Holiday souvenirs.

Most people bring home a holiday souvenir - a piece of pottery or similar. However I usually end up with some model related item and the bill for the holiday! Whilst in Norfolk on holiday last week I took Mrs. Woody to Sheringham. A seaside town that we have visited for more years then I can remember but one of those special places especially as it is home to the North Norfolk Railway sometimes referred to as The Poppy Line. The town also has always had a model shop in the same premises although now under its fourth owner since I have been going there. The shop is now Smiths Model Railways - click here for their website - and is very well presented with a wide variety of model railways and associated needs. Whilst in there leaving Mrs. Woody to peruse the handbag shop next door, I did spot a second hand Proto 2000 GP30 loco in Burlington Northern livery. Ideal for my USA switching layout. It said on the box that it had a slight clicking noise but on the shops test track that did not affect its running especially at slow speeds. A very fair £40 changed hands and I exited the shop happy with the purchase and even happier that Mrs. Woody had not progressed inside the handbag shop! A quick move on towards the sea front saved any need to spend further money! A few days later we went on the Bure Valley Railway. At Wroxham they have a second hand book shop where strangely enough I found two USA outline wagons for £4 and £5 which joined the GP30.

Holly the Cat carries out a close up inspection of this rather strange, to cats anyway, looking thing!

Mrs. Woody may not have got a handbag as a souvenir of the holiday but she did come home with something unusual - a chair! I spotted this at the Norfolk Lavender Farm and we bought it as a spur of the moment thing. Someone has got talent and an ability to think outside of the box to make this 

Having cats this is just perfect but no one gets to sit on it in case the painting gets damaged!

The Muckleborough Tank Museum T34 Tank.

I have been to sunny Norfolk with Mrs. Woody for a few days. It is a beautiful place with many interesting attractions apart from the wonderful scenery and the sea. One of these attractions is the Muckleborough Military Collection just outside of Sheringham on the North Norfolk Coast. It is a large collection of artillery, tanks and hard/soft skinned vehicles. You can even have a ride around the site in a Leyland DAF four wheel drive truck. Not as exciting as the Gamma Goat I went on some years ago but never the less rough enough to need fully harnessed seats, More on that and the other vehicles in another post but today I will highlight the fact that there is a T34 as part of the collection. Anyone having read previous posts will know I am building an Egyptian T34 at the moment and built a Russian one last year so these tanks are of interest.

Whilst building these tank models I am always worried I am not neat enough in my build. However take a look at these pictures to see just how rough these tanks were. It does appear that by accident, my poor modelling skills may have actually produced something more realistic than if I had skillfully constructed the kit into a pristine vehicle! 

Have a look at these to see just how rough the real tank is. Whilst I was taking the photos I also stuck the camera through the open drivers hatch and just blindly pointed it to see what images I would get. Very interesting especially as I built the Italeri kit with the interior in it last year. It is more roomy than I thought it would be!

Brass bearings.

I have had a problem with one of my second hand coaches derailing on an increasingly regular basis. It is always best to carry out an inspection of the track work first just to see that there is no problem there and there was not. Looking at the bogies on the coach I noted that on one of them the wheels had a lot of sloppy movement that meant they were not running true. This was because the plastic bearing face in the bogie frame had worn.

I could have got a new bogie but I had in stock a pack of brass pin point bearings. All I had to do was to put these into the bogies where the pin point axles of the wheel sets locate. In true Woody botch style rather then drill out a suitable hole I used a soldering iron to heat up the brass bearing and in effect 'sink' it into the plastic bogie frame.

Amazingly my botching work!

 Putting the wheels back in the coach runs without derailing - Result!

Kite Flying.

Not the kind on the end of a long line but in this case the bird Red Kite. Out on a bike ride I spotted one hovering in a thermal above a corn field. The I caught site of another and before I knew it there were eight of them. I understand that bird enthusiasts have mixed feelings about them but they do look majestic as they seemingly float in the sky. My camera is not a very good one but there are black dots in the picture below which are the kites and the photo below that is about as close a shot as I could get. The photos may not be much but my memory has these images stored in detail for the rest of my life!

The difference of scale.

