More Track matters!

Before making tracks to my bike ride this morning I had to take a photo which made an amazing sight.

Getting back on track the other track on the Trumpeter L/15 Mörser "Bär" had been glued to the upper wheels the other day. 

Having been busy with other things I only got round to removing the various ice cream and other sticks today which revealed further success! Amazing. Just need to weather the tracks now.

Still with tracks, but of the model railway type, work continues on finalising the track on my My Last Great Project 00 gauge layout. In my usual, I have a vision in my mind but no firm plan way, there has been a lot of moving track about and trying different formations out. I think I am now there though. 

One of those things I needed to get right was that the sidings were long enough to take a rake of wagons. In general any rake of wagons on the inner loop will be no longer than 10 wagons. Luckily there was just the right space left!

Things are on track to come together! Now I better make tracks for the kitchen and see what I can make for Mrs. Woody's dinner!

Back to track matters!

Lots of track related matters in my life at the moment and the Trumpeter L/15 Mörser "Bär" has had the other track stuck to the wheels as described yesterday. It is set to one side for the glue to fully go off. 

That is one track matter and cycling is another where I am tracking my mileage as I always do. With the warmish weather over the last few days I have managed 49 miles this weekend which is a good start to February bring the months total up to 60miles. Looking back through my blog I can see January this year was better than last month with 267 miles as opposed to 207 last year but a far cry from the 360miles I did in January 2022. I knew this blog had a use!

The other track matter is related to my 00 gauge Last Great Project layout. Having done a fair amount of track setting, wiring and ballasting last year on the viaduct section, the layout has not really progressed much in the last few months. I spent the last part of 2023 bringing Chalkdon my 009 layout to a near finish so time for the 00 gauge layout was limited. The start of this year saw me scratch an itch to glue plastic together so the Italeri Kangaroo and the Trumpeter L/15 Mörser "Bär" have occupied most of January. And, sometimes it is like that - you have to be in the right mood and frame of mind to move on with a project and I am now in that zone with my 00 gauge layout. I have started to sort out the circuit's passing loop and sidings. They were laid very roughly to shape and the trains did run but before I start to wire it, make the breaks in the track at base board joints and ballast the track it needs to be just right! So lots of measuring and looking at odd angles to see the curves and straights with some new pieces of track being fitted to make it flow properly and hopefully enable the trains to run without derailments!

You have to start somewhere and taking apart what is there is the start.

With some careful measurements I ahve managed to get the right geometry to the track.

I need to turn my attention to the other end of the loop next and then the sidings which do need some serious work to make them right! At least I can track my progress on my blog!

Punctured!

My hopes of getting into the Man Cave for long today were deflated by the slow puncture on one of the rear tyres of my car. I didn't know until the dashboard display told me the tyre pressure was low. Stopping to look at the suspect tyre revealed that it was a slow puncture so after an interim inflation with a pump it was off to the garage for hopefully a not to expensive repair. Not quite the case though as on the ramp there were about 15 pieces of metal in it which condemned it to being replaced. Luckily, none of the other tyres were affected.  Anyway having paid a sum of money that has severely dented my model making budget I was back on the road and back to WMD HQ. There was a  chance for some time in the Man Cave and so not having time to do what I wanted to Chalkdon my 009 layout, I did some tidying up of the underlay to the track on my Last Great Project 00 gauge layout. Much the same as other parts prior to ballasting, I cut the underlay back to the edge of the sleepers and then added a precut and chamfered strip of underlay to give a more consistent profile that will make the finished ballast look better.

As you can see from the photo below the right edge of the underlay was looking a bit rough. You can also see the left side has already been trimmed and a new strip of underlay has begun to be glued in place.

With both sides complete it looks far better. Just need to go the track on the far left side now. At least underlay cannot be punctured!

Coping well!

Given the ever growing Mrs. Woody task list for me I am pleased to report that I am coping well! However if Mrs. W is reading this then I am not! However, as well as I may be coping with the task list I have also been coping on the various walls of the bridge abutments. In this case the coping is the coping stones that grace the top of most external brick walls to provide some protection from adverse weather to the otherwise exposed top surfaces of bricks. 

I have used strips of balsa to make mine. To highlight the gaps between stones I have used a triangular file, pointy side down, to 'cut' the gaps in the stones.

I will run some dilute black paint over them later which will highlight the gaps.

Once stuck to the brick work they look good.

Well that is another job I have coped with!

Profiles!

Not my profile, you just don't want to know about that, but today it was time to make some profile boards for the baseboard at the end of layout. 3mm ply was the choice of material to match the profile boards on the dropped baseboard section.  First I cut the ply roughly to shape and mounted the three profiles to the baseboard.

With the profiles in place I was able to mark around them with a pencil the shape of the hills. Taking them off again a jig saw was used to cut the hill shapes. As I don't know what exactly I am going to do to the right of the bridge I have left the board at full size. Once decided, and with me that could take some time, that part of the profile will be cut to shape.

With the boards cut to shape they were painted both sides with the Slate Grey paint I used on the other profile boards and then reattached to the baseboards. Although there is still much to do around the girder bridge area the profile boards do bring some harmony to the layout.

 

Woody gives the hill a haircut!

