More small parts added to the A39 Tortoise although on a model like this the details seem to fade into the enormity of the vehicle!
Todays progress has seen various periscopes fitted to the upper part of the body along with various parts of towing eyes to the rear of the body as well as a few other unknown parts to the upper side of the main body.
It will eventually all go together ti make a great overall model but at the moment it feels a bit....well tortoise in progress!
Like the tortoise this beast of a machine is named after my progress building the kit of it is slow! I have to admit that upon opening the box I did not think there were too many parts but there are more than I first thought! However, with the running gear constructed I can begin the perhaps speedier in terms of visual changes, build of the upper hull. With respect to the running gear, I have decided to leave it unattached to the lower hull for the moment which will make painting the eight running and return wheel structures along with the drive and idle wheels a much easier task. Careful masking of the lower hull where the running gear structures attach should mean a strong paint free gluing surface as I intend to paint that too before any gluing takes place. The irony is that most of the detail will be covered by the side skirts that attach to the hull! However, not being too sure at this stage as to how much these skirts will cover or not means that I am playing safe and painting everything!
Progress so far sees the front plate of the upper hull detailed with various lifting points and the gun has been constructed and fitted to the body.
I just need to fit the muzzle to the gun barrel but I need the glue to set that joins the two parts together before I can sand them smooth. A job for tomorrow!
Moving on from the running gear of the MENG A39 Tortoise kit, I find myself taken aback by the sheer size of this beast of a machine.
In real life 78 tons of weight, 32 feet of length, 12 feet of width and 10 feet of height meant that this was not an easy item to transport! Originally the 25 ordered were due to come into service in September 1945 and be used to destroy enemy fortified defences. However the end of the war reduced the order to 6 with one being sent to Germany were successful trials showed that the design was manufacturing matched expectations. Never the less the end of the war and the difficulty in transporting it resulted in no further vehicles being constructed. One remains at Bovington Tank Museum where it was overhauled in 2011 and now runs under its own power. Here is video on YouTube of it running at one of the Museums Tankfest events.
I do believe that if you saw that coming in anger towards you a clean change of underwear would be advisable!
In the meantime I will carry on bullding this beast!
Now whilst I do not see myself as an artist there have been occasions when I have been referred to being one by others but not necessarily with reference to anything creative that I have done! Whilst this may demonstrate that the term 'artist' can have a wide meaning I was still somewhat taken aback to see this sign in a local SubWay (usual disclaimer - other sandwich making establishments are available!) where Mrs. Woody and myself were treating ourselves to the culinary delights of a footlong!
Sandwich Artist? Well I guess it is an artistic way to describe the job. Which then got me to thinking (always a dangerous activity as Mrs. Woody will tell you) about what do you term someone who professionally makes sandwiches? Google tells me that: -
A professional sandwich maker can refer to either a person who prepares sandwiches or the heavy-duty commercial equipment used in restaurants.
The Person
Sandwich Maker or Sandwich Hand: The general culinary title for a kitchen worker focused on prepping and assembling sandwiches.
Garde Manger: A traditional French kitchen brigade station (and the chef running it) responsible for cold food items, including salads, appetizers, and cold sandwiches.
Delicatessen/Deliman: A person who works in or runs a deli specializing in sliced meats and classic stacked sandwiches.
Sandwich Artist: A corporate term popularized by chains like Subway.
The Equipment
Commercial Panini Press / Panini Grill: A heavy-duty, restaurant-grade electrical appliance featuring ridged or flat cast-iron/aluminum plates designed to press and toast sandwiches rapidly.
Commercial Sandwich Press or Contact Grill: A high-wattage professional unit used to heat sandwiches evenly from top and bottom. You can explore options and details in guides like the Commercial Panini Press Guide.
So there you have it - as many terms as I have had sandwiches! My favourite though is Delicatessen as it implies a gentleness to the art of sandwich making. Did someone mention art? Then maybe we need an artist!
