Castellated Hedge!

Some more work on the Italeri SU-100 assault gun. The decals, all two of them, were added without breaking up which was either luck or my coat of varnish yesterday did its job. The tracks received a base coat of  Vallejo rust and now await weathering. Those track guides almost look like castellations on a wall. I also painted the exhausts rust and the saw was given a shine with some metal paint and then some rust added. As I had a little time I also started to add a black wash to highlight the edges of the various surfaces on the tank which brings about some relief to the green overall paint job.

On a separate matter but related to castellations, I was out on a bike ride today. There is a lot of hedge cutting in the farmer's fields at the moment in order to complete the work n=before bird nesting season. Usually my eyes are on the road to avoid the thorns that cause punctures. However my eyes were caught by this section of freshly cut hedge. I thought that the hedge cutter had missed a bit. 

However looking down the rest of the hedge it was obvious that this was an artistic hedge cutter! A castellated hedge. I have seen hedges cut into the shape of an animal before but nothing like this on such a big scale. It will be interesting to see what it looks like once in full leaf. Just hope this doesn't give Mrs. Woody any ideas for our hedge!

Tires or just tired?

Starting off with an update on the Italeri SU-100 assault gun. The tyres on the wheels are now painted in grey. They are rubber in real life but unless you have a brand new tyre or you have treated the tyre with some of those tyre dressing products that seem so popular and make them look as though they are a gloss black, tyres once worn begin to turn grey. I also gloss varnished the areas where the decals are to be applied. If you do not do this there is a danger that the decals with 'silver' once applied. This is where air trapped under the decal on a matt surface looks as though it is frosted. The gloss varnish should provide a smooth surface that does bot trap air - that is the theory! It usually works for me but not always. The kit itself is some years old and decals over a couple of years old tend to degenerate. The outcome is that when you soak them in water to release them from the backing paper the decal can literally break up into many small buts. To try to combat that I also sprayed some varnish on the decal sheet which will hopefully keep the decals together. Again another 'that's the theory' but I will soon find out!

Having got into the swing of clearing up yesterday at the Rocks By Rail Museum I continued closer to home in the WMD HQ garden. The rebuilt conservatory needs a step to be built which means that I have to clear the area of the rubble left and then probably lower the drainage pipe before putting a foundation in for the step.

I have also started trying to claim my lawn back but that is a long job!

Although it does not look much I have been able to a lot of the compacted mud top surface off the grass level. I am guessing I willl be reseeding it at some stage.

Just to prove to Mrs. Woody that I have been busy I lined the 10 bags of rubble up in a spot where she can see them! I am, after all that, just tired now! Strange that - didn't I start this blog taking about tires?

A journey of discovery?

A great day at the Rocks By Rail Museum today. The day started foggy and cold but the sun came out to warm things up and it felt as though Spring is just around the corner. Today was a day to venture into a place unseen for many years - a journey of discovery! The gap between one of the storage containers and the boundary fence had been used as a dumping area for many things but it was impossible to tell what as it was all covered in vegetation with saplings growing through various items and so dense it was impossible to get through. Three of us battled through the vegetation on our journey of discovery.

Clearing out the various items engulfed by vegetation. 

The roofing felt from the container top had long ago degraded and was hanging off and falling onto the ground. Why a container need sroofing felt is beyond me as it looks sound enough.

Under about 3 inches of soil was a concrete slab.

After three hours we cleared as much as we needed and replaced the various items discovered but this time in an orderly manner so that what was there is now clearly visible and most importantly accessible.

So what did we find? An interesting metal sign face and post that could well be useful in the Museum.

A host of fire irons for use in the fire box of a steam engine, a steel locker in parts.

Some wooden posts with steel feet which look as though they should be used for something other then a bed for vegetation to fester on.

Apart from copious amounts of scrap metal the strangest thing that we found was this 20 foot long firebox rake. That is some big steam engine that this was made for! No one has any idea where it came from or what steam engine would have had it. No doubt we will find out one day. In the meantime it is now visible for research for someone to do their own journey of discovery on it!

Catching up!

Anyone who has read this blog over time will probably understand that in Woody's life projects start and then take a long time to finish as other projects are started for reasons that seem credible at the time or Mrs. Woody has a 'must do now' chore or five for me! Today was a day to revisit one of those projects started some time ago. It is the Italeri SU-100 assault gun that Mr. Beecham gave me for Christmas. Construction of the kit was at lightning speed for me and then other things got in the way. So it has sat half painted for a month or so but it received a further dose of paint today. The backs of the wheels and underside were finally painted in Vallejo Russian Green using my airbrush. 

