One door closes another door opens!

As the door of 2021 closes and the door to 2022 opens there is a similar situation with the two sheds for my narrow gauge railway. As I said a few posts back, one shed will have its doors open. Unfortunately the kit doors do not include the internal detail of the doors or the floor. The floor has already been made and described a couple of posts ago so the next job on the non-Mrs. Wood list of jobs was to make some internal detail on the doors.

The external detail on the doors.

The undetailed and blank back of the doors - a bit like me - featureless!

After scribing some plank detail with the back of a scalpel blade and assisted by a straight edge the internal framework of the doors was added from an off cut of plastic sheet lying on the work bench - sometimes its useful to be untidy!

I have also added the roof sheets and the window frames to the sheds and although not finished yet they are taking shape. The doors still need another coat of paint on the internal side which will probably get done sooner than the door that is still on Mrs. Woody's list of jobs for me! Just don't tell her!

I have also airbrushed the various crates and barrels in  wood shade - the drums will wait until I decide on their colour. A bit of weathering will tone the brightness of them.

With regard to watery matters, I have given the wharf walls and the bridge abutments a gentle misting of green paint where the water line will be. If you look at any structure surrounded by water for a while there is a layer of green slime (no doubt there is a biological definition but slime is about my limit on the science front!) that builds up. It is subtle, but hopefully will have a visual impact.

Well that is another year of modelling done! Hope you see the New Year in, in the manner which you want to and hopefully this blog and me - oh and nearly forgot (how could I) Mrs. W - will be here in 2022 for more adventures from WMD HQ!

Doing the laundry!

Well it feels like he laundry! Another day at the Rocks by Rail Museum with a barmy 14 degrees Celsius at the end of December! First we dig the ballast out, then we wash it and then we put it back just like you put the laundry away after washing!  Each stage involves shoveling and that is where my shovel skills appear to come in handy. Its back breaking work but with a great crew, some interesting chat and a few jokes it soon gets done.

The ballast is transported after washing in the Trout ballast wagon. This has discharge chutes either side and in the middle. The three white wheels on the end of the wagon each control one of the chutes although on this wagon the middle one doesn't work which is a pity as that is where the ballast is needed! However some muscle power sees the piles either side of the track spread in the middle to give a nice even spread of ballast.  

Ballast arrives....

Discharge chute on the wagon is opened with the control wheel..

Ballast is discharged....

Eager crew wait to spread the ballast....

Several hours of shoveling and several tons of ballast later we have some neat looking track!

Only another mile or so to go! That should make 2022 interesting!

A tale of two sheds!

Over the past few days and defying my normal one or two days of frenzied activity and then nothing for weeks, I have made further progress on the narrow gauge layout - must really think of a name for it! 

The hillside that I started constructing a few days ago and left in the kitchen has dried undetected by Mrs. W and as you can see has dried to a light earth shade - lovely!

As shown in a post a few days ago this hillside will be at the side of the canal wharf. Between the hill and the wharf there are two sheds which are supposed to represent a small traders storage sheds. The sheds themselves come from the Wills SS12 Station Garage Kit but can be built differently to that supposed and instructed in the kit giving two shed like structures. Another case of the male of the species not following instructions! However in this case it does work!

I had already constructed the walls of the shed back in the summer when I wanted to get a feel for where various buildings would go on the layout. The kit is moulded in a white plastic and as I have previously highlighted in this blog white attracts the eye. Whilst I had plans to paint the sheds a blue I did airbrush all the parts, including the inside of the sheds, with Vallejo's black surface primer. As a hint, when I have a large number of parts that need to be airbrushed I tend to get a piece of plywood or cardboard to fasten them onto to be painted. You can use Blutack or what ever your chosen poster temporary adhesive is to fasten the parts to the board or you can use masking tape. if you turn the sticky side up and fold the two ends over on themselves before fastening the ends to the board you are left with a strip of stick masking tape to which you can fasten the parts that need to be painted. 

The photo below probably shows the masking tape in a better light. The various drums, barrels and crates are for the layout eventually but as I had some primer left in the airbrush it seemed a good idea to prime these up.

I do plan to have a door open on one of the sheds so a wooden floor was required. There is nothing better to represent wood in model form then wood itself. A small piece of balsa sheet was cut to size and then planks forming the floor were scribed into the balsa wood using a straight edge and the back of a scalpel blade. Using the blunt back of the scalpel means you don't have much risk of cutting right the way through the wood and it gives a nice visible groove in the wood.

In its basic form the wood was far too clean so a coat of my favorite diluted back paint was washed over it highlighting the groves and giving a nice weathered and worn appearance. Once dry it can go into the shed.

I also started on the cobbled surface which will cover the wharf area and into which the rail tracks will be inlaid. I found, in the WMD HQ stock pile of things bought long ago and which may come in handy one day a couple of sheets of vacuum formed plastic cobbles which should do the job.

