Fill it up please!

The 00 gauge motorists on the 009 narrow gauge layout now have somewhere to fill up their vehicle fuel tanks with the arrival of the fuel pumps at the Dapol Service Station. The camera can be cruel in close up and whilst the oil dispenser could do with another coat of yellow and the whole lot with a dash of some weathering/dirt it looks OK from normal viewing distance which is good enough for me. If you are not carful you end up spending hours on something no one will notice anyway so better spending that time on something a little more noticeable - well that's The World According to Woody!

Putting effort into something that will be noticed is what I did do with the cab panels for the Scania 143H. They have all been top coated now using, unusually for me, a can of Halfords Nissan Artic White which I inherited from my Dad's collection of things that might come in useful one day. Well this paint did and it seems to have done a good job and there was no need to clean my airbrush either!

Just need to let the paint fully harden over the next few days and then it will be time to decal them with the various ones contained in the kit. Italeri decals are a love hate relationship for me. They are wonderfully thin so sit on the surface well but they do have a tendency to break and in some cases, if several years old, disintegrate! Stay tuned to see just how full the swear jar becomes especially as it keeps say 'Fill it up please'!

A bit of everything.

Today saw a bit of everything with some progress on both the Scania 141H and the narrow gauge layout.

The Scania body shell is now in the WMD paint shop where parts are now primed or primed and top coated. Hopefully this will be completed over the next few days. Whilst most components were painted whilst fastened to a scrap wooden board using masking tape, the back and sides of the cab which had been already been glued together was taped to a large paintbrush so that all of it could be painted in one go. The paintbrush was then poked into the packaging of a 4 pack of Fanta (other similar beverages are available) to support it and let the cab dry in mid air.

On the 009 narrow gauge layout some work with mounting board has set the road out and the area of the pavement and adjoining plots for the properties. 

I also dug out the petrol pumps which came with the Dapol Service Station kit and started painting these up ready for the forecourt. 

Luckily the 00 gauge motorists will never see the £1.60 a litre that we pay currently and indeed would not even know what a litre was as they still live in a land of gallons where that sort of money would fill your tank!

Every cloud has a silver lining!

At the Rocks by Rail Museum today was another day of ballast washing. I seem to spend more time washing ballast at the Museum then washing clothes at home as Mrs. Woody would no doubt highlight. However we had to have a break. The clouds unleashed a deluge of rain forcing me to seek shelter in the workshop. 

Although I do walk through the building on a regular basis I never really have had the time for a good look round. That is where the silver lining came in as the cloud now gave me the opportunity whilst sheltering from what was turning into near vertical rain. The whole building has that look of 50 or 60 years ago and that is so well demonstrated by this work bench.

In this day and age of engineering most workshops look more like operating theaters.

There are also a lot of signs which highlight the totally different times railways operated in years ago.

Before I knew it the rain had subsided and it was time to get back to the washing!

Cleaning up to see things more clearly!

One of those days when I was in the right mood to have a clean up. So many of those 'might come in useful one day' items that I have collected over the years and clutter the house went in the recycling or waste bins. Although Mrs. W will still find all sorts of items to question as to the relevance of their presence in the house I felt satisfied with my efforts and I could indeed see things more clearly like the dust that will no doubt be subject of a 'you could always do some dusting if you have a few minutes' comment from Mrs. W. I will await!

That cleaning mood also went into my Man Cave AKA The Room of Gloom where a good clear out saw useless items meet their friends from the house in the relevant bins. It still looks untidy but a lot less than a few hours ago. In addition I also needed to clear up after the static grass session yesterday - that stuff goes everywhere! In clearing up I also rediscovered the road section I had roughly cut out last year for the 009 narrow gauge layout so this went on the layout. With that in place I had a few minutes placing the buildings in a seemingly pleasing layout - to me anyway!. Although not any real modelling today the layout is looking a bit more organised so I can see more clearly what needs doing - dust included!

Making it green!

