WMD out and about!

Mrs Woody is off this week which gives me the opportunity to leave WMD HQ and go and visit a few places. Following the various restrictions and general desire to stay safe going out is still very much a novelty. It is strange to be in places where there are other people in large numbers and it is almost a case of reacclimatising yourself to those types of situations that we just did up until 18 months ago.

Monday was a trip to the coast not that the weather was inviting but never the less we saw the sea! Tuesday Mrs Woody went off to a spa day with a friend of hers whilst I took the opportunity to have a 27 mile bike ride with good friend, fellow modeler and artist Mr Beecham. Always a good ride with plenty of chat on a variety of topics and we even found this on our travels.

Many of the old K6 Classic Phone Boxes have been bought by Parish Councils and whilst many have become libraries or a place to house a defibrillator some have become used for some very novel purposes such as this with its flower display. Hmmm. Wonder if that would fit in the garden??? Certainly make an interesting model on a modern day model railway layout.

Near to home we stopped for a refreshment stop which was the £3.50 lunch at a local CoOp, other lunch deals are available! I thought I had done well with a BLT, Pepsi and a Wispa duo chocolate bar. Having made our purchases and no doubt swelled the days takings for the CoOp, we sat outside on the bench kindly provided by said purveyor of lunch deal. The bench was actually made out of plastic molded to look like wooden slats and sitting down you could tell the sun had warmed it well - lovely! As I tucked into my BLT from the comfort of my heated seating area, I placed my Wispa Duo beside me on the bench looking forward to that moment of chocolate indulgence. The BLT was great and reaching down for the Wispa I found this.

Yes! I should have really thought the storage arrangements for the Wispa through a bit more! Far from being the chocolate delight I had hoped for it had turned, in the heat of the sun and the radiant warmth of the bench slats, into a liquid flat pack! I did take it home and refrigerated it for several hours but to be honest it was not the same when I ate it and it had lost its duo status to become as one! For some reason Mr Beecham found it all very amusing!

Todays jaunt out was to the National Trust property Belton House in Lincolnshire. One of the flag ship properties (never sure how a house can be a flag ship but there you are) of the Natuonal Trust and very popular today. The house and surrounding properties are fantastic and the gardens and grounds wonderful. 

There is even something a little cheeky in the grounds!

A sandwich and hot sausage roll from the cafe took care of lunch and near to there were the gift shop and second hand book shop. There is something about a second hand book shop that I find difficult to resist so whilst Mrs Woody searches through the crime/mystery murder section (I still ask myself if I should be worried!) I take a look at the more technical sections especially on transport. Todays finds were these two for the princely sum of £6 for the two. 

 

I lived on Malta for several years at a time when the buses were painted multi colours (some photos in a YouTube video here) and were basically locally coach built bodies on lorry chassis which resulted in a fascinatingly unique transport system. From what I can gather when Malta joined the EU they had to upgrade the buses in 2011 and at one point had ex London Transport bendy buses. Many of the old buses were scrapped but there are a number still kept and now serve with a vintage bus tour company. I am always fascinated by the railways of Ireland so the book on the Londonderry and Lough Swilly Railway should be a good read.

In amongst all the above I have done some model making with the Zvezda K5350 Mustang truck. Not a great deal but it has the start of wheels which I guess is important for a truck to have! No doubt the 1/35th scale troops will think that getting their truck mobile will be 'wheely' great! Sorry! Couldn't resist that awful joke. However I had to have some laughter as at one stage I did have brake cylinders on the wrong way round but after a lot of head scratching, in-depth consultation with the plans, a further contribution to the swear jar and the consumption of a refrigerated former liquid flat pack Wispa Duo it all came right! This is what things are looking like now.

 Its getting there!

On the 009 gauge model railway layout front, I think I may have come up with a cunning way to realign the track without having to buy a new point but more on that another time.

Small steps towards the finish.

