Very lucky!

I have to say that although I some times doubt it, I am actually very lucky. Out on a bike ride this morning I stopped to take this photo as a reminder of the countryside I am so lucky to have around WMD HQ in which to cycle. Perhaps I was not so lucky in having to cycle uphill into a head wind to get to this view point but it was worth it!

Talking of cycling it is not going well! Last year at this point I had over 4000 miles done but this year with the bad weather I have only reached 2880 which means this years target of 5200 is looking doubtful. Never mind, at least I am lucky enough to be able to get out sometimes!

Back at WMD HQ the top side of the Panzer Ferry pontoon has been primed in black.

The deck of the pontoon is supposed to be grey painted wood planks. However the paint would in real life wear away where it was trafficked so it will be sprayed with some Tamiya deck paint and then hairspray will be applied before applying the same grey as the amphibious tank has been painted in. Once painted the hairspray should allow parts of the grey paint to be abraded off leaving the deck colour showing.

On my 00 gauge Last Great Project layout progress amazingly continues. My job at the moment is to prepare the track at the baseboard joints so that it can be cut through to allow the removable board to be, well, removed!

First job was to retrieve from WMD HQ Stores my stock of copper clad strip. Bough many years ago it is sold as a sleeper strip for modeller who build their own track. It is roughly sleeper width and just needs cutting to lenght.

Using some side cutters and a plastic sleeper as a templet I cut a number of sleeper length parts. 

To make life easier when soldering these strips to the rail I pre-tinned them with solder.

A bit of a production line means I had enough to do one end of the board.

I then superglued them to the plywood strips I had glued in place some weeks ago ready for this moment! I love it when a plan comes together and it is also amazing if it is one of my plans!

Once in place they were soldered to the rail.

I had to file through the copper cladding to prevent a short circuit between the rails. It may look a bit messy at the moment but once cleaned up, painted and ballasted the track should look OK. I will cut through the rails once I have soldered all the tracks so that may be later this week. Once cut, that saw width gap between the baseboards should disappear - if I am lucky!!!!