Back on the Chain Gang!

Well on Thursday it felt a bit like being part of one of those old films set in an American prison where the inmates were breaking rocks as part of their punishment. Whilst it may have been hard work digging out ballast from between sleepers at the Rocks by Rail Museum, it was far from punishment. I enjoy a bit of digging and it was a nice sunny day surrounded by railway infrastructure and rolling stock and some good guys with some great chat as well as Riley the dog, who prefers to dig up grass rather than ballast - pity!

What could be better? I even got home in time to put Mrs W's dinner on the table as she arrived home - result! 

Over the weekend I have managed to make some progress with the various buildings for the narrow gauge layout. The Dapol General store has been primed ready for its final paint scheme. There were some gaps in the joints at the corners of the walls that required filling. To cut down on the mess and subsequent cleaning and sanding I ran a strip of masking tape either side of the gaps. 

Vallejo acrylic putty was then brushed into the gaps and left to dry.

The masking tape was then removed leaving a nice clean joint that needed little more then me running a finger nail down it to remove a few rough bits. Working smarter not harder as I get older!

If you look at some model buildings on railway layouts you will notice that you can look straight through a window to the other side of the building and through the opposite window. Whilst open plan living may be a concept some like it is not something that you see in many buildings and at some point there are internal walls even if only to separate the sanitary facilities from the rest of the house. I have added several partitions into the shell of the building as well as a first floor floor - if that makes sense! Not only do these block the view through the building but they also add a bit of additional strength. I am not going to add internal detail but I think these partitions will do a good job in adding that extra realism to the model.

All the parts have now been primed in a light grey awaiting their final paint scheme.

I have also glued the walls of the Service Station together and cleaned up some of the other parts which now await their turn to be primed which hopefully may get done tomorrow if Mrs W doesn't introduce here own version of a Chain Gang to get me to finish that list of jobs!

When things don't go according to plan but don't get too obsessed with detail!

The bit about detail in the title to this post relates to the second part of this post so we will begin about things not going according to plan. 

On Friday I laid out some track on my new second baseboard for my 009 narrow gauge layout. I had in my mind a long held plan that I had gone over mentally many times to the point I was convinced it was infallible and had bought the necessary track and points on the basis that nothing could go wrong. How wrong I was! In my mind the canal wharf is served by a siding that comes off the curve at what I term as the front of the layout. This is the side where on the first board the quarry face is. Laying the track out soon made it clear that the siding that in my mind ran at the side of  the wharf actually by-passed it on a curve before straightening up once almost past the wharf. Hardly conducive to efficient loading from railway wagons to canal barges and vice versa. The siding actually needs to come off the curve at the back of the layout. that does present a problem. At the moment I don't have the additional left hand Peco Set-Track point that is needed. I either have to order one, see if I have an n gauge Set-Track point in my stock and butcher it in a similar fashion to one on the other board - see the blog entry here- or devise some cunningly creative new track layout that only uses the existing points I have. I will sleep on that for a night or two which actually means more sleepless nights counting points! The photo below probably shows the issue better than my words describe it.

This evening I had an hour or so doing some detail painting on the Zvezda 5350 Mustang truck kit manly on the bottom of the cargo body and a bit in the cab which I photographed for inclusion here. Photographs can be very useful as they can highlight something that the naked eye looking at the model misses, such as a twisted or damaged part. They can also be a problem in that digital photography can provide a harshness of detail not necessarily seen with the naked eye. Normally what you see with the naked eye is a level of detail that is satisfactory and you are happy with it. Take a digital photograph and with the right resolution you can focus in on parts of a model that the naked eye just cannot see normally and suddenly you see blurred overpainted areas on the model which you want to amend because on the photo it looks terrible. What you have to get your mind round is whether anyone is really going to look at the model with a digital camera or high powered magnifying glass. If you are happy with what you see with your naked eye view than be happy with the model and do not spend hours trying to correct slight painting issues that others will not see any way. In addition if you weather your model the likelihood is that all that painting will disappear under a layer of weathering powders anyway. Enough of the lecture - lets see some in close photos to see just how bad my painting is but the important part is that I am happy with how it looks to my eye so it ain't getting any more painting just some weathering which will cover a lot of 'issues'. 

