Crossmembers!

Having got my platform surface to the right shape as highlighted yesterday, it was time to add to some sides and crossmembers but not happy members! There are some specifications which real railways follow as to platform heights and roughly interpreted these amount to a 17mm highwall in model form. I have cut some mounting card walls to this height and also some crossmembers.

Just to get a feel for things I placed the platform surface on top which shows it is looking OK!!!

Having checked that my measurements and shaping were correct it was possible to start some more constructive work on the crossmembers. Hopefully the mix of right angle and diagonal crossmembers will keep things both flat and strong.

My glue of choice at the moment is this special card glue made by DeLux Materials and very good it is too.

I have progressed but this will take a few days to build but I am in no rush as whilst doing it I am also running trains on the layout - I just don't tell Mrs. Woody that bit!

However I did tell Mrs. W about these tulips when we called in at Easton Walled Gardens. 

As Mr. Beecham, he of cycling prowess and model making skills, pointed out to me when I sent him some pictures, the red of the tulips is the colour of the paratrooper's berets. It is of course the 80th anniversary of Operation Market Garden which took place in September 1944.

Time to finish off some things as Spring has indeed sprung!

Anyone who has read this blog will know I have a habit of not finishing projects. The reasons are numerous and probably completely unjustifiable but every so often something coerces me to go back and do the finishing touches. This time it is the number of kit boxes scattered about the Man Cave with the last few pieces of kits that need finishing that is the coercing factor. If I get rid of the box before finishing the kit I will end up mislaying the parts so the box stays until the parts are used up! 

These ar just a few of the boxes!

With the recent clear out of magazines I now have that desire to get rid of the boxes so I am starting with the Italeri DAF 95 Canvas Truck which is just about finished apart from mirrors, windscreen wipers, windscreen sun shield and side under-run guards. 

The box still has a lot of parts in it and I had to remind myself that I had replaced the wheels and dash board with resin items and did not use the air deflectors. Those parts can go in the spares box - oh dear yet another box!

This is what I am left with to fit. Hopefully should not take too long - in my inevitable famous last words!

On non-model making matters I did take Mrs. Woody to see the snowdrops at Easton Walled Gardens and if snowdrops are the indication that Spring has sprung then it certaily has with the number out. It did look impressive with carpets of white all over the large garden.

Apart from the delight of seeing so many snowdrops I also learnt that there are nine varieties in the Gardens thanks to this very informative display unit. Who says that learning has to be boring!

The ideal number is 'X plus one'!

Been a busy few days so lets start off with something that has been done during the less busy times - the Panzer Ferry. Yesterdays post showed one side of the tracks in place with pieces of card in place to make sure the sags between the idlers were in the right place. Having removed the card I am pleased to report it looks good!

Talking of yesterday this joined the WMD loco fleet.

It is the Hornby D16 LNER 4-4-0 and if you are interested in the history there is a detailed one on a third party website available by clicking here.. A second hand model bought at a very reasonable price and being 'DCC ready' according to the box (it has an 8pin socket already fitted in the tender) it was a fairly easy job to fit an appropriate DCC chip. Once fitted it ran well and I like it! Even though most of the locos operating on my 00 gauge layout are diesels I do have a collection of LNER steamers so this expands that! 

As I have explained to a puzzled Mrs. Woody on several occasions the ideal number of anything that I collect is 'X plus one' where 'X' is the existing number of whatever I am collecting! Not sure why Mrs. W finds that simple mathematics hard to follow or maybe she is just rolling her eyes out of frustration!

In order to cure her eye rolling I did take Mrs. W back to Easton Walled Gardens again. What struck me as we walked around was the neatness of the hedges grass - unlike my vegetational butchery at the Rocks By Rail Museum! 

I don't think my horticultural skills will be called upon by the walled gardens!

Getting closer to nature on Route 66?

I always enjoy Summer with the general growth of things, the bright colours that plants and flowers provide and the activity of wildlife as they bring their off spring up. The older I have become seemingly the more Summer means to me. I guess it is a getting old thing! So, today, when Mrs. Woody announced she wanted to go to a local country house to have a look around the house and gardens I was not going to argue - I never disagree with what Mrs. W says anyway! We arrived at the country house to find that it was holding a car show. Now some decades ago I would have thought that this sheer coincidence must make it my lucky day and have driven straight in. However Mrs. W and myself agreed (now that is an unusual occurrence) that it just looked too crowded and we drove off. We did end up back at the tranquility of Easton Walled Gardens where we visited a few weeks ago.

One of the nice things about the garden is that it is always changing as nature goes through the seasons and that you always find something new to look at. The other thing is that the gardens are large enough to leave some areas uncultivated so that nature can take over and the results can be stunning with grasses and wild flowers providing an oasis.

There were a lot of bees, butterflies and wasps and I stretched the capabilities of my camera phone to try to catch a bee and wasp as they hunted for nectar.

 It just hits you that this simple activity by these insects, repeated trillions of times around the World, is the basis of how we all keep alive. Amazing!

