Nappy brown!

Back in the 1980's vehicle interiors had a certain look to them. A lot of beige, browns and blacks with the odd bold colour thrown in for good measure. Truck interiors followed this trend to be fashionable and at the time it looked good - honest! The interior of my Heller Scania 141 LB is a recreation of that fashion with a generally black and nappy brown interior broken up with some yellow for seats and beds. It will look great to the 1/24th scale driver - he is in the 1980s so knows no better - just like me! The floor coverings and dashboard are black and I had sprayed this on yesterday. Having had 24 hours to dry I masked the floor of floor pan to spray the engine hump brown as this would have been a carpeted area. 

I never made it inside a 141 but I did get into a lot of the Series 3 Scanias, especially the 91 and 113 models that came later on with similar interior décor so I was getting nostalgic with this paint scheme. Anyway, the brown was sprayed onto the engine hump, seats back of cab and cab roof and left to dry. Pulling the masking tape off shortly after applying the paint means that you will usually get a clean line to the paint. Waiting until it fully dry means that there is a risk of pulling the newly applied paint away with the masking tape. In my case the opposite happened with yesterdays black coming partly away with the masking tape. 

Not sure why but no use in holding a full scale investigation when I could actually use the time to rectify the matter with a brush and some black paint. The beauty of matt black paint is that it can be brushed relatively easily which in this case was good for me. With the time I had available a few interior parts were added to the floor pan and the seats given a couple of coats of yellow.

I also had time to fettle a few other parts and to knock up a suzie rack which is where the air lines for the trailer brakes connect to the trucks air system. The kit has a small single outlet mount which is wrong as the system in use at the time of this truck. There would be a red air line as the emergency brake, a yellow line as the service brake and a blue line as the auxiliary brake. In addition there would also be the electrical connection for the lights. 

Hopefully I might get some paint on the chassis over the next few days but that certainly will not be nappy brown!

Hush, Hush, lets do some more painting!

A bit more time to have a look at the Hornby LNER Class W1 Hush Hush today and it is a real stunning model. I just need to put a DCC chip in it and then it will be hauling trains. In the mean time I will just enjoy the beauty of this model.

Having spent far too much time admiring the Hush Hush I made a bit more progress on the Heller Scania 141 LB priming some more parts having fettled a few of them. The wheels in particular needed some attention. The ventilation holes were not actually holes! They were just small depressions in the moulding so some time with a pin vice and drill had these opened up to proper holes which looked a whole (pun intended) better!

My usual method of fastening small parts to be painted onto a board with masking tape folded over itself followed.

Once one side is painted and dry the parts are turned over so that all the exposed surfaces get a coat of primer. After a couple of hours I have this pile of parts on my workbench.

Almost looks like a truck assembly plant but I will stay hush, hush about that!

The painting begins!

This is where the build of the Heller Scania 141 LB slows down a lot as the paint begins to go on. You need to prepare parts, undercoat them, top coat and then wait to dry. Some parts have to be painted before being assembled further and it can all become a little like a chess board as you plan what parts need painting and when. Despite my scatter gun brain I do have a plan - almost - and I have started with the engine and a few other parts. The engines on Scania trucks are generally painted in green when they are assembled in the factory and so that is what I went with despite the instructions telling me it should be red.

First off the engine was primed in my favorite Vallejo black primer after which it was then painted in green - in this case a bottle of Vallejo Russian Green was to hand so that is what I used.

The engine still needs some detailed painting with the exhaust pipes, inlet manifolds and turbo needing attention as well as the fan blades needing to be added.

I have also primed the exhaust pipe, the fan blades and the underside of the floor pan. All this will dry over night and hopefully tomorrow a bit more painting will take place.

Hush, Hush!

Many people tell me to hush or even hush, hush if I m particularly loud but in this case hush, hush related to something that came in the post today from The Model Centre. I will probably need to keep its arrival hush, hush from Mrs. Woody but as she occasionally reads this blog to find out exactly what I have been up to it won't be hush, hush for too long! Hush, hush is actually the name given to the LNER Class W1 locomotive which was a secretly developed prototype fitted with a high pressure water boiler. Not only were the mechanics unusual but the body was too with a very unusual shape at the time. It was also the only 4-6-4 tender locomotive to run in the UK. There is a lots more technical and historical description on Wikipedia which you can see by clicking here. 

