Its happened!

I have over the last few months taken note of the price of fuel at a local service station whilst out on my bike rides. Back on the 7th March I posted my first blog (available here ) featuring the price totem and the picture showing it was this one.  

Wind forward three months almost to the day and the same totem shows the price today including the 5p per liter duty tax cut as....

The £2 per litre has now happened! For those of a certain age petrol is now about £9 a gallon! Good job my bike runs on human pedal power! I couldn't afford to fuel my daily ride out at these prices!

Lots of visitors and x plus one!

My arrival at Rocks by Rail this morning saw me shocked by the 20 plus cars in the car park at just after 10am.

Once in the site I found out that the local U3A were visiting us. When I first heard my mother in law was joining the U3A I thought it was some strange cult or group but in fact I need not have worried as it is the University of the 3rd Age. They enjoyed their visit and the cafe did good business in bacon cobs, drinks and cake. My food intake however had to wait until lunchtime and to while away the hours to that I walked about 6  miles with the mower ahead of me - yes more grass cutting. Will it ever stop growing!

As I settled into a post lunch further grass cut a local bike building company, J Laverack, arrived to take some publicity photos using the museum as a backdrop. As a long time ex racer and still cyclist I had to have a chat with the guys and bore them to death with my tales of years ago! Anyway I was impressed by the bike they brought to photograph and if you are interested in their products they have a website here. and the photos from today will be on their Facebook page available here. 

Wonder what Mrs. Woody would say to a new arrival to the fleet - as the old saying goes the ideal number of bikes to have is x plus one where x is the current number of bikes owned! Does look nice!

Well after finishing all that grass cutting I was shattered and glad to get home where Mrs. Woody was aleready home and cooked dinner - Nice! 

A strapping time!

As I highlighted in yesterdays post I suspected I would be in for more eye testing times with mounting the external fuel tanks to the cradles on the hull of the Egyptian T34 tank. I was right with that! Not often I am right according to Mrs. Woody but in this case I was. I had to construct the straps from two parts of etched brass parts.

The small rectangle is bent around the triangular part giving a reinforcing part to the strap. Once this was done the strap has to be glued to the cradle and then the external fuel tank put in place.

Once everything is set in place the straps are then bent around the fuel tank and glued to the top of the cradle. Simple if it all goes well and to be fair it went reasonably well for me - most unusual!

It all looks very impressive and there is one more tank to do on the other side so that will probably be my next job. In the meantime I will rest my eyes!

Eye sight test!

What a wet, cold and miserable day despite the Jubilee! A day for curling up and watching TV under a blanket. However I did find enough get up and go to extract myself from the comfort of the sofa and made a little more progress on the Egyptian T34 tank. The rest of the main wheels are finished and the eye sight test job of more photo etched parts on the external fuel tanks complete. This involved bending up carrying handles. Talk about eye sigh strain! 

Well I must be getting better at this sort of thing as all six handles for the three tanks were done in under an hour with no swear jar contributions having to be made and using just some tweezers to hold and fold the parts. 

I guess the next stage will be to mount them to the cradles which I know involves more photo etched parts - nice! I will look forward to further eye sight testing capers in the near future but in the meantime a little more progress.

Flaming June!

Well one of the worst weather wise starts to the supposed warm period - that is Flaming June for you! Very cold on this mornings bike ride and looking at the forecast for tomorrow looks like a somewhat cold and wet day that will preclude any bike ride! In fact it was that cold today Mrs. Woody even put the heating on for a while and we both ended up watching a few films on TV. 

I did however manage to extract myself from the sofa long enough to put together a few wheels for the Egyptian T34 tank. I really like the detail on these and they do look good - although I need to clean off the plastic dust created when I sanded the parts smooth. That is the problem of digital photography - it shows all the detail including that which you do not want to see!

Bonds at the Rocks By Rail Museum!

A slight play on words there in case anyone thinks that the latest James Bond film is featuring a scene at the Rocks By Rail Museum. We did however have an operating day today and a good show was put on for those who visited. Our guests included the Bond Owners Club. The Club is centered around the Bond Minicars of the 1950s and 60s and I can do no better than direct anyone to their website if he pictures below make you curious about these wonderfully characterful cars. Click here to go to the Bond Owners Club.