 

Its at this stage in the build of a relatively complex kit such as this Zvezda K5350 Mustang truck (there are 474 parts) that things slow down a bit. You need to start painting parts of the kit which will be difficult to do so if the kit were fully assembled and then bring sub-assemblies together giving time for both paint and glue to dry properly and only then can the next stage of the build take place. It can be frustrating but patience is the key word. Try to rush or take a short cut and the chances are it will go wrong. How do I know? Because I write from bitter experience. I have tried in the past to rush and nine times out of ten regretted it and made large scale deposits to the swear jar as well as causing damage to the model being built. 

The current example of being patient is that before I can go much further with the cab I need to add the steps either side. I have not added these before as they are fragile and I wanted to lessen the chance of damaging them by fixing them in position as late in the build as I can. There are only three parts to each step but they are small and need time for the glue to harden properly in order that they stand the best chance of surviving intact during the rest of the build. 

As I spent most of what was a wet Sunday sorting out an ever increasing pile of household paperwork I only had time to construct the steps this evening. However to bring this post towards a conclusion, they are indeed small steps towards the finish! I don't just throw this blog together you know, it took me at least two minutes to think up the title of this post!  

On the musical front, for the past few days working on the model I have been listening to compilation tapes in the 'Now that's what I call music' series. Started in the mid 1980's here in the UK, the format has lasted well. I started with the original album which was just called 'Now that's what I call music' and then started collecting them as they appeared up to about 'Now that's what I call music 42' so I have plenty more listening pleasure in stock. Looking at Google I see the series is still going and is now at 'Now that's what I call music 109' but the music just isn't like it used to be! Oh hum! I do sound old!

When things don't go according to plan but don't get too obsessed with detail!

The bit about detail in the title to this post relates to the second part of this post so we will begin about things not going according to plan. 

On Friday I laid out some track on my new second baseboard for my 009 narrow gauge layout. I had in my mind a long held plan that I had gone over mentally many times to the point I was convinced it was infallible and had bought the necessary track and points on the basis that nothing could go wrong. How wrong I was! In my mind the canal wharf is served by a siding that comes off the curve at what I term as the front of the layout. This is the side where on the first board the quarry face is. Laying the track out soon made it clear that the siding that in my mind ran at the side of  the wharf actually by-passed it on a curve before straightening up once almost past the wharf. Hardly conducive to efficient loading from railway wagons to canal barges and vice versa. The siding actually needs to come off the curve at the back of the layout. that does present a problem. At the moment I don't have the additional left hand Peco Set-Track point that is needed. I either have to order one, see if I have an n gauge Set-Track point in my stock and butcher it in a similar fashion to one on the other board - see the blog entry here- or devise some cunningly creative new track layout that only uses the existing points I have. I will sleep on that for a night or two which actually means more sleepless nights counting points! The photo below probably shows the issue better than my words describe it.

This evening I had an hour or so doing some detail painting on the Zvezda 5350 Mustang truck kit manly on the bottom of the cargo body and a bit in the cab which I photographed for inclusion here. Photographs can be very useful as they can highlight something that the naked eye looking at the model misses, such as a twisted or damaged part. They can also be a problem in that digital photography can provide a harshness of detail not necessarily seen with the naked eye. Normally what you see with the naked eye is a level of detail that is satisfactory and you are happy with it. Take a digital photograph and with the right resolution you can focus in on parts of a model that the naked eye just cannot see normally and suddenly you see blurred overpainted areas on the model which you want to amend because on the photo it looks terrible. What you have to get your mind round is whether anyone is really going to look at the model with a digital camera or high powered magnifying glass. If you are happy with what you see with your naked eye view than be happy with the model and do not spend hours trying to correct slight painting issues that others will not see any way. In addition if you weather your model the likelihood is that all that painting will disappear under a layer of weathering powders anyway. Enough of the lecture - lets see some in close photos to see just how bad my painting is but the important part is that I am happy with how it looks to my eye so it ain't getting any more painting just some weathering which will cover a lot of 'issues'. 

A Great Day!

All days are good but sometimes there is a day which you will remember and today was  one of those days.

