Boating adventures!

Not a Caribbean Cruise that Mrs. Woody would not actually enjoy as she easily gets sea sick (now that's a saving!) but in my characteristic grasshopper way of moving between projects I decided today to do something else other than the Scania truck kits so I have almost finished the canal narrow boats for the wharf on the 009 narrow gauge layout. The various decorative panels have been added, the tiller is installed as are the mooring pins and the stove and engine chimneys. In addition I have also added some ropes the cargo bay having raided Mrs. W's sewing kit. I have remembered to return the black cotton that I used so I will never be found out unless she reads this! The ropes add a nice touch breaking up the other wise boring cargo hold cover. Having actually thought the matter through my original idea of cutting individual lengths of cotton was dropped in favour of using one long piece as the photo below shows - working smarter not harder as I get older!

Almost finished with just some weathering to do.

Placed on the layout they look good - to me anyway! Probably ant self respecting canal enthusast would condemn them and have me walk the plank!

It wasn't designed to do that!

In my trademark way I have been distracted with another project on the 009 narrow gauge layout! The two narrowboats - I was put right on the RM Web that these vessels are narrowboats and not barges as barges have to be at least 7 foot wide - have got a little bit closer to being finished, but only a little bit!

What has now distracted me is whilst looking through the multitude of unmarked, disorganised and chaotic storage boxes of things 'That will come in handy one day' in my man cave, AKA The Room of Gloom for some plastic card for some parts on the barges - Ooops! I did it again! - I mean narrow boats, I found the Wills Double Track Occupation Bridge kit. This set my mind going - always a worrying thing especially for Mrs Woody! I had used the same manufacturer's single track bridge to take the road over the railway on the original and first board of the layout as described here. Could I use this double bridge to take the road over the river on the second board? It certainly wasn't designed for that purpose! However that is one of the great things about model making - you take something that was designed for one purpose and then repurpose it. There was only one way to tell if this kit could do the job with modifications and that was to get the parts out of the packaging and start measuring and construction. So here I go again. Distracted with this project! However it has actually progressed and looks as though it may well work - again unusual with anything I do! This is what I started with and the packaging shows how the kit designers envisaged the finish product to look. They didn't take me into account though!

The width of the bridge as governed by the steel girders and railings provided in the kit fitted well with my cut out river base in the base-board. Good start! The retaining walls however were too tall. In my use of the kit on the original baseboard the retaining walls were too low so I had to make my own higher ones. This time all I had to do was cut down the kit walls to the right height. Firstly though the main retaining walls were constructed as there are four parts to each one. Left over night to fully harden, this evening saw some carful measurements taken and then the retaining walls cut with a small Xacto saw to the measured height and you know what? They actually fitted! 

As you can see I cut down the wing walls and joined them at right angles to the main retaining wall to give a more normal construction for a river bridge. More work to be done on this and who knows when that may be done if there are any other distractions that come about!

Down by the Waterfront!

Just a quick update on some progress on the 009 narrow gauge layout and the canal wharf and barges. I will let the pictures tell and describe the methods in more detail in another post once things are nearer completion.

Oooops!....I did it again!

In the last post I talked about having completed the Wills Corrugated Iron Chapel kit which had distracted me from other things on the work bench. I said that the distraction was over and I was getting back to those other tasks but I also mentioned a canal barge kit was on my workbench. Well just like Britney Spears but looking nothing like here I hasten to add, Oooops!....I did it again! Yes another distraction in that I started the canal barge kit produced by Craftline Models who produce a number of 00 gauge canal type vessels to populate your canal scene. As the finished model is for the canal wharf on the 009 narrow gauge layout I felt that the distraction of making this model had at least some justification.

The kits are based upon semi precut balsa shapes with some other parts you have to cut from an already marked out sheet of balsa wood. There are also parts for the tiller, stove chimney and similar barge type things as well as some pre printed paper decorations to give that traditional canal boat paint job to your model which you can see in the picture above.

I have never made on of these kits before so it was a bit new to me. It has been getting on for several decades since I last made a balsa model aircraft, which if I recall followed the fate of its predecessors in self destructing on a crash landing! I am no Biggles when it comes to flying that is for sure! Anyway this kit is simple enough and so with some balsa wood glue a few parts were fitted. Some shaping of the bow and stern, or if you want to annoy boating enthusiasts just refer to them as the sharp and blunt ends, was carried out and it soon began to look barge shaped.

You will notice the bottle of Shellac Sanding Sealer in the background. Balsa Wood is fantastically workable in that it is light in weight, sands and shapes easily and is comparatively strong. What it is not very good at doing is being painted. It can swell and distort with certain types of paint so the sanding sealer seals and fills the wood grain so that you can sand it to a super smooth finish and then apply paint safe in the knowledge that nothing untoward should happen. 

As I had progressed with the kit so quickly it seemed a shame not to make the other kit I had which is also for the canal wharf and so this is the situation on my workbench.

Oooops!... I did it again!