The Scania 141LB comes back on the bench and a surprising discovery!

 In my quest to finish off projects the Heller Scania 141 LB has come off the shelf after being placed on 2 years ago and onto the workbench. The biggest problem with getting back into a stalled project is finding out just where you got to so some time was taken to establish that. 

So far I have painted the windscreen surround black to represent the rubber holding it to the cab and painted silver the backing to the light lenses that need to be fitted.

I had a clear out of some rubbish and finished kit boxes one of them being the box for the Trumpeter Grille30 30.5cm(Grw) L/15 Mörser "Bär",

I always take a picture of the box cover for reasons I never really know! However in opening the box lid out to be flat I discovered these two odd pictures hidden by the folds in the box.

Quite what soft toys and fruit and veg have to do with printing the box art for a military vehicle I just cannot work out but it was a surprising discovery!

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!

Having mulled it over!

It has been a few days since the Trumpeter L/15 Mörser "Bär" was last reported on with the problems with the tracks. Having mulled the matter over and having Mr Beecham also mention the same solution I was thinking about, the upper length of the tracks have been glued to the tops of the running wheels. UHU glue was used and the tracks were pushed onto the glue by some carefully placed shims - mainly ice cream sticks!

Having been left a few hours, the various shims were removed and thankfully the track sat as more or less intended. It just needs weathering but it looks a lot better then it did. Just the other side to do!

As I had some time I decided that it was time to rn a few trains. My enthusiasm was somewhat curtailed by the continual derailment of a coach. It was not the track as it happened in random places. It was time to investigate and I had suspicions that it was related to one of the bogies. I have in my colection of model making tools this handy pair of items. A wheel back to back gauge and some axle bearing reamers which I thought would be useful to dig out before getting into the coaches problems.

Looking at the bogie there were signs that the wheels were not rotating easily and that the bogies swing was not smooth and it could not swing fully in one direction - enough to cause the derailment issues. Taking the bogie off the underframe to the coach revealed Bachmann's close coupling system with some dust and debris in it. Once cleaned out things were better.

I decided to check how easily the wheels turned - not very! Out came the axle reamer which cleared some crud out of the bearings.

With both wheelset bearings done the wheels spun much more freely. I thought that I would also take the opportunity to check the back to back measurements which is the distance between the back of one wheel to the back of the other. Too wide and the wheels  ride over the rail, too narrow and the wheels fall off the rail. It should be, for normal 00 gauge, 14.4 to 14.5mm. I could use a micrometer to measure it but handily the gauge I have is set at 14.5mm and forcing it into the gap between the wheels revealed that these wheelsets were a bit too narrow. By pushing the gauge in, the wheels, which are a push fit onto their axles, moved out to the correct distance. 

With that done and everything reassembled, an uneventful but pleasant running session took place! Just right to be able to mull over what I doo after finishing the  L/15 Mörser "Bär".

I knew I would have problems!

I hinted yesterday that I thought that the tracks for the Trumpeter L/15 Mörser "Bär" would cause me problems when fitting them. I was right! The first part of permeantly fitting the wheels went well enough.

Fitting the tracks was not to good! I had to stretch them but they are warped.

I packed both sides with ice cream sticks! The idea was to try to persuade the tracks to straighten out.

Things have improved a little but I am going to have to glue the upper length of tracks to the wheels. You may notice the grey wheel hub which is a spare from the kit as I have mislaid one of the painted ones! I will have mull over options for the tracks!

On track to complete!

The Trumpeter  L/15 Mörser "Bär" is nearly complete with the main components left to finish it being the tracks. I was aware that the kit supplied tracks are the 'rubber band' type but I must admit having got them out of the box I was a bit disappointed in the quality. They are not the best tracks I have had in a kit and probably rate as the worse! The rubber is not particularly pliable and the jointing of the ends is not the best. Superglue appears to be the only adhesive that will bond the ends so that is what I have used. 

As they come in the kit they are moulded in a black rubber that requires painting so I gave them an initial coating of grey.

Once dry the grey was overcoated with a thin coat of Vallejo rust paint. It will tone down with some weathering powders. 

I have a feeling that fitting them is not going to be without problems but that is for another day. In the meantime I am thinking positive thoughts that I am indeed on track to complete the model!

Cabled up!

After a relatively speedy build of the main components of the Trumpeter L/15 Mörser "Bär" progess has now slowed with the weathering and fitting of the last few components. the latest of these being the towing cables fitted to the sides of the hull.

The cables themselves are lengths of copper multi strand wire that were supplied with the kit and two cut to length were superglued into four plastic towing eyes. Being copper makes them easy to bend but a pain to paint which was eventually achieved after being treated to an airbrushing of various paints.

Once painted there were a number of plastic clips that needed to be fitted to clasp the cable to the hull. Given that the hull was already painted, normal plastic cement was not going to work, so I used some superglue on the clips.

There are two cables, one on each side, so the clip operation was continued on the other side. The clips were then touched in to match the camouflage and the whole thing begins to look even more interesting.

Is Spring about to arrive?