All about that baseboard!

Apologies for the slightly altered song title - All about that bass by Meghan Trainor - but today I completed the second baseboard to extend my 009 Narrow Gauge railway. It is something that I had always planned to do but unusually for me I actually have started it! A gap in Mrs. Woody's Task List and a thought that I don't want to be constructing baseboards in the Winter got me fired up and following my usual methods of wood butchery a baseboard the same size (amazingly given my ability to make tape measures elastic) appeared. Just need to sort out a method of joining this to the original board. 

The second board has a cut out for a river and a canal wharf so will have a slightly different type of scenery to the first board.

At the moment the two boards rest in the middle of my Last Great Project 00 gauge layout in my Room of Gloom AKA my man cave. At least being there in front of me might give me the impetuous to start the track laying on either of the layouts!

 

Whether weathering is worth it?

In yesterdays post I outlined the hairspray technique for creating scuffs and wear in paintwork. In my eyes it worked successfully but as I said it looked a bit stark.

One of the advantages of weathering a model is that it can bring a harmony to colours by in effect toning them down and giving them a patina of wear and age. Another is that it creates something that looks realistic. Look at any vehicle apart from one in a car concourse show and you will see varying amounts of dirt and wear. Usually the more the vehicle is used for a commercial or military purpose the more it shows its age and use because they are working vehicles were a job needs to be done and then another without a break to get the water and sponge out followed by a full T cut and wax!

I have been weathering models for many years now trying to get that realistic look where you have to look twice to see if it really is a model or a real vehicle. Sometimes it goes well other times not so well looking as if I had dipped the model in a mix of mud and sand but as the adage says practice makes perfect! I certainly think weathering is worth it. 

There are three pieces of advice I can give any novice to weathering. 

1. Look at pictures of the real vehicle and see how they look in real life situations.

2. Look for inspiration - there are many websites and YouTube videos that Deal in weathering techniques but also use your own senses as to where people would climb onto things rubbing paint away or leaving dirt or how rain would pool dust into low lying areas.

3. Don't be afraid to try it and experiment to develop techniques that you are happy with. There are as many different ways to weather a vehicle as Mrs Woody's hand bag collection and that is a lot and there is no right or wrong way to do it. 

Back to the bed of the body of the Zvezda K5350 truck which this evening received an attack of various weathering powders starting with MIG Industrial Grime and then European dust and finally a medium rust for around the metal supports to the bench seats and the staining that would lead to on the wooden floor. The powders were applied with a stiff brush, some paper towel and cotton buds. The photos are not the best and the results do look better in the flesh and once a coat of varnish is applied that will lighten the colours but the starkness of what I started with has  certainly been toned down nicely.

On the 009 gauge layout base board building front further distress has been caused to pieces of wood s that the baseboard is near completion. Hopefully by the end of the week it should be ready for track laying or then again with my speed of progress it might actually be finished in time for the next major geological event!

A bit of everything!

It was one of those nice days where I did a bit of everything. An early morning cycle ride saw my total mileage for this year so far reach 3368 miles. During the day a bit of gardening, a good chat with fellow modeller and good friend Mr Beechham (he with the artistry skills (see here) and who can beat me up hills cycling!) who was passing and then a start on the second baseboard for my 009 narrow gauge railway last featured here. Its always been my intention to extend the layout and today seemed as good a day as any to make a start especially as the gardening was done early so that Mrs. Woody would think I had spent the whole day productively employed on non model making activities! Splendid! The base board will have a river flowing through it - that is a model one rather than a real one - so appropriate pieces have been cut out of the baseboard. It will also have a canal wharf at the end and construction of that part will take place over the next day or so. At the moment my few hours of wood butchery (I am no carpenter) have seen several pieces of wood forced and coerced into this.

Surprisingly for my limited skills it is the same width as the existing board and appears to be square. How long that will last is something that you could wager on. 