 

A bit of cutting has the first piece fastened in front of the two sheds.

If I can manage to keep the momentum up hopefully the whole scene will come to life in a few days. However I understand Mrs. W does have a new list of jobs for me for 2022! Gulp!

V2!

Not the nasty war time V2 rocket but a much more pleasant LNER class V2 locomotive. My other Christmas present was this beautiful Bachmann LNER V2 with DCC sound chip. It is a truly stunning model and initial running shows that it runs and sounds as good as it looks. If you want to find out about these locomotives you can go here where Wikipedia will inform you better than I can!

Hillside development.

Having escaped to the man cave AKA The Room of Gloom, for a second night thanks to the delights of umpteen TV channels that keep Mrs. Woody's interest in Murder Mysteries satisfied (apparently the current favorite is one called Vera) there has been further progress made on the narrow gauge layout. This time on the landscape at the end of the canal wharf. This will be a small hill with two small sheds in front of the railway siding that goes along the end of the wharf. I have constructed the whole area of this hillside development on a sub base of 2mm mounting card. It makes it easier to work on as I can bring it to the workbench and work in seated comfort. The hill itself was constructed with mounting card profiles with an infill of the same foam that I used for the river banks. The usual choice would be polystyrene which would result in the recreation of Santa's Grotto in my man cave as I carved it to shape and all those spheres of that make up the material would fly everywhere. I guess though it might not be The Room of Gloom if that did happen! 

The profiles are being added.

The sub-base being taken off the layout....

...and onto the work bench where the rest of the profiles and foam have been added. Te foam has been cut to the shape of the profiles ready for....

...being overlaid with some kitchen roll - other brands are available! 

Having reached this stage it was then time to mix up a sloppy mix of DIY filler with some brown acrylic paint added and then get plastering! The initial covering of kitchen roll was coated in stages with the filler mix and smaller pieces of kitchen roll added which in turn were covered with more filler and more kitchen roll. There are about four layers of kitchen roll in all and they will form a solid shell as the sloppy filler mix is absorbed by the kitchen roll. Indeed, this particular brand is noted for its absorbency capabilities so it should make for an extra hard surface!

In progress.

Finished on the work bench.....

...and whilst Mrs. W is absorbed with TV detective Vera it is sneaked into the warmth of the kitchen to dry. Wonder if Mrs. W will detect that?

I also had time to add another coat of acrylic varnish to the river bed and banks and being extra generous with it as I need this to stick a coating of sand to make the river bed. I have a feeling I will need to do this several times but I won't know until it dries and I find out if it has worked and iof so how well! 

Added enthusiasm!

With the arrival of the Bachmann Ffestiniog Railway Double Fairlie 'Livingston Thompson' in my 009 gauge fleet there is a renewed enthusiasm to finish the layout. As I have explained before my progress on matters happens on a random haphazard manner so how this current enthusiasm will manifest itself into progress to a finished layout is a matter which I don't even know the answer to! However progress has been made. Mrs Woody had settled down for an evening of favorite TV murder mystery programmes (should I be worried by her passion for these types of programme?) so I took the opportunity to have a few hours in the man cave AKA The Room of Gloom.

The kitchen roll and brown coloured DIY filler mix that I had done before Christmas have continued to dry and the brown has lighten in the process of drying which is good.

As I am going to try using an epoxy liquid to create the river, the river bed and sides need to be 'water tight'. The DIY filler is not going to be that so I have coated the river bed and sides with two coats of acrylic household varnish. This should hopefully keep the resin in where it should be and not dripping down from the bottom of the baseboard. How successful this will be is questionable. As a youngster a group of us built a boat out of odds and ends and its maiden voyage saw it becoming a submarine - enough said! Anyway the sheen on the plaster indicates that the first coat of varnish sealed the DIY filler and the second coat now sits on top of that giving a sealed surface.  

I also managed to start doing some work on the area around the canal wharf. Most of the track will be set into the surface which will most probably be some form of cobbles. To do this I need a sub-base to support the cobbles and this is 2mm mounting card cut to fit around the outsides of the track and helpfully is level with the sleepers of the track.

I have also started constructing the ground formation in the corner of the layout. It may all look a bit mis-matched at the moment but it should, if my calculations are right, work! Then again it may not!

Nice things come in small packages.

With it being Christmas Day yesterday there was much excitement at WMD HQ as presents were unwrapped. Mrs Woody got various items including a new fancy hairdryer which makes the possibility of the old one repurposing itself into the man cave AKA The Room of Gloom a possibility! 

The cats were pleased with their cat nip packages which they soon were playing with. Sammy, who passed away this year used to love these and would end up drooling and rubbing the package all over his head in a frenzy of cat delight! Although Chloe and Holly didn't droll as much they still found a good few minutes to play with these small packages.

I did get a number of packages one of which was indeed small but contained a wonderful 009 loco.

