Pull a lever!

Having missed going to the Rocks by Rail Museum last week, more about why another day, I arrived to find that the Museum is planning t go hi-tech! Now Hi-tech for the Museum is not some form of digital display or inductive cooker, it is in fact to control the points on site from a central lever frame saving a lot of walking! What is a lever frame you ask. Well it is this only it is its side in the photo from where it was delivered.

Not sure on the history of these levers but there is this clue casted into the frame which indicates that they are from London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. Must check that out when I have time..

Whilst there may be some rust on the lever frame, it has nothing compared to the current Southern brake van being restored.

The amount of rust is so bad that Martyn is having to use a pneumatic needle gun to remove the layers of rust from the steel frame. Hopefully there will be ome sound metal left!

Talking of metal, metal music fan Rob had spent the morning greasing the drag line and looked as though he had been greasing himself too!

He then went off to do some final jobs on the Plant Shed including riveting the final fascia pieces into place. The Plant Shed project has now been three years in the making so by the Museum standards its been a quick job!

Meanwhile, no surprises that after two weeks and a fair amount of rain, the grass needed cutting and that is my job!

 I was surprised by just how much it had grown as was the lawn mower which struggled to get through this stuff!

The nice thing about grass cutting is that unlike restoring a brake van or building a plant shed, you see almost instantons results! Very gratifying!

Just wish I could pull a lever to control the lawn mower from a central point!

 

Another butterfly moment!

Just as I predicted yesterday, I had another butterfly moment and although there is still wiring to finish on the baseboard I decided to make a start on the profile boards! some 3mm ply was used and it was a job and a half to mark everything out so that it matches up to the other already in place boards as well as the scenery modules already constructed. However, the initial job is done.

I just need to paint them grey now! When that will happen is open to debate given my current butterfly mood but at least it is all progress!

It is a bit like keyhole surgery!

Wiring continues on My Last Great Project layout with the point motors having been fitted which is never an easy job. Basically you have to feed the actuation pin from under the baseboard and try to get it through the small hole in the tiebar of the point. It is a bit like keyhole surgery! You then have to ensure that the motor will actually work the point and then mark and drill holes through the mounting plate of the motor into the baseboard and screw it in position. A third or indeed a fourth hand would be useful! However, success eventually came about with all eight now in place.

Further back ache and contributions to the WMD swear jar have seen six of the eight motors actually wired up.

There is still a lot to do once the wiring is finished including things on the surface of the baseboard including profile boards and tidying up the ballast as well as thinking about the scenery. In my butterfly mood at the moment of fliting randomly from one job to another who knows what tomorrow may bring!

A butterfly moment!

In one of my butterfly moments of fliting from one thing to another, I have put aside the oil depot kit for a while to allow me to get on with the wiring of the final board of four on My Last Great Project layout. There is some logic behind this in that I would rather get this job done whilst the warmer weather is with us. Nothing worse then dealing with wires in a cold room! 

The big clear off from the board of rolling stock and yet to be attached scenery saw the board on its side.

A few cobwebs and dust were apparent, must get a new cleaner! However, having already wired up three boards, this last one didn't show anything that I had not already dealt with previously.

A few hours saw the wires connected to the wiring modules which just need to be screwed in place and connected up to the chocolate box connector. 

Next up is fitting the point motors and wiring them up and then the profile boards for the scenery need to be cut, painted and fitted to the back edges of the board. It may be a long while before I get back to that oil depot kit!

Plastic Part Panics!

Building this Ratio Oil Depot kit has been very laid back and relaxing for some reason which makes a nice change from my usual plastic part panics where some calamity strikes meaning hours of searching for a lost elusive but critical part or trying to unglue a wrongly located part getting finger prints everywhere from wet glue, etc, etc! Hopefully this trend will continue to replicate itself in future builds. Somehow I doubt it though! Anyway, back to the oil depot and a relaxing time adding some etched dial faces to the various pipes and painting said pipes sees the project move on. Not too much more to do now!

On a different note, I have mentioned the classic K6 phone box on this blog before. They are very iconic and since they have been removed from the streets many alternate uses have been found for them including as garden tool sheds, green houses, showers, community book swap centres, and many other things including as a drinks bar. Prices of these phone boxes is high and you need about £2500 for a good one which means you seriously want to own one if you pay that. However, whilst out with Mrs. Woody, who was listing up products for future jobs for me to do, I saw this.

Obviously not a real K6 phone box but never the less neatly done as a bar for inside use. Probably a lot easier to get in a room then the real thing and not being cast metal, won't fall through your floor either! Price wise? Well less than a real box but you still really want to have a phone box bar if you are willing to pay.....