Was it because of my 20 mile bike ride this morning? Well it was a good 20 mile ride and I returned home relatively in breath!

Was it because I cleaned the kitchen and the floor was clean enough to eat your dinner off. Well Mrs Woody was impressed and the cats actually do tend to end up eating their dinner off the floor once they have pulled it out from the feeding dishes so they will be impressed too.

Was it because I have managed some more progress with the Zvezda K5350 Mustang truck kit and got the body sides glued together? Well it is coming together nicely.

 All these were good but the highlight of the day which made it a great day was a trip to the Rock by Rails museum in Rutland and you can find all the details on their website by clicking here. It was my first time to a railway attraction since my last model railway exhibition in February 2020 so it was a bit special. I was lucky enough to be accompanied by a good friend Mr Bliss who had a long career with British Rail dealing with Permanent Way matters so talk to and from as well as at the museum was very much focused on railway matters and I learnt a lot in a few hours. 

I will let the photos below do the talking with a few notes where necessary.

Phil Parker from British Railway Modelling magazine built the Hornby Family Fun Layout and he donated it to the museum where it is located in the cafe and it is a great piece of modelling showing how what in effect is a train set becomes a model. Details on his blog - click here.

Makes you want to go and buy the Hornby model.

Strangely we had talked about dealing with mining subsidence and having to literally jack the track back into a level plane on our way to the museum and whilst not dealing with subsidence they are jacking some track level on site so I knew exactly what was going on

An unusual use for a cement mixer. Used to clean and sort ballast. 

The old loco shed from Harston in Leicestershire rebuilt at the museum where a lot of restoration work is now carried out including the steam loco below stripped to its boiler.

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On operational days rides down the line are provided in these brake vans.

Steam loco Belvoir awaiting restoration.

I didn't know that this existed and as there is a family connection with the war in the Far East this was a poignant moment for me.

Always good to see some humour and this loco is obviously used for novices to learn on with the L plate!

Some diggers as well.

The cab from a massive excavator used to mine ironstone in the area.

Love to have this in my garden but I think Mrs. Woody would draw the line at that plonked on the front lawn!

If only I could drive it home that would be the perfect ending to a great day! 

I will be back probably on one of the operational days. The place just oozes with atmosphere and nostalgia. Well worth a visit and after Covid places such as theses need all the custom and support they can get.

All about that baseboard!

Apologies for the slightly altered song title - All about that bass by Meghan Trainor - but today I completed the second baseboard to extend my 009 Narrow Gauge railway. It is something that I had always planned to do but unusually for me I actually have started it! A gap in Mrs. Woody's Task List and a thought that I don't want to be constructing baseboards in the Winter got me fired up and following my usual methods of wood butchery a baseboard the same size (amazingly given my ability to make tape measures elastic) appeared. Just need to sort out a method of joining this to the original board. 

The second board has a cut out for a river and a canal wharf so will have a slightly different type of scenery to the first board.

At the moment the two boards rest in the middle of my Last Great Project 00 gauge layout in my Room of Gloom AKA my man cave. At least being there in front of me might give me the impetuous to start the track laying on either of the layouts!

 

Whether weathering is worth it?

In yesterdays post I outlined the hairspray technique for creating scuffs and wear in paintwork. In my eyes it worked successfully but as I said it looked a bit stark.

One of the advantages of weathering a model is that it can bring a harmony to colours by in effect toning them down and giving them a patina of wear and age. Another is that it creates something that looks realistic. Look at any vehicle apart from one in a car concourse show and you will see varying amounts of dirt and wear. Usually the more the vehicle is used for a commercial or military purpose the more it shows its age and use because they are working vehicles were a job needs to be done and then another without a break to get the water and sponge out followed by a full T cut and wax!

I have been weathering models for many years now trying to get that realistic look where you have to look twice to see if it really is a model or a real vehicle. Sometimes it goes well other times not so well looking as if I had dipped the model in a mix of mud and sand but as the adage says practice makes perfect! I certainly think weathering is worth it. 

