What have Cornflakes to do with model making you may well be asking. Well the Cornflakes themselves are a delicious breakfast cereal or indeed any other time of the day snack but for me the box has uses other than containing the aforementioned cereal. A source of cardboard which in my more impoverished days of model making served as a raw material for making buildings. Today I tend to use mounting card which a £2 a sheet - well it was the last time I bought some last year but has probably gone up since then - provides a good quality card. However where the card is sacrificial in a project I still turn to the likes of a Cornflakes box - a nice 1kg one is nice and large. Good job I like these cereals!
In my case I have moved on with My Last Great Project layout to start to build the valley sides on the dropped section of baseboard. Polystyrene is my choice of infill material and I have a couple of sheets of it as outlined yesterday. This will be covered with a mix of wall filler and paper towel but first I need to get it to near enough the right shape. Having thought about this and in line with my 'Working smarter not harder' philosophy I decided that it would be useful to make a templet of the valley sides which would enable me to cut the sheets to the right shape. Given the mess that cutting polystyrene can make with all those spheres through the wonders of static electricity, attaching themselves to anything nearby namely me (must be my electric personality or as Mrs. Woody would say more likely to my static personality!) minimising cutting means less mess.
Templets were made and the first polystyrene profiles cut.
Although I am only about a third of the way through the cutting process the mess was reasonably minimal.
Although only part way through things are beginning to take shape. I will need to infill the arches with smaller profiles.
With continually lifing the track it has come out of alignment but once all the landscaping is done I will put it back as it should be ready for ballasting - that is some time off yet though!
Much as Mrs. Woody would like to see me cut back on spending this cutting back relates to my day at The Rocks By Rail Museum. Following on from last week my battles with nature continued as I cut back more bushes and hedges that have narrowed some paths. Slowly I am winning the battle although it will grow back next year but that is something for Future Woody to deal with. I don't envy that guy!
In my inevitable way before and after photos show my vegetation butchery!
Meanwhile in the restoration shed where I visited whilst it was raining, Rob was tackling the broken step on Harriot the JCB. I have no idea where the name originates from but it sort of suits this JCB! Much rust cut back, much new metal, welding and grinding are taking place so the new step will probably outlast the rest of Harriot!
Back at WMD HQ I have managed to do a bit more on the Metcalfe Viaduct kits and one now has the basic parapets in place. I need to do some fettling before adding the various coping stones but it is looking good!
After this busy day I won't be cutting back on my dinner tonight although I do have to cook it!
The Metcalfe viaduct now has a track bed. Yesterday I sealed the underside of the track bed pieces with a sanding sealer which waterproofs the cardboard. Today I did the upper side just to make sure it really is all sealed. Once dry it was time to fasten the various sheets to the main structure of the viaduct. There were one or two places where joins needed a bit of reinforcing with scrap cardboard.
Once the sheets were glued in place things looked a lot better. These may only be small steps but at least this project is moving forward.
Next stage is to get the various parapets and coping stones in place. In my tidying and sorting of the garage (hope you read that Mrs. Woody!) I did uncover these polystyrene sheets which I saved from a delivery of something or other which Mrs. W no doubt ordered! However it should be good to create some landscape around the viaduct when I get to that stage.
I must admit to feeling shattered today so I will be looking forward to putting myself in bed tonight!
It was cold this morning - very cold as my kneecaps can testify as I cycled this morning. However I was warmed by the fact that my total mileage for this year so far has ended up at 5556 miles which is a record for me in my later years of life. Not done that kind of mileage since the times I could get out of bed without creaking! Last years grand total was 5544 so with eight weeks of the year left I may, health and weather allowing, get to 6000 miles which would be a record I would like to get to.
Back in the relative warmth of the WMD HQ I had an hour or so doing some more on the viaducts for my 00 gauge Last Great Project. I have now managed to finish the various parapet wall sections that go either side of the main structure. A bit of a boring and repetitive job but it is now at least done.
I also had a look at the track bases for the viaduct. The track will be ballasted once I get to that stage so there will be diluted PVA glue used. This is great for gluing ballast down but not so good for cardboard which can turn a rather soggy mess. Trying to think ahead, which is alien to me in most cases, I need to seal the surface of the track base. I used the sanding sealer that I used for the balsa canal boats that I built for my 009 narrow gauge layout (which is still undergoing construction). This should at least act as a waterproof coating keeping the viaduct from ending up as a water infested collapsed cardboard hulk! That is the theory at least.