Just hope Mrs. W hasn't got any ideas from that!¬

It now looks like this....

I have hawe moved onto the various pipes for the oil depot. Not much to see really but valve handles added and awaiting painting.

You may have noticed the two etched handles in the above photo which were tiny when compared to this etch for the catwalk along the top of the tanks.

Cut out from the fret and put into my bending tool....

It eventually looked like this....

And after some airbrushing, like this.

Things are moving on even if slowly and it is interesting to look back on photos to see how things have changed. And that is the same with the local canal which I visited whilst out on a bike ride. A few weeks ago it looked like this....

but despite the lack of rain during August it now looks like this....

Just wish I could make rapid progress like that on my jobs! No doubt so does Mrs. Woody!

Anyway, a local swan seems to like what has happened.

Another relaxing hour!

Another relaxing hour (hope Mrs. Woody does not read that!) with some Panzer Light Rust colour paint saw the brickwork on the recently constructed bund painted and the coping stones got a stoneish colour on them too. As with most of my brick painting, I then mixed up some darker and lighter colours to randomly highlight individual bricks. More relaxation!

With that done I then used a wash of dilute grey paint to settle into the mortar joints on the bund and the office building. This also subdued the overall brick colour making it look waethered.

I think that looks OK, but then again I would!

Bund!

In todays World, every potential large container of a hazardous product needs a bund around it in case of leaks. The idea is that the product is kept contained within a sealed area so that it doesn't leak into the ground and can then be dealt with to make it safe. Oil depots are no different. However the Ratio kit dose not have such a thing so I have to construct my own. If I was constructing a real bund it would probably be referred to as a cauldron! 

Anyway, as it is a 4mm scale bund, my constructional capabilities are not at risk of leaks. A visit to the ever well stocked WMD Stores soon had suitable plastic card and embossed sheet on my workbench. This was cut to the size to go around the supplied kit base.

Coping stones were added and then it was time to prime the bund.

Rattle can grey primer was soon drying out ready for some top coat.

It all gets clear!

Moving on with the oil depot kit, the window and door have now been fitted to the office and look in keeping with the structure.

Obviously the fitting of these would make the building cosy only if the window had some glass. The kit says use the clear packaging that it came in to glaze the window but I find that method can look a bit odd so I opted for my now normal approach of  Glue and Glaze. It didn't take long to apply and although at this early stage it looks a white mess things do improve!

To this when it all gets clear......

And I think that looks really realistic - but then I would!

WMD Destructive Cats!

Being a Mrs. Woody and cat run  organsiation, WMD HQ has to do other things than model making, most of which is on a certain list. On that long list there was an item relating to cat activity tower. The old one was built back in 2023 and I blogged about it here. Since then it has been subject to cat activity that was probably never envisaged by the makers who probably don't know about the WMD Destructive Cats. They had literally scratched one of the supporting posts in half - better then the sofa I guess, but never the less this had structurally compromised the tower so that it had a Leaning Tower of Pisa list!

As the cats like the upper sleeping area on the tower, there was a danger that the whole thing would collapse so Mrs. Woody found a suitable replacement - in the middle of Lidl (other stores are available, etc) . That was really my fault as I wanted a small socket Lidl had on offer so whilst I had Mrs. W observing my spending she also observed said cat activity tower!

 

Anyway, it came hom with us along with my small socket set and I have built it!  It does look good and as Monty cat illustrates, meets with the cats approval!

So was it to the tip with the old Leaning Tower of Pisa? Well at WMD we do like to recycle when ever possible so the sound parts of the tower were recycled into this.

I think that looks a lot safer at least until the WMD Destructive Cats work their magic

A relaxing hour or so, just don't tell Mrs. Woody!

Spending a relaxing hour or so, just don't tell Mrs. Woody, I mixed random darker brick colours and picked out individual bricks on the oil depot office. It does give a more realistic appearance to the walls. I also did the same to the ridge tiles on the roof.

A relaxing half hour, just don't tell Mrs. W, saw individual slates on the roof picked out in slightly darker shades again making it look a little more like real life.

The oil tanks themselves have been airbrushed in a matt black so I just need to paint the concrete block bases. The windows and doors to the office have also been painted up ready for attachment to the office. All in all very relaxing!

Adding some colour!

Having got the office of the oil depot primed in grey from its original red plastic colour, it was time to paint it red! Only this time the red was a brick shade using the rust colour from the Panzer paint range.

Also achieved has been the attachment of the supporting bases to the two oil tanks. Hopefully they all look level when the kit is finished!

Next job is to randomly paint individual bricks a slightly darker colour on the office so that it does look like real bricks rather than a painted wall.