No time for model making but the picture below shows the sheer difference in the two most popular scales for military vehicle modelling. The smaller model is an Airfix Sherman Crab in 1/72 scale. The actual tank was a mine clearance tank where the chains on the roller at the front were rotated and set the mines off a safe distance from the tank and cleared a way for following vehicles and troops. I added various parts to enhance the level of detail.

Meanwhile the Sherman behind is an Academy kit in 1/35 scale of a loan lease tank to the Russian army. I added a few details such as tarpaulins laid over the rear of the hull and various bags and sacks formed out of epoxy resin.

Obviously the bigger scale allows more detail but with what I added to the smaller tank it illustrates that you can still get a lot into the smaller scale. The one thing you can see though is that a life time of modelling in 1/76 scale takes up a lot less space than the same collection in 1/35 scale! I won't tell Mrs. Woody about that!

Looking around and getting in close!

Being a volunteer at the Rocks by Rail Museum usually involves being busy. However there are moments when you can spend a bit of time just enjoying the site for what it is - a museum. Not many museums allow you to get so close to the exhibits but Rocks is a hands on place that allows guests to get up close. 

An example of that is how many people can say they have seen the inside of the cab of a steam locomotive. Not that many but here at the Museum I had the opportunity to do just that with this with this Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 locomotive built in Kilmarnock in 1958. 

It may be a small locomotive compared to the large express steam locos but if you can master the controls of this then you could probably drive Flying Scotsman or Tornado too!

Nearly there!

Not much time for model making just recently but I have had a chance to start putting the Egyptian T34 tank together with the figures that came with the kit. I will leave it to the pictures but although there are still things to finish I am rather pleased with it!

Asking questions!

My daily bike ride takes me to some interesting villages and there are some really fascinating buildings which just ooze character and history. This can also whet the apatite for modelling projects when you see the architectural details although with my modelling skills any model of an old building would probably end up looking like a porta-cabin!

This row of houses just cries out to be modelled.

I don't know the history of these but a bit further up the road is this building.

I have known this building for many years and it has always been an engineering works - the true old style works where you could get anything made in metal. 

It looked somewhat derelict this time though. However as I was taking these pictures the owner stepped out and was no doubt surprised to be questioned by a sweaty looking cyclist about the building. However sometimes you have to ask questions to find out things and I learnt a lot about this building. It was constructed in the 1800s as a building for lace outworkers. Situated about 20 miles from Nottingham, which was the lace center of the World at the time, lace was shipped to the village by canal to be hand sewn by outworkers. The canal had a wharf about a mile from the village so no doubt horse and cart brought the products to and from the building. Maybe the wagon from a few blogs ago did this?The building has massive windows as there was no artificial light in those days and candles would not have been a safe option with al that flammable lace. As the lace industry contracted the building was taken over by a local iron stone quarrying company in the early 1900s for maintenance of equipment. Then in the mid 1900s the father of the gent I was talking to bought the building for £600 and opened the engineering works which then was taken over by the son. With no family interest in continuing the business the son has now retired earlier this year and the building will be sold. It would make a superb museum but will no doubt be converted to residential use which at least will see the exterior of the building conserved. However the various additions to the building that have been added over the years will no doubt go so some history will disappear but at least I now know. Never be afraid to ask!

 

  

Might as well be blunt!

Mrs. Woody can sometimes be to the point especially about failures to complete items on her job list for me! However she is never quite as blunt and to the point as the sign I saw on a gate whilst taking Mrs. Woody out for a £3.45 lunch deal! 

Decaling the tank!

Although the MiniArt kit for this Egyptian T34 tank has a multitude of parts it does not have much in the way of decals. Not a fault of the kit but these tanks just did not have much in the way of markings in real life. I am modelling the tank as it was when used in the Suez Crisis in the Autumn of 1956 which is probably the most decorated, in the way of markings, period for the Egyptian T34's. Just four decals are used in a slightly bright shade of green which at least stands out in a desert environment. The decals do add to the model and start to add character.

I did spray a coat of gloss varnish onto the areas where the decals were to be applied to give them a smooth surface to adhere to. The decals themselves were easy to apply and for once I did not end up trying to untangle curled up decals!