Steamy Times!

Another day at the Rocks by Rail Museum. The temperature had dropped from about 14 degrees Celsius yesterday to a more chilly 4 degrees today. However the sun was out and further shoveling work kept me warm if not at times steamy! Yes more track leveling and straightening work. There was a slight bend in the track which was straightened by using a block and tackle attached to a conveniently located wagon on the adjacent siding and then using this and pry bars the track was straightened.

After that more shoveling and packing of ballast.

Talking of steamy times, there is a members day soon at the Museum, so one of the Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 steam engines, Sir Thomas Royden, was brought out of the shed by Betty the Sentinel diesel engine to have its water tanks filled ready to be steamed up.

I took the opportunity to look in the cab - every boys dream of a certain age to drive one of these!

Built in Scotland in 1940, it is not that old by steam loco standards.

I will look forward to seeing this loco in steam.

On the model making front I could not resist poking the model water poured yesterday. It was still wet but at least it has stayed in the river and not leaked out - yet! I am amusing myself cutting the infill cobbled areas for the canal wharf area which is a slow and at times frustrating job. However it has to be done so no point in getting steamed up about it!

Pour it on!

Pour it on! That us something I would say when the cream comes round at desert time. However in this case it relates to the river on my narrow gauge layout. Having put some more 'greenery' in parts of the river bed and banks to simulate river weed it was time to pour the water or in this case the resin model water - you certainly would not want to drink it. The bottle even has a warning not to drink it but then takeaway coffees warn that the coffee may be hot! A final look around the river bed and banks gave me sufficient confidence that it was time to create water! What can go wrong????

The product itself is made by Jarvis and marketed as their Simulated Countryside Water. It comes in a 250mm bottle and the instructions say to pour it in 1mm layers which take 48 to 72 hours to dry. Well the question is going to be how many finger prints will I leave in the surface as my eagerness and curiosity get the better of me? Only time will tell! The water pours but is very thick but should find its own level before it sets. I have been wise enough to seal each end of the river to avoid a recreation of a water fall feature as the resin cascades down either side of the baseboard. Again how successful that will be only time will tell. You may have deduced that I have my concerns and I have to admit apart from a pond on one layout this is the first major water feature that I have modelled. As they say - Never too old to learn! 

The two photos below show that the resin still needs to find its level but then again rivers do not always have a flat calm surface so at the moment I am not too concerned. It also shows that my 'greenery' and river bed appear as I was hoping so I will keep my fingers crossed that it stays that way. I was toying with the idea of adding a fish or two but thought better of it - maybe a shark might have been interesting though! 

I have covered this first pour of the resin with a piece of card to dry to minimise dust settling on the surface but there will be at least one further layer added. Surprisingly I have only used about one third of the bottles contents so far.

Stay tuned to see if the swear jar gains any contributions over the next few days as I wait for this resin to firstly stay in the river bed and secondly dry without issues.

A bit of that and a bit of this!

The first real post of the New Year and my thoughts partly look back over what I did last year and what I would like to do. A case of a bit of that and a bit of this! The blog gives me a good reminder of what I did and there was a fair amount achieved including breaking my cycling target of 5200 miles for the year by actually ending up with 5544 miles. Although it is useful to set a few targets I do not rule my life by them but you do need some direction. As the blog serves as a record and reminder of what I did I will also use it as a reminder of what I would like to do. For this year I am going to try to do 

• the jobs on Mrs. W's ever refreshed list!
• cycle 5200 miles
• build at least 12 kits of scale 1/35th or greater from my stash 
• finish the narrow gauge railway layout  
• finish laying the track and wiring on my Last Great Project layout and try to get some basic scenery on it
• complete as many Shelf Queens as I can
• sort out/tidy/de-junk my man cave AKA The Room of Gloom
• try to spend one day a week volunteering at the Rocks by Rail Museum
• finish sorting out my parents affects which although I have not talked about it on this blog has taken up so much of my time last year and is an emotional business. I would like to complete it.

Well I have recorded it and in 363 days time I can see just how much or more possibly little I have achieved of that lot. What ever I end up doing I will try to have fun doing it! On the cycling front I have managed 24 miles so far this year which is not even 0.5% of my desired total however it has been that mild weather wise that I have been riding in shorts. That's the problem when you complete one target and start another - you have to start at the bottom again!

Model making wise a few steps forward with the narrow gauge layout having had a bit of a break over News Year Day with watching old favorites in the James Bond and Indiana Jones series on TV. What is ridiculous is that we watch them on TV and sit through the adverts when we have them advert free on  DVDs! Note to self - think about this!

The bridge abutments have been added and the acrylic varnish used to seal around them so that when I pour resin to model the water in the river, the resin itself will hopefully stay in the river and not flood what's under the layout. In addition the river bed has had some greenery added to represent the type of weed and plant life you would find in a river of this sort. I am no expert so the whole thing is random and probably breaks all known laws of biology but is anyone going to look that closely? It will probably need a few further applications but slowly does it - there are another 363 days to this year yet!

