previous cardboard butchery as I tried to make the previous two attempts work!

Maybe this is third time lucky!

More back filling!

 The work on the track at the Rocks by Rail Museum continues! 

From a higher viewing point the extent is clear to see.

Of course we do have mechanised assistance - when it works! Harriot did decide to break down for a short while but luckily had a change of mind later on!

Meanwhile, working on the viewing platform continues with more back filling to get a level approach.

This where we got to last week.

Following some intense quarrying of some conveniently placed spoil nearby which Alex and David are gigging through in this animated GIF we got to this.

It may not look much different but there is about two tons of material dug out, wheel barrowed and tipped which is not bad going for a cold and damp day!

We can actually stand at the edge of the barrier and see the view that visitors will get looking up to the quarry sidings. It should give a whole new perspective as well as giving photographers a nice vantage point. Still more to do but this is one of those projects that has moved forward quite quickly which is nice and gratifying. Hopefully we may get some warmer and sunnier weather next week!

Clamping down!

A large number of clamps on the tunnel mouth section of the sub-base that I am building at the moment as I construct the tunnel lining. Card and paper brick paper do tend to warp as they get wet and then dry with PVA glue so it is always advisable to try to encourage them to keep straight by clamping down on something such as a steel ruler.

Although going on for the last week or so not much mention of the cloakroom rebuild but it is progressing. Having taken the ceiling down it made sense ti insulate it.

Phil plaster boarded the ceiling and wall which made it look more like a room again

Just awaiting some plaster to be applied and then it is ready to paint which is my responsibility - Oh joy!

Third time lucky!

Hopefully, this is third time lucky and I have found the ladder to the finish of this tunnel sub-base. Following cardboard butchery I now have this.

Which whist the clearances are still tight they are far better than before.

From a distance it looks reasonable as well!

Could this be third time lucky? I have no idea but I do know I have a lot to do to make this look as it should!

A game of snakes and ladders!

It has been a long time since I played the snakes and ladder board game. More often then not my progress along the board was thwarted by those snakes whilst the handy ladders were always elusive to the score of the dice that I rolled. So, interesting my board game failures may be, but, what has this to do with model making you may ask? Well. the current tunnel scenic module build is akin to a game of snakes and ladders in that every time I think I have advanced up a ladder I find the snake to take me back down again!

I have, over the past few days related how I have now had two attempts at getting the arrangement of the tunnel mouths right and you can now add the third attempt! I thought that I had it sorted with the second attempt and I got as far as constructing walls and tunnel internals only to realise that the tight clearances between rolling stock and the structure were just too tight! I should have recognised that earlier on but I didn't so down the snake I go and having to find another ladder to get back up on! These two photos show just how tight the clearances were.

Another rethink was required and has resulted in this as a potential solution or ladder to use the board game analogy!

It needed cutting back a bit before  it was in the right place.

Clearances are certainly much better between the structure and the rolling stock.

Will this be the winning ladder or is there another snake to thwart my progress? I have no idea but may find out in a few days!

Complex cardboard engineering!

This is becoming complex cardboard engineering! Lots of clamps, lots of glue and lots of crossed fingers hoping that the whole thing holds together. 

Don't ask how I managed to get the curved roof the right shape - it was more by a fluke of luck than any science based calculation!

Just hope it all fits!

On a completely different note, Mrs. Woody reminded me that despite the grey, wet and cold weather, it would be soon time to prepare for growing seeds for flowers for the garden. She also reminded me that we needed some compost to plant the seeds in and so I was ripped way from my tedious varnishing job that I posted about yesterday and went off to the garden centre. Not a place I relish in visiting as my wallet becomes almost porous as Mrs. W finds items that we never knew we could live without and in all honestly could live without but still find their way back to WND HQ. However, it was a break from the smelly varnish and as I walked in I was delighted to see this.

Which is one of these...

Which is the same as the model that I got for Christmas and put together back in late December and early January.....

I think that stands comparison with the real thing!

Tunnel vision!

To get away from the tedious wall construction that I have been doing for the last few days, I decided it was time to construct the tunnels. This is something that I had been putting off because of the potential complexities in building curved roofs at an an angle but equally those complexities now seemed fairly attractive compared to the tedium of wall building!

There was a lot of trial fitting and measuring but eventually I was at the stage where I could extend one of the inner tunnel walls and create a curved card top to create the tunnel roof.

As card tends to warp when glued it was necessary to add a straight edge and clamp the card whilst the glue set

It just needs to all dry then it can be mounted on top of the tunnel walls where, hopefully, it will fit! It will be a bit tedious if it doesn't!

Talking of tedious, another two door linings/frames got a first coat of varnish. Another coat and they should be done which just leaves me two more to do. Doing the job in that cloakroom is like having a different sort of tunnel vision with its narrowness!

Small steps forward!

After yesterdays concept development of the wall construction for my 00 gauge layout tunnel section it is going a bit faster than before but still not as quick as I would like. It is one of those jobs where you know you cannot really move the project on without doing it but at the same time it becomes tedious to do it! Still, small steps forward!

Equally tedious are the door linings or frames, depending on how you term them, and varnishing them. Mrs. Woody decided that my casually mentioned idea of replacing the upstairs doors and linings/frames was an excellent idea and that whilst Phil the builder was here doing the cloakroom and bathroom refit he could do the doors to. What a good idea! However, as all our woodwork is varnished it is a lot easier to varnish the linings/frames whilst they are still in kit form and in a place where drips of varnish don't matter like in the presently deconstructed cloakroom! So today, frame number one got its first coat of varnish which is a tedious job especially when you realise there are still four frames to do! Is this as tedious as the wall making? It comes very close is all I can say. Still, small steps forward and tomorrows another day of wall building and varnishing!

One pack wrapped and unvarnished.

Then unpacked and first coat of varnish which pongs a lot!