Get your Woody serviced here!

 

A somewhat unusual title to commence a blog entry even by my corny standards. However there is a story about this that does lead onto modelling matters!. Friday morning saw me take a break from butchering wood having achieved something that even Mrs Woody thought was 'nice'! I have got to the point where the floor and bookcases in Man Cave AKA The Room of Gloom are nearly finished. Much to my amazement the bookcases actually are of the same height, stand straight and stunningly have not collapsed once loaded with modelling magazines! More on this in another post but here are a couple of pictures of things so far.

Getting back to Friday, I do cycle most days and cycling on my own has always been that opportunity to unwind and think things through. A lot of problems have seen a solution created after a bike ride. However I do on occasions have the fortune to take a ride out with some company. Friday saw Mr Beecham arrive as my company for my ride. Mr Beecham is the artist who drew the various locomotives and T34 tank that featured in a post earlier this year. He is a very talented modeler and its a pleasure to see some of his models that he brings along to show me. I do take inspiration from his creations and it is always good to see and learn from other modelers approaches to building a kit. Annoyingly he is not only a talented modeler but a fairly quick cyclists too. I have cycled seriously for many years time trialing and road racing in my younger years and have about 200,000 miles on my legs which, if I were a car, I would probably have been scrapped by now! However getting old has meant I have slowed down and hills, especially these days, always seem steeper than they did 10 years ago. My hill climbing ability is perhaps also not assisted by the fact that I am a bit heavier, OK a fair amount heavier, than I was in my prime racing days. This leads to Mr Beecham leaving me behind on the hills. However not all is lost as although both our bikes are of a very similar equipment spec I can leave him behind on the descent where I am free wheeling and he is having to pedal to keep up. Gravity can indeed be your friend on occasions!

Moving onto getting this story back towards modelling matters we stopped for a bite to eat at a local place we know and ordered sausage breakfast cobs - ideal for the weight conscious cyclist but they are tasty! Whilst waiting for our drinks I spied that they had for sale various reproduction metal signs including the one at the head of this post - Get your Woody serviced here. Well being known as Woody made the decision to buy easy but there is a modelling connection which the sign suddenly brought back fond memories of. 

On a trip to the USA some years ago I happened to be in a Walmart or Target store and I saw the Revell 1/25 scale 48 Ford Woody kit in amongst their range of kits they stocked. That had to come home with me even though I do not build car kits. Prior to the Revell kit I have only built the Airfix 1/32 scale VW Beatle and the Tamiya 1/24 VW Karman Giah. Anyway once home in sat in my pile of unmade kits for several years and then for no reason that I remember I built it. It was probably 10 or so years ago as I was still using enamel paints in stead of acrylics. I do recall it was a bit of a pig to mask up for spraying and that the green was a Humbrol green with a small amount of silver mixed in to give a slight metallic finish. However it is safe on a shelf and I dusted it off and became re-acquainted with an old build and the history behind it. Looking at it closely again there are some parts that could be improved but its a record of my model making skills at the time so its a bit of my history! I still like it and that is all that matters and what's more the memories it brought flooding back are priceless! Strange how a set of circumstances comes together and gives a nice result!

As I am still dealing with The Room of Gloom other modelling activities are on a bit of a back burner at the moment. However I have managed to be creative in the green house which is slowly becoming green! Usually my gardening and planting of seeds ends up as a scale model of a desert or lunar landscape but this year things seem to be going right!

Not sure whether I will get some more done on the Room of Gloom tomorrow (Sunday) and on Monday I have to go and collect something model related but more on that once collection has been made!

The never ending tale of wood butchery!

Not much to report on model making but here at WMD HQ the last few weeks have certainly seen some woodworking going on. As this is all connected with the Man Cave AKA the Room of Gloom (the garage is the Room of Doom) where my Last Great Project will reside I see it almost a model making activity. There are three major tasks to carry out in the Room of Gloom. In no order, the baseboard for the Last Great Project, a laminate floor  and a set of bookcases to house a 40 or so year collection of modelling magazines and books. 

If I were organised, if I had thought about it, if I had a plan, then the laminate floor would have gone in whilst the room was empty, then the bookcases would have been built and then the baseboard. Instead today I have a half finished baseboard in a room with a half laid laminate floor on which now stand some half finished bookcases! However it sometimes just happens like that and as the magazines and books are already in the room and will have to be moved to allow the second half of the floor to be laid it made sense (to me at least) that I make the bookcases so that I would only need to move the magazines and books once. I'm not yet at the stage of calling DIY SOS and hopefully some real progress will present itself by the end of the week. This is what things look like at the moment.

The bookcases are built from B&Q furniture board and eventually there will be five of these to fit along the back wall of the room where the laminate flooring buts up to in the above picture.

The photo above makes it look as though the whole bookcase leans but I can confirm it is true and straight - strange what my photography can do to even the simplest of objects!

One of things I am very lucky to have is a chop saw in the picture above. Bought it about three years ago and although a fair amount of cash it has been invaluable and paid for itself probably just in the savings in wasted material as a result of poorly cut joints. I can now get straight right angle or other angle cuts with no fuss and it makes cutting wood a pleasure! As with all tools you get some experience as you use them and one of the lessons I have learnt is to let the blade get up to full speed before starting to cut the wood and cut slowly across the timber. If you push the blade fast through the wood you might complete the cut in a second but you will probably end up with a splintered piece of wood instead of a nice sharp cut. Spend a few more seconds on the cut and you get a much better finish. As with all powered tools read the manual and take note and act on the safety advice!

Something a little cheaper but just as invaluable are the pair of right angle jointers I have had for over 30 years. They allow you to hold two pieces of wood together at a true right angle and once set you have your hands free to drill holes, put screws or nails in or whatever else you need to do. One of the jointers is in the picture below.

Much as I do enjoy the better weather we are now having it does bring about that time sapping commitment to gardening! Just before Easter I treat my lawn (probably better described as arid rough grass land) to a 'Feed and Weed' treatment. One of the results is that the grass is growing like crazy - along with the weeds! Well at least the feed part of the treatment worked! However I am going to have to get that cut this week at some time before Mrs Woody makes comment! 

Its all go here at WMD HQ!