This beauty is the Bachmann Ffestiniog Railway Double Fairlie 'Livingston Thompson' in lined maroon complete with DCC sound chip. I had to escape to the Room of Gloom for an hour or so whilst Mrs.W was sorting out handbags or something like that, and soon had it going round my 009 layout, even if it was un-prototypically hauling a rake of Lynton and Barnstable coaches! It runs great and is a fantastic addition to the 009 fleet. Gives me some increased impetus to finish the layout. There were some bigger packages but more about those another day. In the meantime I am enjoying this nice loco which indeed came in a small package!

 

Merry Christmas!

 

Merry Christmas!

Hope that you all have a great time and that 2022 is a good one for you!

Stay safe and build models!

👍

Working smarter not harder as I get older!

In my last post I described how I had used sellotape around the bridge abutments to protect them from the sloppy filler mix that I was sloshing about as I constructed the river banks of my narrow gauge layout - all part of my working smarter not harder as I get older philosophy. Well it did work. I managed to extract the abutments and there was a fair amount of filler on them.

Peel off the selotape and hey presto....

Next up was giving some colour to the brickwork so it was like being back at school as the colouring pencils came out. A few good quality artists pencils in reds and browns just randomly run over the brickwork pick out the bricks whilst leaving the mortar course a nice grey from the primer coat. If you look at real bricks they are not just one colour - they have a multitude of colours in them which this pencil method of colour gives a fair impression of.

The finished items ready to go back in place. Once the filler is dried on the river banks and in the river bed I will seal it with a coat of varnish before putting some river bed type debris in place. Then the plan is to pour a resin in to create the river which has all sorts of possibilities of going wrong unless I am really smart in my older age! 

   

Further tales from the river bank

Despite the cold yesterday I ventured out to my man cave AKA the Room of Gloom or perhaps more aptly The Ice Cave! The heater soon bought up the temperature to something more hospitable and allowed me to do a little more on the river banks of the narrow gauge layout. Despite having shaped and built up the landscape of most of the river banks I still needed to fill in around the bridge abutments and add a bit more strength to the rest of the landscaping. Because anything to do with a sloppy DIY filler like substance in my hands is going to cause a mess I needed to protect the brickwork on the abutments. Indeed I still need to colour the brickwork. In one of my rare more thinking ahead moments, I had made the abutments removable at this stage so I was able to lift them out and then put sellotape around them. The shiny surface would stop the the filler sticking to the abutments and also it would protect the brick work surface. 

Next I mixed up my usually sloppy mix of DIY filler but this time adding some brown acrylic paint to tint the mix to look like earth. The idea of this is that if the surface is chipped in the future it is going to look less glaring as a brown surface than the white of the normal mix. Say no more! Further kitchen roll was at hand from the roll I still needed to put back in place before Mrs. W misses it! An hour or so saw the area around the abutments done and a layer of the mix laid over the previous days work. It all looks very rough at the moment but it should get better from now on - famous last words! Whether there be any progress today relies upon if the mix has dried or not and if I have managed to wrap Mrs. W's Christmas presents! If I don't manage that wrapping job by Saturday it could well be an interesting next Tales from the River Bank!

It may not look pretty, but it works!

Probably something that Mrs Woody thinks about me! Although having still got a list of jobs left to do from her 'List' the last bit of the title may not be so true! 

However I did manage a few hours of work at the Rocks by Rail Museum yesterday where the ballast washing operation continued with the over sized washing machine that I  talked about last week (go here to see that post). Not looking pretty is something of an understatement about the machine as it looks as though it is a cast off from the Gold Rush TV series! The loading hopper is a case in point - lots of large nuts and bolts, bits of wood and rusty metal all fastened together in a bit of a haphazard manner which would make most advocates of aesthetic design turn away in disgust. However pretty it may not be but it works and that is what counts! In addition it cost a fraction of the £50m that Network Rail spent on a ballast cleaning machine back in 2015 - go here to see details of that and indeed how much prettiness £50m buys!

Anyway, following a day at the museum I also had an hour in my man cave AKA The Room of Gloom. The foam that i had glued to make the substructure for the river banks had dried and whilst not looking pretty, once carved to shape with a kitchen knife (note to self  - remember to return before Mrs. W misses it) it provided the perfect base for the next part of the landscaping work. This involved mixing up a fairly sloppy mix of DIY filler and then using small pieces of kitchen roll laid over the foam and bushed with the sloppy filler until saturated (note to self - also remember to return kitchen roll before Mrs. W misses it). The idea is that you build up several layers of kitchen roll which eventually dry into a hard shell. Again, it may not look pretty but it works. Once it is covered with model foliage it will then look pretty - I hope!

Foam has been carved to shape.

First pieces of kitchen roll and sloppy filler being applied.

 

Most of the river bank completed.

How quickly this will dry is a big question as the man cave can get cold so progress may be slow - but that is the story of my life!