Meanwhile back to the artistry of model making and the Tortoise Assault Gun moves on well almost as the wheel and tracks are not yet mounted to the hull but they are now just about complete.
There are nearly 250 parts just to make the running gear! That does not include the tracks which in this kit are individual links which probably means another 200 parts! And I though that this would be a quick, non etched brass build!
If you have followed this blog for some time you may know that I have highlighted with wonderment the high price of fuel at a local service station. A few days ago it was as the picture below which is the highest price for diesel that I and no doubt most people have ever seen. Petrol may be slightly cheaper then in June 2022 when the last peak price was recorded but only just!
And just to prove that here is the picture from the 22 June 2022 when I was also in wonderment!
Now its coming together! Having developed my own method for putting the running wheel assemblies together they suddenly come together.
There were still more parts to add!
Return rollers and suspension dampers make up the rest of the parts. So far, what you see in the above picture is made up of 123 parts! And that is only one side of the running gear! However, now armed with my new metrology, the other side should be quicker to build!
I thought about it! That is, following on from yesterdays post, I have found a better way of putting the running wheel assembly together than the instructions instruct!
I have, in this blog before, berated myself for not following the instructions but in this case I initially did but found an alternative better way! As I have carefully explained to Mrs. Woody on many occasions, instructions are there for when you can't get the thing to go together or work and then they are only for guidance!
I have started gluing and my initial impressions are: -
1. The plastic that MENG have used is like nothing I have come across before. A seemingly hard plastic that sands easily! not the easiest to cut cleanly either.
2. The tank is a Tortoise and I am guessing my progress will, as I previously joked, be tortoise like given the complexity of the running wheel s and their carriers!
Having tried to put one of the set of eight together I am not convinced that the instructions actually show the best way to do this so as so far I have spent about two hours trying to get the part of the first carrier together. One to put down and have a think about!
After several months of railway modelling I have a need to do something different and glue some plastic together in the form of building a kit and this is it!
Tortoise is probably apt in that I will no doubt build it at a rate comparable with the progress a tortoise makes in traversing a garden or similar!
There are not as many parts as in some of the kits I have built and no etched brass! Fantastic! Just look at the size of the hull and upper body. This is a beast and one of these assault gun tanks is in full working order at the Bovington Tank Museum. Well the box is open so time to start gluing!
I talked yesterday about OBOE - Open Box October Experience - and how I had opened some boxes up to reveal their contents and more importantly get them on the tracks. Well the WMD film crew have been busy and there is a YouTube video about my experience and a challenge I set to other modellers.
Being that it is October I thought that I would talk about OBOE! Not the musical instrument but my challenge to actually get some of my models out of their boxes and on the layout or as I have put it - OBOE - Open Box October Experience!
I dug out these three boxes with a Class 31 that was bought two years ago and never been out of the box, five Dapol cement wagons that remain in their cardboard since purchased six years ago and finally the Queen Mary brake van that I am ashamed to say remained unopened for over 20 years!
This is the first time that these have been on the rails and they look superb! Why have I left it so long? No idea but I am now enjoying them as they were intended!
The Class 31 is a really stunning model especially in RailFreight livery.
No doubt I am not the only one to have models still in their boxes and unopened and more on that tomorrow!
Almost a Wordless Wednesday post as I have not done much model making but had a great time playing operating trains! Sometimes you just have to do it as that is what I built the layout for!
I was sure I had posted about my Dapol Class 121 before but I cannot find any trace of that! Strange!
A great model of the single unit DMU that was nicknamed the 'Bubble Car' which was a reference to its small, by railway standards, size and big windows reminiscent of the micro cars of the 1960s such as the BMW Isetta, Messerschmitt KR200 and the Heinkel Kabine
I thought that I had previously posted about one of the drive shafts having a split universal joint and how I had fixed it using superglue. Well that problem reoccurred on the other drive shaft!
And like last time I superglued it back together and refitted it to the model and also re-soldering two wires that broke because there is so little room to reinsert the shaft!
