Puma and bird table!

An odd title but starting with the Puma (which in this case is the tank not the large cat), today saw further progress on the Tamiya Sd.Kfz 234/2 Puma. It is all the small bits that take the time to prepare and there are a few on this kit. The jack is an example/ Five parts go to make it all of which have to be cleaned up and then glued together. Add to that time, the time it also takes to find the parts that fall from my fingers onto the fall as I try to clean up joint lines (I made the right choice in having a hard floor rather then carpet - you can never find parts once they go in the pile of the carpet as I know from bitter experience!) and soon the jack becomes a 25 minute job. 

The exhaust units were also added to the rear of the hull which is the last of the major hull parts.

Here are the various cleaned up parts, most of which I will paint separately before adding them to the painted vehicle.

There are four wing markers and two aerials to add and the two figures that came with the kit to assemble and then it will be paint time.

Moving onto the bird table I did cover my restoration of it in this blog back in July 2021 (click here to see it). Unfortunately it was a victim of the recent building works. Not sure what happened to it but its roof ended up in pieces. Just hope the builders built a stronger roof then I did!

To gain some much needed credibility with Mrs. Woody and clear an eyesore from the garden I have repaired it and given it another coat of wood paint.

Mrs. W was suitably impressed although she did point out no birds had landed on it which after all is the purpose of the structure. She does have a point! However, landing birds or not, hopefully it will last for a few more years yet and no pumas will be seen on it!

One for the birds!

In this case this is not an entry into this blog about the strange ideas I come up with which in many cases are indeed ones for the birds! This is actually about a bird table/feeder. 

Built by me back in around 1996 from scraps of wood that I had lying about it has lasted remarkably well to say that all that I have done to it is occasionally slap on some wood stain. However, as you can see from the photo above it had got to the stage where no self respecting bird would come to it regardless of the feathered friend style culinary delights that I would place on it. Time had come for a makeover. So, hard on the heels of the garden bench restoration here comes the bird table restoration.

Following examination the base was condemned and had to go. It promptly feel off as if to agree with the decision so that was simple. other wise apart from re-nailing a few of the roof slats and a paint job this was going to be reasonably easy and swear jar free! 

Whilst I was cutting the slats for the garden bench restoration that featured in an earlier post, I took the opportunity to cut the required pieces for a new base with the miter saw.

I took the opportunity to paint all the new parts before assembly so that they at least all had a coat of protection even in those areas where two parts come together. A few minutes with my drill and some screws and the base was complete.

The old base had rooted from the bottom up. Where the wooden 'feet' of the base stood on the ground, water had impregnated and started the inevitable wood rot leading to this.

Nice! In an attempt to avoid this happening in the future I used part of an off cut from some roofing felt to put on the feet. The theory is that the felt should stop water impregnating the wood - we'll wait and see if my theory works!

A large screw sourced from the WMD HQ collection of screws that might come in handy one day was greased and joined the base to the post. Further screws saw the supporting pieces reinstated and low and behold and much to my amazement the bird table stood straight and solid! 

Some nails in the roof slats and a couple of coats of wood paint and the end result was something that perhaps birds may indeed feel inclined to use now - better put some food on it! 

Another item saved from the scrap heap!