Well that title should at least make you think that Woody may have lost it but I will clarify as we go along.

A fair amount of progress today. I had much of the day in the Man Cave - just don't tell Mrs. Woody. It was a wet, cold day so I was not inclined to do much outdoors although I did take advantage of a small break in the rain to go on a bike ride. It was a small break in the rain and the bike ride was cut short after 8 miles as I was getting soaked from the rain which had come back with vengeance. Bad weather appears to be the story of my cycling this year. Last year at this time I had well over 500 miles done whereas this year its 3684 miles. Never mind, November and December could be good! 

Anyway, back in the dryness of the WMD HQ Man Cave I was able to review the morning's ballasting operations which had been assisted in drying by Mrs. W's hair drier which had been reliberated from her dressing table! 

It was then time to think about getting some greenery on the bare hills. Most people would reach for static grass or flock powders but I wanted a more wild unkempt look so I naturally turned to hanging basket liner! Not what you would think of to model grass but its use has been described before in the model rail press and I have used it before too. Both hills had full strength PVA brushed on them to which pieces of hanging basket liner were pressed into.

 It was taken inside to dry and then transported back into the cold Man Cave where Woody took to his haircutting skills! A suede shoe brush was used to tease the fibers up.

It was then down to scissors and hair trimmer to bring about some uniformity yet unkemptness! I certainly would not make a barber and I don't think Mrs. W will ever let me loose on her hair! However as the before and after pictures show of both hills I managed something close to what I wanted!

Just like the barbers there was a fair amount of sweeping up to do afterwards!

I also took the opportunity to add some green to between the tracks. Still more to add but this is a good base.

Putting everything in place temporarily it is looking very much as I hoped for!

 

The scene takes on some colour!

A good time in the Man Cave as more ballasting has been done and the bridge and abutments have seen some colour added.

The diluted PVA glue is taking some time to dry in the coolness of the Man Cave so I have liberated Mrs. Woody's hairdryer to aid the drying process. I have replaced it so unless she reads this I will be in the clear!

The girder bridge itself has been airbrushed with a variety of greys and browns to give it that weathered and aged look. It may be mainly grey but the variations give it some colour - if that makes sense? The abutments have been coloured in with more work using my coloured pencil collection and it has made a big difference.

Still much to do but this corner of the layout is coming together 

Colouring in!

Not a great deal of time for any model making today but at least there is a bit of brightness now with the bricks on the base of the signal box having been coloured in! By coloured in, I do mean exactly that as my collection of red/brown/orangish coloured pencils came out so that I could have a peaceful half hour just randomly rubbing them over the raised bricks in the plastic casting and finally creating a random coloured brick effect. Just like being back at primary school! It may be unconventional but it works!

I also had time to start making a couple of retaining walls. One will go to the side of the bridge abutment on the edge of the layout and the other behind the signal box. That will mean I will need to do even more colouring in  once they are finished! I might need to get some more colouring pencils!

More greyness!

After yesterdays day of greyness with the weather and activities in the Man Cave at WMD HQ it was yet another day of the greyness. The weather was not brilliant and in the Man Cave the grey ballast came out! It is that time again to ballast track. One of those jobs that takes time but it is necessary to do so to avoid it looking as though it has been subject to an earthquake! My usual method of spreading the ballast with a soft paint brush and then syringing on dilute PVA with just a dash of washing up liquid to make it flow between the bits of ballast more easily. In the colder weather it will take a few days to dry fully unless Mrs. Woody's hair drier mysteriously manages to find its way to the Man Cave!

At the moment I am just ballasting to just beyond the bridge which means I have done about a quarter so far. Looks like it could be more greyness for a while then!

Just like the weather it turns grey at WMD HQ!

Spraying the grey primer onto the girder bridge, the abutments and the brick parts of the signal box matched the greyness of the weather today! However just like the weather these parts will get brighter as I add colour!

The kerbs and the gullies have stood out after the primer has been applied.

The hills are still drying - well the plaster is so I cannot do anything with them at the moment.

I will be ballasting more track soon so I tidied up the shoulders of the underlay which in places I had not cut particularly accurately. Lesson learnt! However all I did was cut the glued down ballast back to the track sleepers and scraped it off. I had cut a thin strip of the underlay material which in my working smarter not harder philosophy I pre sanded to a 45 degree angle before gluing it to the edge of the existing underlay. Being a thin strip it did bend easily enough.

The finished job

Before I can ballast the track I need to glue it down so time was spent getting it to flow correctly before PVA was applied under the sleepers and weighed down with an assortment of things lying around the Man Cave - Lucky I have all this junk valuable material to hand!

Things will hopefully be brighter tomorrow!

Getting plastered!

It was not as messy as I thought it might be! That is plastering the hills on my 00 gauge layout. First off though the plaster needed mixing. Plaster powder, some PVA and brown paint were mixed to a consistency that would be seen by Bake Off judges as being somewhat lacking in taste! Well it was just to my taste to plaster the hills.

Plaster applied with ripped up paper towel makes a good ground cover. Having the hills as separate modules at the moment means that it is a lot easier to work on them and made it easier to minimise the mess. Working smarter not harder as I get older!

With both hills in plastered and back in place the scene is coming on - I like it!