Tree Time!

I have taken the possible tree for Chalkdon on by actually finishing it! I needed to find the tub that I had put the Woodland Scenics foliage mat into some years ago when I was last doing this project. You can see in this photo that the tree is formed from about 24 lengths of garden or florists wire that is twisted as one to make the trunk and then separated out into smaller and smaller bundles to make the main branches and then the smaller branches.

Adding the foliage involved cutting suitable pieces from the mat and drapping them over the ends of the branches.

I am no expert in either making or identifying trees so this could be anything apart from a conifer! However it does not look too bad.

In its possible final home it looks quite good although I am not sure about overhanging the track and whether that would happen in real life. However this is my little World so I should forget about that and just judge it on how it looks and if I like it!

A railway garden!

You have probably heard of garden railways but out with Mrs. Woody today we passed this.

Now that is the type of garden I like! I think Mrs. W saw it more as interesting but not for her! She was more taken by tis lovely small church which just cries out to be modelled. Another one for the list!

Back at WMD HQ, Chalkdon, my 009 narrow gauge layout has had a little bit more scenic work done to it with the exposed card edge of a sub-base disguised with undergrowth!

I also dug this out of a box having been reminded by the trees around the church that I had it. 

I started this about 5 years ago with an idea for a layout that has stalled! Sound familiar for me? It is not a finished tree but the tree structure was made up of pieces of gardeners (see there is a connection with the first part of this post) wire twisted together and then shaped into a tree like structure. This was then covered in acrylic artists paste before being painted. The start of the foliage is Woodlands Scenic products. I am still at the point of wondering whether I need the tree at that point just to provide some height and intertest. As with all these things it is sometimes best to leave in place temporarily and time will tell!

Chalkdon progress!

I am beginning to sense I might actually finish this layout of mine! Unbelievably more progress with some ballasting and scenic work having been done.

Ballasting has been carried out around the station platform area having glued the platform in place last night. I just need to do some scenic work where the ballast meets the two gardens and the platform itself needs some additions to make it look more like a station!

On the main road the road has been taken over the tracks so that the 4mm road users can drive off the layout. Only thing is that it s about a scale 200 foot plunge if they do! Again, there is further scenic work to do.

At the cattle grid some hedging has been added making it look a bit more as though there is a reason for it all. I need to repaint the road between the cattle grid and the bridge as the grey is too dark.

Meanwhile, to actually find out how near to finishing this layout is, the WMD drone has been out.

Analysis of the photos does indeed show it is getting near to being finished. Knowing me though I will now be distracted onto another project! 

Spring clean!

Having slumbered through the Winter the exhibits in the Exhibition Center at the Rocks By Rail Museum will be awakened in just over a week as the Museum opens for the 2023 season.

Some are ready to roll,

some still undergoing the long and hard work of restoration.

In the restoration shed and in the dry on this rainy day, John and me decided to Spring clean tidy up the public walk through ready for our guests.

We got serious with the vacuum cleaner coming out. Cobwebs, dust and dirt stood no chance!

It does look a lot better and we filled 4 of those white buckets in the photo above. We also found a lot of things that should not have been in the shed which are now back in their rightful places. There is even talk of painting the floor!

Hope Mrs. Woody doesn't think that I should be doing this sort of Spring cleaning back at WMD HQ!

Growing grass!

My day has mainly been spent growing or trying to grow grass.

On Chalkdon, my 009 narrow gauge layout, it was time to apply some grass after having done some ballasting yesterday. PVA glue was spread in the required areas.

Then my puffer static grass applicator was used to apply the grass.

Once the grass was applied it was left for a few minutes then I vacuumed up the loose fibers leaving what I think is a pleasing result. 

I still need to add some bushes and undergrowth but I like the way the cattle grid looks and is something not often seen these days.