Hornby have now released a model of it and having had this on pre-order for a while it arrived today.

I have not had a chance to run it yet but hopefully I will be able to do that in a hush, hush operation in the next few days but it does look gorgeous!

On the Heller Scania141 LB front I have finished the engine with the various exhaust and turbo pipework added which makes it look a whole lot more interesting. Despite this kit not having the best fitting parts these parts went together remarkably well. I could say it was down to the skills of the modeler but I have been the only one building this!

Now for some hush as I plan how best to start painting.

Another day in Paradise!

As I went through the gates at the Rocks by Rail Museum that beautiful and emotional song by Phil Collins came on the radio - Another day in Paradise. For me it was another day in paradise. Although frosty the sun was shining and the museum had that inviting look and I was going to spend a day in a stunning, to me anyway, place with a group of great guys! 

Paradise for me is also being at the end of a shovel (it takes all sorts but at least my needs are simple! ) and todays task was to dig out all the spillage around the oversized washing machine ballast washer so that Harriot the JCB could get its bucket under the screen to collect the washed ballast. As the ballast comes out of the drum and down the screen the fine material goes through the screen and should drop into a couple of wheel barrows underneath. Some of that fine material inevitably misses the barrows and over time you get to the point where the barrows can not get under the screen so you have to dig out the spilled material. Despite the frost it was soon T shirt time!

 After that job was over it was time to start spreading the washed ballast where it was needed. Having had a full week of track leveling and packing over last week, looking down the track to where the loco and ballast wagon where was a bit of a shock and a bit of a walk! There has ceratinly been some major progress made. 

After the hard labour of the day I hitched a ride back up the line in the cab of Betty the loco which was nice as I can say I travelled in a Rolls Royce - well a RR powered loco anyway! 

Back at the other paradise of WMD HQ the Heller Scania 141 LB has progressed slightly. The various joints in the front wheel arches were filled early this morning with Vallejo acrylic putty. 

As I had a spare half hour before preparing Mrs. Woody's dinner I rubbed down the joints which just require a little more tidying tomorrow and then that will be ready for paint.

Hopefully the Sausage Hot Dogs for tonight's dinner will see a continuation of my day in paradise!

Big visual impact!

With a kit build such as this there are days when you work for an hour and so, sit back and although there is a part of the kit built it is small and has little visual impact. However there are other days when you sit back and just take in the big visual impact of what you have built. Today was one of those days as parts of the cab of the Heller Scania 141 LB went together. It may only be the floor and the rear panel but it has a big visual impact.

Unfortunately progress will be slower for a while as there are all sorts of joints to be filled and smoothed before too much more progress can be made. However its now looking like a truck and that is always a spur to get on with a model but with my history of being distracted anything could happen!

Putty time!

I managed to grab a couple of hours on progressing the Heller Scania 141 LB today. Given that the resin model water on my narrow gauge layout is still drying out I cannot progress with that at the moment so the Scania benefits my full attention - after Mrs. Woody of course!

One of the jobs I did apart from sanding a lot of parts was to glue the fuel tank ends to the main tank body. The fit is not good with a gap around most of it which when painted would show up unless filled. Not the easiest of filling jobs but in my continued quest to work smarter not harder I have used Vallejo plastic putty. This is an acrylic putty that is like a smooth paste. I used a paint brush to brush it along the joints and then wetted the brush to again run along the joints wetting the putty which then sinks into the gaps. It will probably need two or three goes to get it right but a lot easier than conventional fillers and sanding.

AI am getting near the point where I am going to have to start to paint the chassis in order to progress that but there are still a few more parts that need to be added. In the meantime work on the cab has started. You can see the continued issues with warped and twisted parts with the inner rear cab wall which will need some bending to get it to line up with the cab floor. More fun times then! 

Looking at the workbench it certainly looks a bit different to a week ago which is nice when you do see progress being made. As you can also see the wheels have now been dechromed using the Mr. Muscle oven cleaner. There was mention today by Mrs. W. that the oven could indeed do with a clean so at some stage I will have to bite the bullet or find a very convincing excuse!

Rolling, rolling, rolling!

