After yesterday's caravan cleaning capers I am fairly worn out so just a small model related job of painting the carcase of the control panel for my Last Great Project layout. So it was out with the grey paint which matches the profile boards already on the layout so I may rename the Slate Grey to WMD Grey!
I
The little mentioned WMD caravan was subject to much frustration today. Not used for three years for various reasons such as elderly cats, it has quietly become a bit of a breading ground for dirt and various forms of vegetation.. Mrs. W has muted that now we only have four young cats we could start using the caravan again so in order to do that today saw the cleaning equipment come out and the van was tackled. However the van did not want to play as the door lock jammed preventing us getting in. It was either a £200 locksmith call out or I could have a go myself. I now pride myself in having saved £200 and got in without damaging anything!
With access gained cleaning the outside could commence and boy was it a big job - even Mrs Woody got involved so you can tell how important this job was! 4 hours of work saw this rather shabby looking object....
become this thing of, if you are into caravans, beauty!
Another day at the Rocks By rail Museum see the previously empty new flower containers filled with soil and ready for planting out courtesy of Sue.
The ladies toilets are getting a freshening up courtesy of Pam and Pete.
Barrington steam loco had a green buffer beam when I arrived.
However, by the end of the day courtesy of Alex, it was in red undercoat awaiting its final top coat next week.
For my morning magic and vegetational butchery I turned this...
...into this courtesy of Sammy Strimmer!
One of the long outstanding jobs on the My Last Great Project Layout has been to construct an operating panel. The wiring and point motors are all installed but I need to build the panel in order too control it all. At the moment there is a bit of a spaghetti of temporary wiring to allow trains to run which is not good. However, whilst cleaning up the WMD garage I found some suitable plywood to construct the carcase of the panel. In fact it was some plywood from the baseboard of the first and aborted Last Great Project Layout! Cut to suitable sizes the parts were screwed together to form a rectangular carcase.
As it was pre-used wood there are various nail and screw holes in it that need filling. Now I could go out and buy some proper wood filler or I could just stay in and use the plastic filler that happened to be conveniently located on the workbench.
So the plastic filler won!. I just need to let it dry and find time to sand it all down and paint it next.
Starting todays post like yesterdays, if you have been reading this blog for some time you may remember my various postings regarding the price of fuel and wondered if this services had the highest prices in the UK. Well passing by on a bike ride I did stop to take this picture.
If you have read this blog over the years you may recall that I have featured the growing trend of knitted decorations for the top of post boxes. Now, although Easter has been and gone I did come across this on my bike ride where the knitted Easter scene was attached to the village gateway feature.
I do love these - it shows there is a humorous World out there and people with wonderful skills and imagination just like model makers!
Talking of model makers, Woody's model making activities have slowed as there are pressing Jobs on the Mrs. Woody 'To do list' including getting some seeds planted for this years bedding plants.
I already have some success but there are still more seeds to plant! Well that's sorted out what I will be doing over the next few days!
Having given the 3D printed plate layers hut some additional detail and primed it, the time had come to paint it.
The bricks on the chimney breast got the three pencil treatment, the windows and door were painted the same blue as the signal box woodwork and the walls were painted in a light brown. It all needs a good doe of weathering but it will be a nice addition in some far flung corner or hidden spot on the layout once finished!
Now it is not very often that Woody gets invited to a party or indeed any event - ask Mrs. Woody! My usual situation is that if I do get invited anywhere I only ever go twice and the second time is to apologise! However, Mrs. W and me were invited to a Birthday Party and not just a run of the mill party. It was a 95th birthday party! You don't see many of those in a lifetime! In this case it was Rocks By Rail hero volunteer Ray's 95th and what a great party it was! And where did he decide to hold it? Well at the Rocks By Rail Museum - his favourite place!
Just a small model making job - glazing the windows of the 3D printed signal box. For this I used my trusted glazing product Glue n Glaze. For small panes it is a great produce. It looks a mess when applied and there is an art to getting it to spread across the aperture of the window pane but once mastered it is a fairly quick process.
Another job done on this structure so hopefully before too long I can get it back on the layout1
There has ben a bit of tidying going on at the rocks By rail Museum!
The Restoration Shed was particularly tidy with all the stuff that has found its way onto the rolling stock removed although I am not sure where it has ended up!
Continuing with this theme of tidying, it was time to do some more vegetational butchery! This time though, productivity on the destruction front would be double as loyal blog reader Mrs. B was at the Museum looking for something to do. Well, that looking was soon sorted as a quick tutorial on the controls of Morris Mower saw Mrs. B head off into the jungle of vegetation with Morris leaving me to do some much needed strimming with Sammy Strimmer!
So this....
become this...
I know that vegetation has not been dealt with for at least five years! Looks neater now though!
You always find odd things when wandering around the site such as this old birds nest made on the chassis of one of the wagons.
I also got a chance to take a look at some of the rolling stock I never normally get to see cloose up such as this bogie flat.
It may not have moved in a few years but it will be needed to move rail and sleepers once the passing loop is started at the end of the line.
Something that probably has no likely future service is this coach which unfortunately was vandalised some years ago.
Something I would like to see come back into service is this rather unique rake of side tipping wagons.
As a rake of 6 wagons they would look stunning restored and running behind one of the locos. The chassis are fine on the wagons but the bodies would need a lot of work to bring them back to life.
Whilst I imagined the fully restored wagons running Mrs. B had run out of petrol for mowing but had done a great job in keeping the place looking tidy. At this rate we may run out of jobs to do!