Having cooked Mrs. Woody's dinner, more positive points gained, I decided to tackle the Zvezda K5350 Mustang truck. In the last post I outlined that I was going to top coat the bench seats and the bed of the body using the hairspray technique to allow me to create wear and scuff marks. I used an old can of hairspray that I bought years ago for a similar project and sprayed the bench seats and bed of the body. Even doing it outside there was still a strong but pleasant perfumed aroma wafting around the garden for a while which no doubt confused our feathered friends. Having let it dry for 15 minutes I top coated the various parts plus the inside of the cab with Vallejo Air Russian Green which seems to be a perfect match to the coloured painting guide supplied with the kit. The nice thing about Vallejo Air paints are they are ready thinned for airbrushing. No messing about with pouring paint and thinners out into a jar and getting the right mixture which usually ends in a swear jar moment. Just pour into the airbrush and spray. Nice! Being acrylic, the airbrush can be cleaned in plain water. Nicer still! The other good thing about these paints is they cover well and usually one coat does the job as shown in the picture below.

Letting the paint dry for about half an hour I used a selection of stiff brushes, a tooth pick and some water to start to rub and abrade the paint where I thought wear and scuffing would take place in real life as troops sat on the benches and walked over the bed of the body. Thirty minutes or so got me to where I wanted to be. It can be easy to end up stripping away all the top coat bring you back to where you started so less is best as they say. Whether I have achieved that or not is something that is in the eye of the beholder. However I am pleased with what I have achieved and though it all looks a bit stark at the moment once varnished to seal it, a coat of weathering on top will tone it all down and harmonise the effect. Well that's the plan anyway! Now what shall I cook for Mrs Woody tomorrow? Not much in the cupboard so maybe a bit of everything!

Projects of Joy and Woe!

 A bit thin on blog entries at the moment. Not because things are not busy for me but more that not a lot of the business has included model making. There are times like that and I am lucky this year so far in that I have spent more time on model making in the first four months of the year than probably in the previous four years!

At the moment there is a large project of redoing the garden. I am not a highly skilled creative gardener and my results are more likely to feature in a guide on how not to do your garden rather than be showcased at the Chelsea Flower Show. However I enjoy it and that is what that matters and hence the Project of Joy! At the moment work is centered around some hard landscaping and laying paving blocks is taking much time up. I do find this sort of thing very therapeutic. There is something about bringing mortar and blocks together that fascinates me! I can understand why Winston Churchill enjoyed brick laying as a hobby and there is a lot of information about this aspect of his life here.. My work is probably a shadow of his but progress is being made. As an aside getting materials, especially cement is proving a problem. I am told that there was a fire at a large cement works which has caused major issues. I had to travel 60 plus miles to actually get a couple of bags!

Moving onto the Project Of Woe or as I will call it the POW, this is a tale that typifies my modelling! Back in 2016 I bought a Bachmann Baldwin in 009 gauge in War Department grey as used in World War 1. Great model so a couple of wagons to match were bought. 

Then the idea that being the time of the Centenary of WW1 it would be good to build a small layout with a WW1 theme. By about August 2018 I finally got round to starting the layout! No worries - a couple of months will see it done! Wind on to the present and there is the start of the layout and a series of problems that have dogged its progress.

First off I decided to build the baseboard out of foam board. Several sheets of foam board from The Range and a hot glue gun built a reasonable baseboard and WOW was it light in weight! Great! I started to lay the track and out came my stock of second hand 009 gauge points bought probably 20 years ago. Not sure if they were Peco or not but after a short while the sleeper bases just broke up. Having replaced them landscaping then commenced and with a coat of brown base paint the whole thing looked like this.

A nice simple layout with a passing loop and siding along with a slight hill to give some interest to the landscape. It was at this point that I suddenly became aware that foam board was not as stable as I thought and hot glue gun joints were not structurally very strong. What came about is that landscaping the top surface with plaster meant that as the plaster dried out and slightly shrunk it warped the baseboard - Oh Woe! I ended up with a banana shaped baseboard! I thought that I had a photo but can not find it. To cut a long story short two attempts with adding a wooden frame to which the base board was glued and bent back flat with some rather large G clamps were required to rectify the problem. Talking to someone who has success in using foam board baseboards has revealed that there are different qualities of foam board and you can get a much better and stronger joint between the foam board parts if you use the special cutter that gives a stepped joint. There are also a number of other tool s that are useful and some can be seen here 

Having got a flat baseboard again some scenic work has been undertaken and in an earlier series of posts I dealt with the various Shelf Queens that I finished and they are for this layout. At present it all looks very stark and apologies for the picture quality but it was not the best light to take photos when I did these.