As we batten down the hatches here in the UK for Storm Franklin, which will be the third storm in five days, I decided it was time to brighten my life having got soaked on this mornings bike ride, by making things a bit green. Although I try my best to be environmentally friendly, this making it green refers to grassing some of my 009narrow gauge layout. I thought that this would be a visual boost in the work on that layout and as Mrs. Woody had decided (I know my place) we were having a quiet day in then the opportunity was too good to miss. 

Whereas back in the 70's and 80's model grass was mainly created using dyed saw dust or for the more adventurous dyed lint which had an art all of itself to look realistic todays modeller has a vast array of more realistic products. Static grass has been around for a few years now and it has revolutionised modelling green areas. The grass is made up of nylon fibers which come in an assortment of lengths and colours. It is all to easy to fall into the trap of modelling grass as though it were some Alpine grass meadow in the full flight of summer growth with lots of sun and rain producing a vivid bright green. Here in the UK most grass in the countryside is a mix of grasses of a much more subdued pallet of greens. My chosen shades of green were four varieties, Winter Green, Autumn Green, Patchy Grass and Dead Grass! All by Peco and a mix of 2mm and 4mm in length so about a scale 6 to 12 inches long. This was not going to be a manicured lawn!

 

The rea to be grassed is by the river and I also wanted some trees there as well. Luckily WMD Stores had three Woodland Scenics trees of a suitable size in stock. These were brought out, tested for position and then the bases glued to the base board.

Now it was time to apply the static grass using a Peco applicator. This has a 9volt battery which is used to produce a charge to the sieve at the bottom of the hopper where the static grass is stored and shaken out of. The electrical circuit is completed by an earth wire which is placed into the glue which is applied to the surface to be grassed. As it leaves the hopper the static grass fibers become electrically charged and in effect land in the glue standing up therefore looking like individual blades of grass. Just don't touch the sieve of the applicator whilst the power is on as it gives a big jolt to you just like one of those electrical fly swats - don't ask how I know!

When I first bought the applicator I was persuaded to part with £9 for a bottle of 'special' Peco glue which was supposed to be conductive of electricity. Somewhat unconvinced about this supposed characteristic I used it and it worked well. I was also soon to be taught just how conductive it was. Having got some glue on my fingers I though no more about it until I used my tablet just after finishing the grassing. The touch screen of the tablet went crazy and it was the glue and its electrical conductivity that was doing it. Lesson learnt - wash hands straight after work!

Moving back to the layout the grass application is reasonably quick and soon shows results which is nice.

Once the glue dries, which is not very long, a small handheld vacuum cleaner is used to suck up the fibers which went wide of the glue. These are then used again where there is a need for reapplication.

After an hour or so of doing by the river and behind the two huts on rthe canal wharf it looks like this.

There is still further work to do adding some more foliage but it does look a lot better than bare baseboard.

I even found time to add the headlight units to the front cab panel of the Scania 141LB. I used varnish to 'glue' these in which made the job nice and easy - working smarter not harder as I get older!

Hopefully Storm Franklin will leave as quickly as it came and we can get into some warmer weather when the grass gets green and grows!

Back to some model trains!

It seems a long time sine I did some railway modelling. In fact look back it was at the start of the year when I poured the resin model water for the river on my 009 narrow gauge layout. Well that took some time to set and rather disappointingly looks more like a swamp than a river. It needs more resin poured but having learnt my lesson about the resin not setting in cold weather I will be awaiting the joys of a warm summer day. Now there's hoping after the past few days of storms!

The bridges over the river need to be completed and so today whilst watching the rain through the window I recommenced on the shared road/rail bridge with a wooden deck. For some reason the deck no longer fitted and even using some force would not get it to line up with the bridge supports. I cut my losses and started again. Sometimes it is the best thing to do and in this case probably saved me time. With a bit of trial and error I managed to get a new bridge deck built with strips of balsa to represent planks that fits the supports and incorporates the rail track as well. It just needs to be finally glued up having seen a few trail trains cross it and then some weathering. Funny though how running trains to trail something can take an hour of time!

Although the Scania production line has take the weekend off I did manage to finish painting the door interiors. All done with a brush which for the black rubber parts involved some careful free hand work to get the straight lines I have to admit though that there were one or two less than perfect parts and one of those tricks you learn to deal with this on transparent parts is to let the paint dry and then use a pointed cocktail stick to abrade the paint away. It does work! I also painted up some of the other light lenses with Tamiya transparent orange ready for fitting to the cab shell.