I did also find a bit of time to do a bit more painting on the two sheds for the narrow gauge layout which now have doors and framework in a contrasting shade of blue. The internal face of the two open doors also got another coat of paint and hinges and locks have been picked out in black paint. Meanwhile the crates and barrels got a wash of dilute black paint to highlight the plank detail. The drums have also been painted in that contrasting blue shade that the sheds were painted in - something to do with sqeezing too much paint out and needing a use for it!

Hopefully over the next few days the sheds will get fully finished and the river may even get its water! 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

 Hope that 2022 is good for you!

Stay safe, build models!

One door closes another door opens!

As the door of 2021 closes and the door to 2022 opens there is a similar situation with the two sheds for my narrow gauge railway. As I said a few posts back, one shed will have its doors open. Unfortunately the kit doors do not include the internal detail of the doors or the floor. The floor has already been made and described a couple of posts ago so the next job on the non-Mrs. Wood list of jobs was to make some internal detail on the doors.

The external detail on the doors.

The undetailed and blank back of the doors - a bit like me - featureless!

After scribing some plank detail with the back of a scalpel blade and assisted by a straight edge the internal framework of the doors was added from an off cut of plastic sheet lying on the work bench - sometimes its useful to be untidy!

I have also added the roof sheets and the window frames to the sheds and although not finished yet they are taking shape. The doors still need another coat of paint on the internal side which will probably get done sooner than the door that is still on Mrs. Woody's list of jobs for me! Just don't tell her!

I have also airbrushed the various crates and barrels in  wood shade - the drums will wait until I decide on their colour. A bit of weathering will tone the brightness of them.

With regard to watery matters, I have given the wharf walls and the bridge abutments a gentle misting of green paint where the water line will be. If you look at any structure surrounded by water for a while there is a layer of green slime (no doubt there is a biological definition but slime is about my limit on the science front!) that builds up. It is subtle, but hopefully will have a visual impact.

Well that is another year of modelling done! Hope you see the New Year in, in the manner which you want to and hopefully this blog and me - oh and nearly forgot (how could I) Mrs. W - will be here in 2022 for more adventures from WMD HQ!

Doing the laundry!

Well it feels like he laundry! Another day at the Rocks by Rail Museum with a barmy 14 degrees Celsius at the end of December! First we dig the ballast out, then we wash it and then we put it back just like you put the laundry away after washing!  Each stage involves shoveling and that is where my shovel skills appear to come in handy. Its back breaking work but with a great crew, some interesting chat and a few jokes it soon gets done.

The ballast is transported after washing in the Trout ballast wagon. This has discharge chutes either side and in the middle. The three white wheels on the end of the wagon each control one of the chutes although on this wagon the middle one doesn't work which is a pity as that is where the ballast is needed! However some muscle power sees the piles either side of the track spread in the middle to give a nice even spread of ballast.  

Ballast arrives....

Discharge chute on the wagon is opened with the control wheel..

Ballast is discharged....

Eager crew wait to spread the ballast....

Several hours of shoveling and several tons of ballast later we have some neat looking track!

Only another mile or so to go! That should make 2022 interesting!

A tale of two sheds!

Over the past few days and defying my normal one or two days of frenzied activity and then nothing for weeks, I have made further progress on the narrow gauge layout - must really think of a name for it! 

The hillside that I started constructing a few days ago and left in the kitchen has dried undetected by Mrs. W and as you can see has dried to a light earth shade - lovely!

As shown in a post a few days ago this hillside will be at the side of the canal wharf. Between the hill and the wharf there are two sheds which are supposed to represent a small traders storage sheds. The sheds themselves come from the Wills SS12 Station Garage Kit but can be built differently to that supposed and instructed in the kit giving two shed like structures. Another case of the male of the species not following instructions! However in this case it does work!

I had already constructed the walls of the shed back in the summer when I wanted to get a feel for where various buildings would go on the layout. The kit is moulded in a white plastic and as I have previously highlighted in this blog white attracts the eye. Whilst I had plans to paint the sheds a blue I did airbrush all the parts, including the inside of the sheds, with Vallejo's black surface primer. As a hint, when I have a large number of parts that need to be airbrushed I tend to get a piece of plywood or cardboard to fasten them onto to be painted. You can use Blutack or what ever your chosen poster temporary adhesive is to fasten the parts to the board or you can use masking tape. if you turn the sticky side up and fold the two ends over on themselves before fastening the ends to the board you are left with a strip of stick masking tape to which you can fasten the parts that need to be painted. 

The photo below probably shows the masking tape in a better light. The various drums, barrels and crates are for the layout eventually but as I had some primer left in the airbrush it seemed a good idea to prime these up.