We did have steam running for the brake van rides complete with what the suppliers claimed was smokeless coal!

With the Jubilee celebrations going on even the Museum was decked out.

OK it may not have been elaborate but we tried!

This mornings bike ride and this afternoons drive home revealed these gems of creativity for the Jubilee.

Maybe he is saluting because he thinks I am James Bond...........

  

Jubilee!

Well today is the day we celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of the Queen. 70 years on the throne and for most of the Country we have known no one else as the Head of State. Lots of celebrations around the Country with things like this being done in a local village.

Even the crows at the back of WMD HQ seemed to be getting into the spirit with this gathering and lots of crow type chatter.

Model making wise not much done but I did think it appropriate to dig out my Hornby Royal Train Pack bought back in 2004 and I am sorry to say never run yet. That will change soon but I will either have to DCC chip the loco which was never designed for DCC or find by DC controller and see if that will work. The pack was released by Hornby in 2004 after the the Queen and Prince Philip carried out a train tour of the UK in the summer of 2002 with the loco in the pack being the one that hauled the train.

The loco is a Coronation Class LMS 4-6-2 named Duchess of Sutherland and despite being nearly 20 years old is nicely detailed..

Carriages are models of those in the actual train and I do have the extension pack with another three carriages somewhere which will make it a great looking train. Just hope I get to actually run this before the next jubilee!

Hedging my bets!

A cool start to June but the bike ride this morning saw me put another 20 miles on top of the 2390 that I have managed up to the end of May without getting too hot. However as the day warmed up I thought I would hedge my bets by getting the hedge cutting on Mrs. Woody's list of jobs to be done before doing anything else. Good job I did as with all these things in my life the time I estimated the job would take doubled in reality! So not as much model making time but in good books (I hope!) with Mrs. W. The garden does look better with a set of trimmed hedges.

Despite limited model making time I did manage to get some more done on the MiniArt Egyptian T34 tank. Both sides are now grab handled up in brass wire and the external fuel tank cradles are in place as well as the towing cables. You can see the difference the wire grab handles make with this photo where the last of the plastic handles is yet to be replaced.

This kit is certainly not a weekend special! Hopefully I have hedged my bets with the other kit of the artillery version of this tank that I have yet to build which is a simpler build and should come as a relief after this one and hopefully started before the hedges need cutting again!

Rain stops mowing.

Todays trip to the Rocks By Rail Museum was supposed to see me get the mower out for another session of grass cultivation. However, the weather had other ideas with rain making the grass too wet to cut so I had to find another activity. I had noted that the recent wet and warm weather had encouraged the growth of weeds in the track bed. Now whilst weed control would normally be taken care of with a spray of weed killer from a suitably equipped train this is Rocks by Rail so I hand weeded the area around the station. I don't think anyone will say, wow someone has been doing a lot of weeding! However, hopefully subconsciously guests may feel that the place is cared for. We will have to wait and see what reaction we get on the operating day this Friday but I think it looks good!

 

 I did have some supervision from Riley the dog who probably knows more about the Museum than I do!

In between the rain I did have time to have a look at the display models in the Sundew cafe. Phil Parker's model railway layout (see it on his blog by clicking here or watch the first of Hornby's videos on this project here.) always attracts and entertains younger guests and we are fortunate in having it. It does get 'played' with so on occasions the little details do require some maintenance and I see I will need to bring some glue in when I go back again.

At the other end of the spectrum of models are these detailed scenes of quarrying including a massive model of Sundew the World's largest walking drag line.

There are also some informative displays on the history of iron ore mining and I really must find time to reacquaint myself with the contents sometime!

I can't escape Riley's supervision!

I will be back Bank Holiday Friday when the Museum will have a full on operating day - great!

More wire bending!

A odd half hour in amongst other jobs has seen the T34 Egyptian tank progress a little further. The remainder of the external fuel tank cradles have been fitted together with some more brass wire substituting for the plastic kit part which broke into pieces as I tried to cut it free from the sprue. I have also replaced one of the already fitted grab handles with a bent wire version which looks better. No doubt I will be bending even more wire as I get onto the other side. Not much progress today but the construction moves on which is the main thing!