Not the theme from Rawhide originally done by Frankie Laine back in 1958 and then given a second life by the Blues Brothers (and you can see that by clicking here ) but my Heller Scania 141LB which is now a rolling chassis - just! A couple of hours of work this evening saw the front axle completed including the steering gear. A few other parts added and then I thought I wonder what it looks like with its wheels on. So in the inevitable way that many modelers start balancing and temporarily taping parts of models together I started to put the wheels together. Usually the tyres in model truck kits are a one piece rubber moulding or a two piece plastic part. Heller have gone for a two part rubber moulding - never seen that before.

Although I have managed to temporarily put the parts together for all six wheels they are not glued yet and I need to experiment to see what glue will actually glue the two parts together. I then needed to get the wheels together and these are chromed - so another session with the Mr. Muscle Oven Cleaner to dechrome them will be needed in the near future! Mrs. W will no doubt think that at some stage my use of the oven cleaner will actually result in a clean oven! Maybe - one day! In the meantime, with wheels actually on the ground on all four corners - so I did manage to build a straight chassis - this is where the kit is.

I also managed to get the steering gear to work so the truck can turn as well as roll!

Still some more parts to add but I am pleased it sits on its straight. Now, I better order some more oven cleaner which may build up unreasonable expectations!

A country with no motorways!

It has been a bitterly cold day with fog making it feel even colder than it actually is. Even my bike ride was curtailed to a mere 7 miles - I am just not as hardy as I was in my youth! I did therefore spend much of the day inside and I sorted through some of my parents things. My Dad never threw anything away so I have the job of going through it all. Household bills from decades ago may have some interest but they are not things I wish to keep. However there are some gems hidden away such as the cloth Bartholomew's Contour Motoring Map of the British Isles I found.

I have no idea when this dates from but suspect the 1940s. It cost 5 Shillings which is 25 pence in todays money. It is a fascinating insight into the transport system of the nation in a time when the motor car had yet to reach the ownership levels we now see. The most interesting visual impact for me is that there are no motorways. Maps today are crisscrossed with the blue lines of motorways linking major cities but this map was in an age when travelling around the nation meant you drove through every major town and most villages.

Apologies about the quality of the photo but London is somewhat different to how we now see it circled by the M25.

I will be looking at this map more closely when I have time but in the meantime it is safely stored at the WMD HQ reference library in amongst all the other junk, as Mrs. W puts it, that I have accumulated!

I did find an hour to do a little more on the Heller Scania 141 LB which now has front springs. Like most of this kit these are warped and need some brute force (not my strong point) and ignorance ( I am good at that) to get them to fit. However knowing this kit so far there are more trials and tribulations with parts fitting to come! 

Yes - its good to be alive!

One of those days where you think yes - its good to be alive! I got the hoovering and other jobs off Mrs. W's chore list done early this morning, got a 10 mile bike ride in and then off to the Rocks by Rail Museum. One of the things that you have to do when you arrive is safety related and that is sign in - you also sign out when you leave so you hopefully don't end up left locked in a wagon or some similar predicament! The signing in hut is near the entrance and then you have to walk down to the tracks where todays task was more use of the oversized washing machine cleaning ballast. As the loco sheds are open I always walk through them rather then walk outside on the way down to the tracks - why would you miss the chance to walk past so much history? On a day like this with the sun shining the sheds take on a whole new appearance.

Apart from being sunny the weather was also warm if you were in the sun but the ground was still frozen in the shade. I was soon down to a T shirt - not muscle shirt if you read yesterdays post - and noticed this on the nearby gate.

No, not my sweaty top but a fleece that covers the batteries that power the various water pumps - don't ask why the fleece covers them probably they are old and cold -  which you can just see in the photo is steaming in the heat of the sun as it dries!

The Museum may be Rutland's largest railway museum (and only) but it runs on the goodwill of a lot of volunteers and their ability to repair the older equipment that keeps it going.  Harriot, as the JCB is known, has a bit of a fuel issue at the moment and every so often just stops. People with magical mechanical skills then need to get her going again - not easy when you have to lean into the engine bay but they know what they are doing and we got about 10 tons of ballast washed today ready for more track packing and levelling.

Back with my own vehicle issues on the Heller Scania 141 LB, some more progress. Its actually beginning to look like a truck chassis!

So all I have to do now is get Mrs. W's dinner right tonight and it certainly will be a good to be alive day!