I do plan to have a door open on one of the sheds so a wooden floor was required. There is nothing better to represent wood in model form then wood itself. A small piece of balsa sheet was cut to size and then planks forming the floor were scribed into the balsa wood using a straight edge and the back of a scalpel blade. Using the blunt back of the scalpel means you don't have much risk of cutting right the way through the wood and it gives a nice visible groove in the wood.

In its basic form the wood was far too clean so a coat of my favorite diluted back paint was washed over it highlighting the groves and giving a nice weathered and worn appearance. Once dry it can go into the shed.

I also started on the cobbled surface which will cover the wharf area and into which the rail tracks will be inlaid. I found, in the WMD HQ stock pile of things bought long ago and which may come in handy one day a couple of sheets of vacuum formed plastic cobbles which should do the job.

 

A bit of cutting has the first piece fastened in front of the two sheds.

If I can manage to keep the momentum up hopefully the whole scene will come to life in a few days. However I understand Mrs. W does have a new list of jobs for me for 2022! Gulp!

V2!

Not the nasty war time V2 rocket but a much more pleasant LNER class V2 locomotive. My other Christmas present was this beautiful Bachmann LNER V2 with DCC sound chip. It is a truly stunning model and initial running shows that it runs and sounds as good as it looks. If you want to find out about these locomotives you can go here where Wikipedia will inform you better than I can!

Hillside development.

Having escaped to the man cave AKA The Room of Gloom, for a second night thanks to the delights of umpteen TV channels that keep Mrs. Woody's interest in Murder Mysteries satisfied (apparently the current favorite is one called Vera) there has been further progress made on the narrow gauge layout. This time on the landscape at the end of the canal wharf. This will be a small hill with two small sheds in front of the railway siding that goes along the end of the wharf. I have constructed the whole area of this hillside development on a sub base of 2mm mounting card. It makes it easier to work on as I can bring it to the workbench and work in seated comfort. The hill itself was constructed with mounting card profiles with an infill of the same foam that I used for the river banks. The usual choice would be polystyrene which would result in the recreation of Santa's Grotto in my man cave as I carved it to shape and all those spheres of that make up the material would fly everywhere. I guess though it might not be The Room of Gloom if that did happen! 

The profiles are being added.

The sub-base being taken off the layout....

...and onto the work bench where the rest of the profiles and foam have been added. Te foam has been cut to the shape of the profiles ready for....

...being overlaid with some kitchen roll - other brands are available! 

Having reached this stage it was then time to mix up a sloppy mix of DIY filler with some brown acrylic paint added and then get plastering! The initial covering of kitchen roll was coated in stages with the filler mix and smaller pieces of kitchen roll added which in turn were covered with more filler and more kitchen roll. There are about four layers of kitchen roll in all and they will form a solid shell as the sloppy filler mix is absorbed by the kitchen roll. Indeed, this particular brand is noted for its absorbency capabilities so it should make for an extra hard surface!

In progress.

Finished on the work bench.....

...and whilst Mrs. W is absorbed with TV detective Vera it is sneaked into the warmth of the kitchen to dry. Wonder if Mrs. W will detect that?

I also had time to add another coat of acrylic varnish to the river bed and banks and being extra generous with it as I need this to stick a coating of sand to make the river bed. I have a feeling I will need to do this several times but I won't know until it dries and I find out if it has worked and iof so how well! 

Added enthusiasm!

With the arrival of the Bachmann Ffestiniog Railway Double Fairlie 'Livingston Thompson' in my 009 gauge fleet there is a renewed enthusiasm to finish the layout. As I have explained before my progress on matters happens on a random haphazard manner so how this current enthusiasm will manifest itself into progress to a finished layout is a matter which I don't even know the answer to! However progress has been made. Mrs Woody had settled down for an evening of favorite TV murder mystery programmes (should I be worried by her passion for these types of programme?) so I took the opportunity to have a few hours in the man cave AKA The Room of Gloom.

The kitchen roll and brown coloured DIY filler mix that I had done before Christmas have continued to dry and the brown has lighten in the process of drying which is good.

As I am going to try using an epoxy liquid to create the river, the river bed and sides need to be 'water tight'. The DIY filler is not going to be that so I have coated the river bed and sides with two coats of acrylic household varnish. This should hopefully keep the resin in where it should be and not dripping down from the bottom of the baseboard. How successful this will be is questionable. As a youngster a group of us built a boat out of odds and ends and its maiden voyage saw it becoming a submarine - enough said! Anyway the sheen on the plaster indicates that the first coat of varnish sealed the DIY filler and the second coat now sits on top of that giving a sealed surface.  

I also managed to start doing some work on the area around the canal wharf. Most of the track will be set into the surface which will most probably be some form of cobbles. To do this I need a sub-base to support the cobbles and this is 2mm mounting card cut to fit around the outsides of the track and helpfully is level with the sleepers of the track.

I have also started constructing the ground formation in the corner of the layout. It may all look a bit mis-matched at the moment but it should, if my calculations are right, work! Then again it may not!