I'm not sure what else I might have said last time but lets end this by saying the Bubble Car is mended!
YouTube can come up with some great things that you might never see in reality but make you smile and that was the case with this less than a minute video showing a Massy Ferguson 35. You might think that is nothing unusual as there are a lot of these that have been either conserved or restored. However, not many have a V8 engine installed and this one looks so perfect and sounds incredible. I really would not mind having to follow this down the road!
Here is the video and well worth the 44 seconds of viewing!
Following on from my last post, the body of the Deltic loco went back on the chassis without issue but then then things went wrong!
Firstly one of the body clips to the bogie chains went missing and the three others saw the chains separate from the clips.
I bent up a replacement clip from some brass wire which with a dab of black paints will look fine. Fiddling with the rest of the chains tested my patience but saw the WMD swear jar put some weight on!
The chains were not the only thing to test my sanity as many of the detailed parts are separate mouldings glued in place but in many cases not glued very well as they deposited themselves on the workbench. Trying to work out where they went was an interesting task such as this air chamber from the middle wheel braking system.
Eventually all parts were glued back in place and the model was put on the track to haul its first train...
...which was an eight coach mixed rake of Mk1 and Mk2 coaches which the Deltic dealt with easily!
It does look good and run well which made dealing with the issues worth while. Now to enjoy!
As is my usual butterfly approach to things, I decided to deal with a model I have had a long time but never run mainly as I needed to DCC chip it.
This is the Accurascale Deltic from the first batch that they released. It was a game changing model in terms of detail and the innovative manner in which things were approached. However, that also brought issues. Innovation wise, the great thing about putting a DCC chip in this loco is that there is a hatch on top of the roof held in place by magnets that opens up just for this purpose. Great! However, if you have a sound chip you also need to fit a speaker which was not a standard fitment in DCC ready locos and that means the body has to come off the chassis! Not great! There is a good reason why this is not great. Read on!
Never seen on a ready to run model before, Accurascale included the safety chains between the bogies and the body that make sure that the bogies does not separate from the body in the event of an accident. The chain is tiny and is held in place on the bogies by a strip of etched brass (why do I shudder whenever I say 'etched brass' - oh yes that would be because I never get on with such parts in kit building!) and some sort of plastic clip that you have to release from the body in order to separate the body from the chassis. Of course there are four chains - 2 on each bogie so the potential for disaster is quadrupled!
A day at the Rocks By Rail Museum always has things going on to look at such as Rob getting on with the restoration of the Euclid.
It seems where ever you look in the Restoration Shed there are light lenses and parts of lights which seem to far exceed what is actually required for the project going on at the moment and blogged about over the last few weeks. Maybe there are other plans?
Andy has got the screen deck sorted on the ballast washing plant which should make operation much netter.
And at the narrow gauge display the sleepers are now in position to form a barrier for the stone base onto which the display items can be placed.
And my part in all this activity to look at was to take Morris Mower out and butcher some grass! Great!
Sometimes you can miss a great opportunity and that happened whilst Mrs. Woody and myself were enjoying some chips whilst parked up in a layby whilst out for the day. It was not that I missed the opportunity to get the biggest chip but being engrossed in the enjoyment of the chips, which were a real treat and very tasty, I missed out on this!
This vintage, I think, Scammell Handyman and Showman's Trailer, had obviously come into the layby behind us and the first that I knew about it was at it rolled past us and I grabbed my camera to get this rear end picture! Would have been nice to get the front end too!
Moral of this is that Mrs. Woody should have kept a better eye out!
My Wednesday Want! This road and rail going excavator!
Spotted on a bike ride who would not want a machine like this! Well, probably Mrs. Woody and perhaps the neighbours and no doubt the local council if I parked it outside WMD HQ!
In reality the nearest I might get to having something similar is a model.
The Dapol signal gantries are now all painted and weathered and ready for the layout.
And so does that!
Now, about those chopped up bits of plastic I blogged about a few days ago!