There are of course the more cultivated areas where form and order are displayed such as the universe garden where the galaxy and planets are represented in a mix of plant and sculpture form .

Further down the flower beds are dominated by large plants to an amazing effect.

At the moment sweet peas are one of the highlights of the gardens where they are grown for display and then the seeds are taken for the next years plants as well as for selling on through the on site shop.

It is strange how sometimes there can be the most unusual connection but having driven away from a car show to come to the gardens instead I find one of the varieties of sweet pea called Route 66 which from having driven some of it is probably the biggest car show ever!

Anyway a great afternoon and time spent sitting lazily in the sun for me and Mrs. W as well as this robotic lawn mower which had decided to call it a day and had parked up!

There is another reason I like to get close to nature at the walled gardens - they sell amazing cakes some of which came back to WMD HQ!

Back at WMD HQ work on my Last Great Project 00 gauge layout is progressing but would easily be taken over by nature if allowed! I have now finished the track work to extend the loop over the viaduct.

I am now in a position where I can start to fasten track down permanently as well as wiring it up and ballasting it. Or should I just let nature do it?

Cake time!

 Mrs. Woody and me went back to Easton Walled Gardens today. Our last trip a few weeks ago was great but made even better by the home made Victoria Sponge and Lemon Drizzle cakes that we bought. So todays visit was into the ticket office and straight to the cake counter to make sure we got what we wanted again! Having secured said cakes we left them in a bag with the staff and went off for a wander round. It is amazing how much things in nature can change in just a few weeks. The sweet peas had really blossomed and although not my favorite flowering plant I was suitably impressed.

I was also impressed by this smallest shed that I have ever seen!

You could probably store a watering can and a trowel in there or preferably some cakes. Never the less despite its small size it was a quality shed!

Having safely returned Mrs. Woody and cakes to WMD HQ I did some further work on the Italeri DAF 95 Canvas Truck namely the windscreen wipers and mirrors.

Firstly the widescreen wipers had to be reversed to fit the now right hand drive cab. That consisted cutting them in half and regluing at the right angle. The photos below probably illustrate what I did better then I can describe it!

The unaltered wipers on their kit sprue.

The top wiper is the first altered one.

Mirror wise I am using some reflective sheet that needs to be cut to shape. I covered the appropriate area of the sheet with masking tape so that I could apply the sheet to the plastic part prior to painting. Once painted I just need to remove the masking tape so hopefully no problems! Famous last words!

After all that I think I will have some cake now!

A real garden!

As it was a Bank Holiday, a warm day and a way of avoiding doing any gardening myself as I still feel shattered, I took Mrs. Woody off to Easton Gardens near Colsterworth in Lincolnshire to see the hard work of others in producing gardening magic. I thought that we had gone there last year but through the magic of being able to go back through this blog it was actually August Bank Holiday 2021! Click here for that post. Time flies! Anyway, despite it being nearly two years much was the same but much was different with a different season displaying itself in the garden. I do love those little spots where something has been created or there is just so much character.

Take a look at the gable end wall of this building. So much history with various builds, alterations and repairs. To build a model of that would require real skills - so I won't be building one!

This little bench set under trees with a few pots scattered around it just looks so simple but just so right.

 Then you have the bigger picture that is some view!

Going back to the character of the place there are these two metal giraffes that are welded up from metal sheet of all things!

 Then you get the oddities such as this rather tall post which seems to have no purpose.

But all is explained by this notice.

Then I came across something I did remember from the last visit - the robotic lawn mowers. This one, having completed a day of mowing, was on charge. 

Maybe this is something that the Rocks By Rail Museum should invest in!

Back in the reality of the WMD HQ Estate the Italeri DAF 95 Canvas Truck cab has been rubbed down, washed and is currently drying thoroughly before going back into the spray shop, hopefully tomorrow.

WMD out and about and an experiment in filming!

Todays post is mainly imagery. Not much modelling done as here in the UK it is a Bank Holiday weekend - the last before the 25th December - (I am not mentioning that word yet but no doubt by September there will be adverts for it!) so I have spent a bit of time out and about.

One thing I did do whilst back at WMD HQ was to film some operation on the USA Switching layout that I last talked about back in April. The WMD Trainee Film Crew attempted filming a local driver undergoing training on switching duties! Some of the better clips are in this film which you can watch by clicking on the white arrow head. The Trainee Film Crew will have to do better next time but at least its more exciting then watching paint dry - just!

One of the places Mrs Woody has wanted to visit for some time are the walled gardens at a place called Easton just off the A1 in Lincolnshire. Usually Mrs W's choices of places to visit are very good and she didn't fail in that in finding this place. 

Up until the early 1950s there was a manor house which unfortunately and like so many others, was demolished. The gardens survived but became derelict until restoration work started in 2000. They are now lovely and there are 12 acres to explore. The website has full details and you can visit it by clicking here. In the meantime a selection of photos below which always make you wish you could model the landscape as exquisitely as nature created it!

With all that grass you have to included some modern way of maintaining it and this is one of two robotic lawnmowers - nice! Now if only Mrs W could see the virtue.....