As I continue to weather the Trumpeter L/15 Mörser "Bär" it has taken on a bit of a winter look with the addition of dirt and greyness to it. Some airbrushing with browns and greys as well as the addition of weathering powders have turned this previously pristinely clean and just out of 'Soapy Joe's Carwash' looking vehicle into something that looks more as though it has been through a harsh and dirty winter. Still a few things to do like fixing the wheels permeantly in place as well as adding the tracks and towing cable - oh, and that internal part of the barrel looks as though it needs some metal looking paint applied!

Talking about the tank looking like it has gone through Winter, taking Mrs. Woody out on a non-shopping related trip ( that is most unusual - the non shopping bit!) we came across these snow drops en mass at the side of the road. Despite being called snow drops their appearance always means to me that the better weather is coming! Nice!

Time to get dirty and spotted!

I did get rather dirty yesterday at the Rocks By Rail Museum with all the dust and debris from the angle grinding rust and paint removal from Harriot the JCB. Mrs. Woody almost refused me entry back into WMD HQ until I had cleaned up! Having satisfied Mrs. W that I had at least dusted myself down and was no longer a dirt threat,  I eventually managed t get some time in the Man Cave. Continuing on the theme of getting dirty I added some weathering/dirt to the L/15 Mörser "Bär". In addition, as the practice was with German three tone camouflage schemes, I added spots and dabs of contrasting colours to the already applied paint. It looks a bit like an attack of measles with all those spots but with some more weathering it will all blend in together.

The wheels have had an initial weathering with a wash of dilute brown paint. As the picture below shows there are a lot of wheels so this weathering took some time as there are obviously two sides to each wheel!

A close up comparison of an none and weathered wheel. That wash certainly 'pops' the details on the wheel such as the bolt detail. It may take some time to get dirty and spotted but it is worth it - for the tank anyway!

 

Lets add some colour!

Having taken Mrs. Woody out for lunch earnt me some Man Cave Time points so with sirbrush in hand I took on the large size Trumpeter L/15 Mörser and spent a few hours putting the brown and green camouflage colours on to the upper hull of the vehicle. Not one of my greatest successes though as the airbrush created a great deal of splatter that I just could not cure so the Dark Yellow areas looked a little as though they had been been subject to a poor restoration at a back street body shop. The edges of the green and brown areas were also a little 'fuzzy'. I decided I needed to try masking tape to get a sharper edge so I applied some, marking where the boundary was that I could see through the tape and removed it to cut to shape on the cutting mat. Unfortunately removal not only removed the masking tape but a fair chunk of the already applied paint and undercoat leaving large expanses of bare plastic! At the time I was that surprised that I forgot to take a photo or of the rectification work of sanding the edges smooth and applying fresh paint. However, repairs were achieved and the use of paintbrushes has tidied up the edges and splatter areas! 

So what does it now look like? Well here it is: -

It looks too 'fresh from the paintshop' at the moment, but some toning down and weathering will assist in making it look a bit less colourful!

Going light!

After yesterdays going dark session in which the Trumpeter Grille30 30.5cm(Grw) L/15 Mörser "Bär" was undercoated in black today, despite the weather going dark with the arrival of Storm Jocelyn (If they ever get to use the letter M it will have to be storm Mrs. Woody, but then again I have experienced many of those when I have done something wrong so I know what will be arriving!), the vehicle has gone light with ironically enough a coat of Dark Yellow! However what I had not known when selecting the paints from the WMD Store was that the Dark Yellow bottle was nearly empty as was the supposed full spare! Luckily I had a bottle of Desert Yellow which I used as a base to the Dark Yellow. It might all sound a bit strange (like me!) but it worked.

All the wheels and the hubs were also painted at the same time.

With the wheels painted I took the opportunity to paint the tyres which I believe are a steel tyre rather then a rubber tyre. Whatever they are they got painted with Vallejo Grey and look like the kit box art!

Next stage is to get some green and brown on the body which should be interesting!

Going dark!

Well I have actually got to the painting stage of the Trumpeter Grille30 30.5cm(Grw) L/15 Mörser "Bär" to give its full kit box title! As is usual, I used a Vallejo black primer to give the model a base coat of paint so that any parts missed during the top coats is left in shadow rather then seeing the bright light grey plastic. What I had not appreciated is just how long the paint work would take. With all those wheels needing painting both sides, plus the hubs and then the hull itself it has taken about four hours so far which does include thinning the paint and cleaning the airbrush but I can see this model taking as long to paint as it has to build!

Now with the primer drying I can think about the top coats. The painting guide is for the traditional three colour camouflage scheme which is catered for in my collection of Tamiya paints - I have a large stock of paints!. 

 Once these go on the model should take on a completely different and less dark look!

Do you want to see my brass etchings????

When I was young this phrase was always the epitomey of the worst chat up line ever. However in my case and with respect to my post here on the blog is actually very true so here they are!

One is missing from the fret but I have actually fitted that. I just coated the plastic surface it needed to rest on with some plastic cement and then just laid the etch over where it needed to fit and pressed gently into the now tacky plastic surface. It seems to have worked! Still need to do the other five parts though!

Most of the other small parts that I talked about yesterday have now been fitted but required some more venturing onto the floor to find escaping parts! I have also mounted the mortar barrel which really does add to the monstrous nature of this vehicle. It can elevate and in its travelling horizontal position it has a rather neat cap that covered the opening.

There are still a few more parts to fit or build ready for the painting stage which may not be too far off now. Hopefully next time you will see more of my brass eychings!