The various parts awaiting the next stage of construction. I will however have to paint the other side of the track base to ensure they are fully sealed and waterproof.
After yesterdays major tree and hedge pruning operation I found myself at the Rocks By Rail Museum today where I was greeted by this proclaiming - Best Kept Secret!.
Well even with my limited imaginative skills I could tell this Best Kept Secret was a steam locomotive! My investigations into this so called secret revealed that this little 0-4-0 steam shunter is off to Kent where its present owner lives. It will be restored and operational next year - well that is the plan but the owner has a team ready to go so it may well happen. If you see 'Vigilant' as it is known on the rails in steam next year it will no doubt look a lot different to how it looks now!
Having discovered what I needed I ended up doing - well more tree and hedge pruning! No escaping it whether at home or at the Museum. I certainly had a bigger job then at home. It started out looking like this.
One of the main differences to being at home with this type of job is I didn't need to be quiet as neat - no Mrs. Woody to answer to if there is a bit of a mess! Nice!
It may not look like much came out but here is the pile of stuff I had to stack round the corner. It is about 7 feet tall! Glad I don't have to bag that lot up and take it to the recycling center!
Back at WMD HQ I even managed, after a another tiring day of physical work, to get one of the viaduct kits glued together. It is no secret that it is progressing! How quickly more progress will be will depend on how much more gardening I need or Mrs. W thinks I need to do at home!
I had my Covid booster on Saturday and yesterday I felt terrible. Mrs. Woody was unaffected but that seems to be the way it goes with these things. If I am bad she is OK and vice versa. Anyway I woke up today feeling relatively well which was good as this week I need to get on top of preparing the garden for its Winter hibernation. However a 20 mile bike ride first brought my total for this year up to 5461 miles.
Back at WMD HQ there are some things which should have been done earlier in the year like hedge cutting and tree pruning but with the drought affecting them during the summer I have left them to recover until now. Well with the amount of rain and warmish weather we have had over the last few weeks they have certainly recovered. I should have taken a 'before' picture of this tree but in my haste to get jobs done (please note that Mrs. W) I just went straight in but you get some idea of the fact that about 6 inches of growth all round was cut back from the various bags full of the debris now awaiting to go to the recycling center.
Having done that job I felt I ought to reward myself with a bit of model making. The two Metcalfe viaducts still need finishing - like a lot of things I do! As an aside Metcalfe have sent me the missing part which is great service from them. However because as I have discovered my kit, although bought this year, dates from 2006 the parts references have changed so the sheet sent is the wrong one. However an email to Metcalfe was answered within 30 minutes and the right part is on its way. Apparantly sheet references were changed when the kit was updated a few years ago. Again I have to say great service from this company.
I am building the parapets at the moment and although small parts there is a fair amount of preparation work to do on them. This is the sheet with one of the parapets which is made up of two main parts.
I have been using UHU glue for the substructure but I have bought some DeLuxe Materials card glue which most of the modelling magazines have recommended. Although a little costly I have to admit it is good! It has an instant grip which holds parts together and means I can move the build on quickly - well as quick as I go!
In my usual manner I have temporarily put the two parts I have semi completed so far in place on the main viaduct to see how they look.
Certainly adds to the structure and I only have another 14 sections to make!
A really wet and miserable day here in the UK. Woke up full of energy to do a whole list of things including some on Mrs. Woody's list and I think the weather just drained that so I ended up doing not a lot! Even those things I did do went wrong but I guess we all have days like that.
However, I did manage to build up enough enthusiasm to abandon the comfort of the sofa and Lara Croft on the TV to go out to the Man Cave where the day continued to go wrong. Picking up on the building of the Metcalfe viaduct kits I found that one of the sheets of parts is missing! I should have checked all was well when I opened the kit but as most of us do we take it for granted these days that everything is there. The missing part has the side wall to the viaduct so is fairly vital!
There should be four of these sheets and when the main brick wall is cut out two of them are glued to a sub structure box.
This then joins the arched section of the viaduct
In the meantime and in light of so many things going wrong I think I will just call today a bit of a rest day! Just don't tell Mrs. Woody!