There are three pieces of advice I can give any novice to weathering. 

1. Look at pictures of the real vehicle and see how they look in real life situations.

2. Look for inspiration - there are many websites and YouTube videos that Deal in weathering techniques but also use your own senses as to where people would climb onto things rubbing paint away or leaving dirt or how rain would pool dust into low lying areas.

3. Don't be afraid to try it and experiment to develop techniques that you are happy with. There are as many different ways to weather a vehicle as Mrs Woody's hand bag collection and that is a lot and there is no right or wrong way to do it. 

Back to the bed of the body of the Zvezda K5350 truck which this evening received an attack of various weathering powders starting with MIG Industrial Grime and then European dust and finally a medium rust for around the metal supports to the bench seats and the staining that would lead to on the wooden floor. The powders were applied with a stiff brush, some paper towel and cotton buds. The photos are not the best and the results do look better in the flesh and once a coat of varnish is applied that will lighten the colours but the starkness of what I started with has  certainly been toned down nicely.

On the 009 gauge layout base board building front further distress has been caused to pieces of wood s that the baseboard is near completion. Hopefully by the end of the week it should be ready for track laying or then again with my speed of progress it might actually be finished in time for the next major geological event!

A bit of everything!

It was one of those nice days where I did a bit of everything. An early morning cycle ride saw my total mileage for this year so far reach 3368 miles. During the day a bit of gardening, a good chat with fellow modeller and good friend Mr Beechham (he with the artistry skills (see here) and who can beat me up hills cycling!) who was passing and then a start on the second baseboard for my 009 narrow gauge railway last featured here. Its always been my intention to extend the layout and today seemed as good a day as any to make a start especially as the gardening was done early so that Mrs. Woody would think I had spent the whole day productively employed on non model making activities! Splendid! The base board will have a river flowing through it - that is a model one rather than a real one - so appropriate pieces have been cut out of the baseboard. It will also have a canal wharf at the end and construction of that part will take place over the next day or so. At the moment my few hours of wood butchery (I am no carpenter) have seen several pieces of wood forced and coerced into this.

Surprisingly for my limited skills it is the same width as the existing board and appears to be square. How long that will last is something that you could wager on. 

Having cooked Mrs. Woody's dinner, more positive points gained, I decided to tackle the Zvezda K5350 Mustang truck. In the last post I outlined that I was going to top coat the bench seats and the bed of the body using the hairspray technique to allow me to create wear and scuff marks. I used an old can of hairspray that I bought years ago for a similar project and sprayed the bench seats and bed of the body. Even doing it outside there was still a strong but pleasant perfumed aroma wafting around the garden for a while which no doubt confused our feathered friends. Having let it dry for 15 minutes I top coated the various parts plus the inside of the cab with Vallejo Air Russian Green which seems to be a perfect match to the coloured painting guide supplied with the kit. The nice thing about Vallejo Air paints are they are ready thinned for airbrushing. No messing about with pouring paint and thinners out into a jar and getting the right mixture which usually ends in a swear jar moment. Just pour into the airbrush and spray. Nice! Being acrylic, the airbrush can be cleaned in plain water. Nicer still! The other good thing about these paints is they cover well and usually one coat does the job as shown in the picture below.

Letting the paint dry for about half an hour I used a selection of stiff brushes, a tooth pick and some water to start to rub and abrade the paint where I thought wear and scuffing would take place in real life as troops sat on the benches and walked over the bed of the body. Thirty minutes or so got me to where I wanted to be. It can be easy to end up stripping away all the top coat bring you back to where you started so less is best as they say. Whether I have achieved that or not is something that is in the eye of the beholder. However I am pleased with what I have achieved and though it all looks a bit stark at the moment once varnished to seal it, a coat of weathering on top will tone it all down and harmonise the effect. Well that's the plan anyway! Now what shall I cook for Mrs Woody tomorrow? Not much in the cupboard so maybe a bit of everything!