Stan the Mannequin

There's a new member at the Rocks By Rail Museum. Well actually Stan the Mannequin has been with the Museum for some time but he has now come out to be part of the Singapore display. Singapore is a loco that was captured by the Japanese when they invaded Singapore and having been brought back to the UK some years ago is now a national war memorial to those who served and were captured during the conflict. The uniform is a reproduction of the ones from that period and Stan is laying orchids which are the eastern version of the poppy for remembrance day. Being just round a corner he has already given a few pepole a bit of a shock as he does look lifelike!

David and Alex put together the display and a good job they did.

Meanwhile our first aid abilities have been improved with the addition of this somewhat aging stretcher!

When not doing displays Alex is still chiseling cement off various parts of Ketton No1 - an endless task!

Meanwhil John and Graham progress with getting Mr D opertional with more work in the cab.

It does still need a new floor!

However John has found the alternator and fitted it.

For me - more grass cutting - its a dirty job but someone has to do it! The rain certainly is making it grow!

Just that bit on the left to get back to some normality - I wonder if Stan would like to try some mowing!

 

Time for a tidy!

Every so often I get to the point when its time for a tidy up! I am not the World's most tidy modeller but I like to think all great artists produced masterpieces in the chaos of their studios and I might follow the same philosophy!

Anyway out of the above chaos some calm returns after an hour or so. 

 

How long will it last - that is a question that Mrs. Woody will no doubt pose! However I should at least have some order for a short while. Whether that improves my work flow is debatable!

Couplings.

The 3D printed diesel loco did not come with couplers so that was something I had to address. I needed to emulate something like thee coupling on the black loco in the picture below so out came some scrap plastic card and following some slicing and dicing suitable shaped couplers were crafted. These would be mounted on some plastic rod.

To attach the rod and coupler to the loco I needed to put a mounting on the back of the buffer beam. Again some scrap plastic card came in useful!

With that in place the couplings were mounted.

Just need to paint them now!

Shunting on a Spring Bank Holiday!

I was rostered as shunter for yesterday's quarry day event at the Rocks By Rail Museum. Since I did my YouTube video on shunting (available here ) I have had some comments from people involved with shunting in some form either directly or indirectly which has been really interesting and thanks to those who have commented. The more I find out about shunting the more admiration I have for those who did it as a full time job.

A sunny start to the day always makes things look good!

Not always possible to see the face shovel from the viewing bank so this is a bit of a rare picture.

This is the busiest time shunting when we exchange two rakes of wagons between the two locos.

The sun was good but at would not be a bank holiday without some rain! My fellow shunter Dan and driver Derek and myself took shelter in the cab of the Sentinel.

With time on our hands we tested whether the wipers worked which given the rain seemed an appropriate thing to do!

And, yes they did although possibly needing new blades to avoid the smears!

For our visitors the various crane cabs provided them with shelter.

Luckily the rain was short lived and visitors were enjoying the sun...

as well as the steam hauled brake van rides which Ross, Thomas and John were also enjoying from the smiles on their faces!

After a hard day I was somewhat surprised to see this double decker parked outside the Museum.

It does say Special Rail Service on its destination blind but I and my fellow volunteers have no idea which railway!

Too tall!

Time to find a driver figure for the 3D printed diesel loco. My first choice was a figure I had already painted some time ago and looked right. However mounting him in the cab showed that the roof would have to be left off if he was going to stay! Not ideal!

Luckily I had some more figures in the form of these unpainted ones from Slaters. They actually loo more H0 scale than 00 but that was ideal. A measure confirmed that they would fit and allow the roof to be fitted!

With a bit of painting I have two figures available once cu from the sprue. I have also painted the floor of the interior and the footplate as well as using some highlighting various parts with silver paint. All very subtle but it all goes into making the model that bit better.

Grab it!

Thinking about the loco and my own experiences of getting on and off real locos, there was a need for some grab handles by the cab door. No problem I thought as I grabbed some brass wire. Then I realised I needed to make sure they were all the same size and that any holes I drilled in the loco body were going to be in the right place. Making the handles the right size was easy enough as I bent the wire around a conveniently sized bit of wood. Getting the holes in the right place required a templet. So with a scrap piece of plastic card two holes were drilled that matched the handles. 

Using that against the loco cab, I could drill holes in the right place! A bit of superglue and some choice words as a result of them being fiddly to fit saw the grab handles fitted.

The cab interior built yesterday also got a spray of white and the details just need picking out. The grill also got painted red just to add some variation to the Lemon Yellow! 

I do like the way the grab handles have come out. 

More to do yet but coming along. If I can grab a moment or two in the next few days I might see it finished!

 

How to fill an empty space!

Now Mrs. Woody would like to fill the empty space of my head with more tasks from her list of jobs for me but I think my head is better left an empty space! However, back to the now Lemon Yellow 3D printed loco and it has a largish cab with big windows so I decided that it really needed some form of cab interior to fill that empty space. Nothing too detailed, just the basics of a floor and an operating consul with perhaps a few dials and levers. Out came some plastic card and after a few measurements a floor was created along with the parts for a consul.

Once the consul was glued together.....

...some thin slices of plastic rod were cut and glued to form instrument dials and some lengths of rod were glued into drilled holes to form the brake throttle and direction levers.

With the consul glued to the floor, I formed the all important mechanical brake lever from some more rod.

Still more to do like painting it but already the previously empty cab looks much more interesting.

3D printed Titanium bike frame!

An unusual start to my day at the Rocks by Rail Museum yesterday in as much as you don't see too many bikes on the tracks! This was a bit different. A local specialist bike maker has been to the Museum before to take publicity shots and they had another new bike so they were back. Being a keen long standing cyclist myself the two guys got fully questioned by me! Apparently the frame is 3D printed Titanium. Now I have never heard of 3D printing metal before but there it was in front of me and very nice it looked to! Certainly different from the 3D printed models that I am used to dealing with.

Not only was the frame unique but I was one of the first people in the UK to see the new Shimano group set. That rear gear can be adapted with an additional bracket to cope with a 50 tooth rear cog! if you want to know more about that Cycling Weekly has an item here.

Have I got £10,000 spare Mrs. Woody? There is a rather nice bike I like!

Back to reality and the Museum is getting ready for the Spring Bank Holiday events this weekend with the start of Sundews Great Walk 50th anniversary. A great display as well as models to bring alive the story.

In the restoration shed, John has been fitting pipework to the tank I helped him to fit to Mr. D last week.

Next job on John's list is fitting an alternator which should be in the middle of the picture below and will be - once he finds it!

For me, the day was taken up by battling grass that has not been cut for three weeks because of the rain but the rain has made it grow three times as fast! I really felt it when I got home!

I am back on Monday shunting so hopefully my back will have recovered but doing shunting means I will probably still have a bad back on Monday evening! I wonder if they can 3D print a new back???

Lemon yellow!

I made my mind up! I was not going to risk the orange paint again so went for Tamiya's Lemon Yellow. As you can see it went on through the airbrush much better than the orange. The 3D print still has a couple of defects in it but I can live with that and with an eventual matt finish they will be less visible.

Whilst the yellow is a nice colour it does need some contrast so the buffer beams were masked up.

Then Tamiya red was airbrushed on.

With the masking removed, cab roof temporarily on and placed on the chassis it looks all very different and in my view looks good!

There was still some red paint in the airbrush so I got the 3D printed telephone box out.

and gave that a quick blast of paint - nice!