In the garden I have been trying to grow grass! Still suffering from the aftermath of the builders my lawn is still looking like a battlefield. I have been seeding areas having raked the clay off as far as possible. Using sieved soil I am trying to get it back to a smoothish surface too. The one area that required some digging was where the soakaway for the drain from the rebuilt conservatory. It had been left with a hump which I thought would be an easy job of just removing the turf, taking a few spadefulls of soil out and put turf back. I should have known by the fact I found a brick (they are used tro create the soakaway) sticking out above the grass that this was not going to be easy. The spade went in about three inches and hit brick. Taking the turf off there was a sea of bricks. No use to allow the grass to grow as it will just die in the warm dry weather that we will hopefully have a few days worth of this summer! 

So out came about 12 inches in depth of bricks.

With the brickless void backfilled I used sieved soil to get some element of grass friendly growing media for the seed that will hopefully be through in a few weeks. It will need more levelling as the backfill compacts over time but at least I don't have a hump in my lawn looking like I have buried something. Now, where is Mrs. Woody?

 

Down to the wire!

Most of my activities are, as they say, down to the wire where I leave things to the last minute. However in this case my IT meltdown appears to be down to a wire in the USB cable. As with all such things it was the last thing I thought of doing having restarted and closed down the phone and computer more times then Mrs. Woody places internet orders in a week and fiddled with various settings on both the phone and computer. Why would it be the USB cable - it was charging the phone after all. However out of frustration and curiosity I plugged in a new cable and all is well!

Back to the World of model making! Yesterday, whilst out for a walk with Mrs. W who was taking a rest from internet shopping, we actually came across a cattle grid which is what I am trying to create on my 009 narrow gauge layout Chalkdon.

Not in the picture is the gate on the right side which in effect closes the road off when closed but leaves the cattle grid open. Vehicles can travel over it but not animals. Want to get some sheep through - just open the gate.

In my version there are similarities. It all needed to be put together though. And no - I did not gain an extra hour of model making with the clocks going back. That was taken up with garden chores!

Any white areas where painted brown before anything was stuck down. Nothing stands out more then white in places you do not want it.

I had to renake the road as it was too narrow where it met the wooden bridge deck. A quick job with some mounting board and then sprayed grey with Halfords primer. With the cattle grid, road and gate stuck down I was ready to add some texture.

As the track leading up to the bridge also needed ballasting and as I was going to be using my favoured sand for the texture I did both jobs at the same time. Kiln dried sand was spread over the track and brushed into place and it was also spread between the road and track. Applying some IPA, or as it used to be called rubbing alcohol, the surface tension of the sand was broken allowing the dilute PVA glue that I dribbled on with a syringe to penetrate. It is drying over night and hopefully I will be able to add some vegetation soon to add a bit of realism to the scene. However I am pleased with how it is going and no layout I havse seen before has featured a cattle grid. Could I be trend setter?

 

IT meltdown!

I have had to give up after trying to get the computer and phone to talk to each other and even work individually! So today's post is just some text typed on a tablet which is not my preferred means of doing a post!

I am working on the 009 Marlow gauge layout which I need to remember I have called Chalkdon. My attention is focused on the rear of the layout where I am installing a cattle grid I. The road and I also need to finish the bridge over the stream.  Without pictures it is difficult to explain but some preparatory work has gone on so that things can be glued down correctly and scenic work finalised. 

Hopefully my IT meltdown may have finalised by tomorrow! Anyway I can look forward to commencing model making activities an hour earlier tomorrow as the clocks go forward. Mrs. Woody just sees it as robbing her of an hour's sleep!

Daylight magnifying lamp.

As we get older, generally our eyes are not so sharp in focusing to close up objects as they were when we are younger. It has happened to me and about 10 years ago I ended up buying a tabletop daylight magnifying lamp. It changed my model making like nothing else! Suddenly I could see just how bad my modelling was with my own eyes! Being serious it has, over the years, made model making a lot easier, more pleasurable and hopefully aided me to build better models. 