Storm Eunice!

Here in the UK we are being battered by the second storm in three days. Parts of the UK have suffered not only 100 mph plus winds but snow as well. Luckily for me the storm has not been as bad as for others - so far! I did manage a 19 mile bike ride this morning whilst the wind was relatively calmish!

Doing some inside jobs I did take an hour out to d a bit more on the model Scanias. The cab of the 143H is now partly assembled and ready for paint on a calmer day.

In my usual bout of curiosity I did tape the front panels and roof to the cab sides to see what it would look like and further curiosity saw me pose it with the 141LB.

I also built the headlight units for the Scania 141 where the lens were 'glued' into their headlamp units using Tamiya varnish. The varnish acts like a glue and dries clear so is perfect for jobs like this. The light lenses for the spot lights in the bumper were also 'glued' in with the varnish. 

Hopefully by the time that Storm Eunice subsides they will all have dried. In the meantime I am just hoping that the storm does not create any additional jobs on Mrs. Woody's list of jobs for me to do!

Scania Production Line 2!

An hour or so of further progress on the Scania models.

The 143H chassis is coming together and although the mudguards need to be glued I can not resist putting parts together temporarily to see what things look like.

The cab interior is also coming along in its two tone grey which I decided to brighten up a bit with the seats getting some red panels. Interior design is not my particular forte, just ask Mrs. W, but I think that this does work! The instrument decal has been applied to the dashboard and once set the steering wheel and column can be attached and then the dashboard can be fastened to the rest of the cab interior.

Certainly a lot less parts than yesterday!

Painting the door interiors on the Scania 141H has progressed with the yellow parts having had an undercoat of matt yellow waiting for a top coat of gloss yellow.

Have to see if the production line continues with this rate of progress - There is even a danger that I could finish both models in a couple of weeks!

Scania production line.

That is what my model making feels like at the moment! Having done an 18 mile bike ride where half of it felt as though I was cycling into a brick wall and the other half as though I was Mary Poppins (now there's a thought!) being blown home by Storm Dudley and having done some Mrs. W jobs it was time for an hour more on the Scanias. 

The door interiors on the 141LB by Heller are something that I have never seen in a model before. The whole door interior including the window is moulded as part of the transparent parts. Most strange. However I have started to paint these with the door cards being painted to match the rest of the interior. I have also painted the rear light lenses with Tamiya clear red and orange paints for the rear/brake lights and the indictors ready for fitting to the chassis.

More parts of the Scania 143H have been painted, mainly parts for the interior where the browns and yellows of the 1980's are replaced by the greys of the 1990's. How fashion changes!

Lots of parts just needing a production line to assemble them!

A wet but poignant day.

A special day at Rocks by Rail Museum even though we were fighting the weather and the resultant drainage problems.

Today is the 80th anniversary of Singapore falling to the Japanese during World War 2. As a result 80,000 Allied service personnel were captured and taken as Prisoners of War. My Uncle was one of those. The stories of the brutality and hardship that those service personnel went through are countless. One in four did not survive the three and a half years they were held to tell those stories. 

Rocks by Rail is the home of steam engine Singapore which is a registered war memorial. It was captured by thr Japanese and put to work in the docks at Singapore and even to this day still has bullet holes in it from when the Japanese first landed. There are further details of the locomotive on the Rocks by Rail website located here.

I attended a short remembrance today at the Museum where the locomotive took its place as a war memorial to all those involved in the Singapore campaign. I was priviledged that my Uncle's son, my cousin and his wife were able to attend and we could remember together what my Uncle and all those with him went through. WE laid orchids on the locomotive which apparently is the alternative poppy as those do not grow in the Singapore area but orchids do.

My Uncle was lucky and came home but the experience of those three and a half years no doubt affected his and his comrades lives for ever. I have the greatest respect and gratitude for them all. Let us hope we never again experience such wars which given current issues in Ukraine is something that is even more pertinent today.