It is going to be some time before I get back to this project but there is a basis of an interesting layout there so hopefully it will become a Project of Joy one day. In the meantime I have to go back to my garden work and today is moving some large Yorke paving slabs - Oh Joy!!!!!!

More wood related matters but of a different kind

Having taken a bit of a break over the Easter period from model making normal service is now resumed! Still things to do on My Last Great Project just to get the baseboards finished but progress on the 009 narrow gauge layout has been made. As highlighted in an earlier post the Woodland Scenic trees were temporarily put in place and having left them a few days and looked on occasions to see if my mind had changed on their positioning I was still happy so the placement was settled. The trees come 'plugged' into a plastic base which compared to the rest of the tree are a poor representation of the base of a tree. However as the baseboard is thin hardboard, using the base was preferable to trying to drill a hole and get the tree to stand up properly. I decided that by thinning the edges of the base and then gluing them to the baseboard and using static grass they would become part of the overall landscaping. The pictures below probably make better sense than my words!

The original base.

The thinned base.

Bases being glued into place with UHU and then PVA on top with static grass applied from a Gaugemaster puffer bottle.

You can see the base on the right has been 'hidden' whilst the other two have had PVA applied awaiting the static grass treatment.

With that job done I turned to a few other details. A few vehicles were needed and these two Oxford Diecasts had been bought some time ago for this project. Time for their emergence from the 'stock' of items that I put away over time and then normally forget that I have them until after I actually wanted them by which time I have bought duplicates! In best Homer Simpson mode - Doah!

I am really impressed by the quality and finish on these models. Even get a registration number on them. They do need a coat of matt varnish to take away that 'Showroom' finish and make them actually look as though they are driven but that will come later.

Also in my 'stock' I found this Corgi RB19 Face Shovel that should be right at home in the quarry. It needs some weathering unless I pretend its just been delivered. In reality probably far too big a piece of plant for this quarry but it makes the area look interesting and I like it!

I am going to have to search through my figures collection in order to populate the layout but some sheep have appeared!

They were kindly given to me by a fellow modeler but I have no idea of either the maker of the sheep models or the breed they are. Given that I have no location or time period for the layout I feel safe in not annoying any experts in the field of animal husbandry! However I will as a precaution clear a file space for correspondence from annoyed sheep experts!

Overall the layout is coming to life. Still more to do but it is fun making my own World which is what all this is about especially as the real World cane sometimes be a strange place!

All about the wood!

Well here at WMD HQ its been all about the wood for the last few days! My last great project still sees me battering pieces of wood together but progress is being made. Three more pieces to put on the last of the two end boards and that is the main sub baseboard constructed to stage one. Stage two involves a lot of sander work and some filler to hide the blemishes (a nice word for my poor workmanship) and then a final coat of paint to seal the wood and hopefully keep the structure sound and free of moisture.

It was a glorious day to be outside too so it despite the war of Woody and the wood going on I did enjoy it! Several people walking by must be wondering 'What is he up to???'. Certainly looks like a strange shelving unit. Looking at the weather forecast for next week and I see predictions of temperatures of 2C - I will be heading inside then.

Dealing with wood of another sort, the narrow gauge layout need some trees. I should be making them myself but on this occasion I have splashed out on some Woodlands Scenic trees about 4 to 5 inches high. I have placed them on the layout temporarily just to get a feel for where they look best. From my enforced gardening activities I am told plants and shrubs always look best with three and to be truthful even my eye can see that. Luckily that is how many trees come in the pack - they must watch Gardener's World at Woodlands Scenic too! As the baseboard to the layout is thinnish hardboard, mounting the trees was always going to be an issue. However they do come with a base into which the trunk plugs into. The base is not exactly fashioned by someone with an eye for nature but I think I can use the base and hide it so that the trees will stand without holes in the baseboard. More of that adventure another time - possibly next week when it is 2C outside! In the meantime lets have a look at the current temporary placement.

On the T80 tank front, all I can say is that the tracks are testing! I will get there but it is not a quick job and when a kit fights you like this you have to be in the right mood to make progress.