In that ten years the lamp has failed once and needed a new bulb and the cover over the magnifier broke when I dropped the lamp! Last night I switched it on and nothing. New bulb. Luckily WMD HQ has stocks of most things although not always easily to hand. Half an hour looking through various boxes found the spare bulb and with that fitted I sat back ready to commence some relaxing brightly lite and magnified model making. Switching it on saw blankness - just like my face! Check the fuse. That was OK. Then I listened to the lamp! I was not waiting physiatrist like for it to tell me it was fed up of illuminating my poor model making but I was listening for the humming of the transformer in it indicating that it was working. There was nothing but silence. Taking the lamp apart revealed no obvious reason for it not to be working. However there comes a time when you have to accept that it is probably better to stop at that point and replace with new. So toady with my budgetary watch person accompanying me (Mrs. Woody) to ensure no excessive purchases were made we ended up at a nearby Hobbycraft. They had a good choice of various lamps and whilst I was intending to replace like for like I did find one which I thought would be even better for me.

Just like an angle poise lamp, this would be more comfortable to use, had a 2x magnifier rather than 1.75x that my old one had and it was LED so would be cheaper to run. Having made my performance and economic case I got the necessary approval and it came home with me and it is great! 

I really like it and so pleased that I bought it. It almost makes me look as though I am a proper modeller at my workbench!

However in making my case for its purchase there was a bargaining process which saw Mrs. Woody adding this to the lamp at the checkout.

Yes Mrs. Woody does the occasional cross stitch and no doubt she will now want a magnifying daylight lamp of her own! It is a lot cheaper when I go shopping on my own and avoid these impulse frivolous non-model making purchases - at least that is what I would tell Mrs. W if I did not value my continued wellbeing!

Getting dirty!

Mrs. Woody and myself spent much of the day getting in each others way in the green house planting seeds for this years flowers and some vegetables. We will never be asked to show at the Chelsea Garden Show or indeed any local garden show but we do usually manage to get enough flowers to plant out the garden and at least show some colour along with a few salad vegetables some of which are edible! All worth getting a bit dirty for.

A few of the trays seeded up - hopefully in a few weeks there will be a sea of green in the green house!

Meanwhile back in the Man Cave the Airfix Dodge 1 1/2 Ton Personnel Carrier has also been getting dirty - or should that be dirtier? It had had yet more brown paint wash treatment. I think I am there with it now. I did give the inside floor of the trailer a heavy hit of the brown wash and a sprinkling of some weathering powders. Sometimes you don't appreciate just how much you have done with weathering but look at the inside of the trailer in this picture and then compare wit the next.

The difference is actually that it now looks as though it has been through a war and with that amount of dirt in it you could well plant it out with seeds just like my green house. In fact looking a bit closer it looks just like my lawn does at the moment following the building work!

With wheels added (although the spare still needs to be glued in place) there is not a lot more to do to bring this build to a finish which is good because there are plenty more waiting!

Welded to the toilet!

After yesterdays post regarding repairs to the toilets at the Rocks By Rail Museum involving welding,I did not think anything more about it until about 1.30 this morning when I became welded to the toilet with a stomach bug. I know, far too much information but it knocked me for six, so today was a day of slowly doing things.

With the brickwork for the step done it was time to clean up the rubbish and there was a lot of that.

The soil got sieved and the hardcore broken down to form an internal base within the step. I could have finished sorting it all today but I was taking things slowly - just in case Mrs. Woody wonders why it is not finished!

I even have a step now with the wood board in place! Just need the slabs to put on top.

After the clear up I retired to my Man Cave where some ballasting on Chalkdon my 009 narrow gauge layout features in my latest YouTube insomnia curing video!

I usually do ballasting in short sections to avoid the job becoming boring so todays length of track was at the front of the layout around the newly installed bridge. I used kiln dried sand for the ballast and that was laid in place. Makes it look better already if you saw the picture in my post two days ago of what it looked like without the ballast.

Dilute PVA glue was applied with a syringe to glue the ballast in postion.

Having used a hair drier (sorry Mrs. W!) to warm up the ballast, the glue was already beginning to harden a few minutes after application.

How I managed to turn that simple job into a 22 minute video is a mystery but there are some hints and tips in it which may make ballasting easier if anyone reading this is about to do their layout.

Hope I have a more peaceful night - maybe I should watch my video to send me to sleep!