Then I decided it all looked ..... well just too uniform in colour. Weathering will provide some interest but I decided to in effect two tone the tank! This did not involve some form of custom paint job that you might find on  a 1950's classic American car! It does however involve recognising that upper facing panels of tank where day light affects the perceived viewed colour our eyes see look lighter than those in shadow which are darker. To achieve this a few drops of Vallejo white paint were mixed into the Russian Green to lighten it. The the tank was held such that the airbrush was at right angles to the upper part of the tank. Airbrushing at this angle meant that only those upper facing parts of the tank were painted in this lighter tone of paint. Although the weather is warmer than of late the paint is still taking some time to dry but the picture below when compared to the one above shows the effect I wanted. The wet look will go as the paint dries.

Once dry and when I start weathering it the paint will take on a darker look but it certainly gives some contrast. Progress but I still have a lot of catching up to do!

It has a name!

I have a small and very amateur YouTube channel. It is something I started at the beginning of the year as a bit of an experiment. I just use a phone camera and have no script so it is not a slick channel. However I have no desires to be a YouTube star/influencer/idiot so it is there just as a further record of my mishap model making activities and various things connected - or even not connected! If viewers are entertained that is brilliant but more likely my content will be prescribed as a cure for insomnia!

Anyway, enough of that but there is a connection. I have made a short video about my 009 narrow gauge layout. It really made me think it is time I named the layout so on the spur of the moment whilst filming it the name Chalkdon came into my mind. There is a quarry which looks as though it mines 'chalk' and it is in a hill which in Celtic days a hill was known as a 'don'. It seems good to me so that is what it is called. Having had a few moments to establish which residents of the World I have offended by naming my layout after their village/town/city it appears that there is nowhere called Chalkdon! I even got this message in Google Maps - Google Maps can't find place name "chalkdon" Amazing! Hopefully that means letters of a legal nature will not be coming my way over this!

Now the layout has a name and it also has a video about it available here....

Putting things back.

I spent a couple of hours putting things back on my 009 narrow gauge layout. I had stripped the layout down when I rebuilt the baseboards to my 00 gauge layout and since back in October of last year the layout has looked as though it has been subject to a site clearance for a new development.

The new backscene added to the atmosphere.

Back with everything that was taken off and it is looking more like a rural scene.

I also took the opportunity to run a few trains and why not! After all that is the whole point of the layout!

The landscape is .....blocked drains!

You start the day with a plan and then something changes it! The plan was to have a bit of a clean in the house to earn a few bonus points with Mrs. Woody. Then spend the rest of the day on a bike ride through some pleasant local landscape and then out to the Man Cave and attach the landscape backscene to the backing board for my 009 narrow gauge layout and then get on with some other long over due model making activities. 

The cleaning got done but without going into too much detail it was obvious during some of that activity that there was a drain issue! It has been a long time since WMD HQ has had a drain issue but it has in the past so I knew which manhole to have a look in..... Nice! This was not the sort of landscape I had in mind for today!

Luckily WMD HQ tool store includes a set of drain rods so these came out of their dust encrusted bag. To cut a long story short the blockage was next door and having lifted three man hole covers and rodded it all the blockage was gone and so was most of the day. However at least things were back to normal in the manhole and I can legitimately claim bonus points from Mrs. Woody for doing this rather unpleasant task! 

With what remained of the day I did at least attach the backscene to the back board for the 009 narrow gauge layout. I used Spray Mount spray glue that is a specialist adhesive that is made for mounting pictures to backing material. It does allow you to lift and reposition which is a great innovation when you are as ham fisted as me! So how do things look?

It certainly adds a new perspective to the layout and as I said before both the landscape itself and the colours match the layout really well. Getting in closer things to my mind look even better.

So is it all that I was expecting? Well the backscene is great. The foamboard back board to which it is mounted may not have been my greatest choice in material. It is light in weight but structurally it is vulnerable to knocks and bashes. If I had a piece of 3mm plywood long enough to cover the rear of the layout in one piece that may have been a better solution. In  theory as I have used Spray Mount as an adhesive I might be able to reattach the backscene to a plywood backing if I went down that route. For the moment however I will live with what I have made. Never be hasty in changing things as I have often said to Mrs. W. Sometimes the landscape you can see is better then what you may wish for but have not yet seen! Woody being philosophical on a Friday!

Oversized jigsaw puzzle!

A day at the Rocks By Rail Museum today which is always something to look forward to. Sometimes the day is planned out and I know what I am going to be doing and other times it can be a total surprise. Today was one of those surprise days! Last week I thought that the project to create a shed between two containers to store Harriot the JCB and the CAT was well underway and I could get on with other things. Due to a shortage of bodies at the Museum today I got pulled back into this project. We finished levelling off the hardcore to form the floor of the shed. 

It was nice that the work area was a sun trap!

Then it was time to move onto the shed part of this project. We have a head start - or do we? We have a corrugated shed in modular dismantled form that has come from Scunthorpe. The problem is that there is no plan or picture of the erected shed. Therefore we are trying to build a jigsaw with no picture or as I said building an Airfix Lancaster bomber with the instructions from a Spitfire kit. Either way this is a problem. We thought that we had it figured out with the spray painted numbers which should provide some clue as to what parts match up with each other.

Only thing is there no matching 5 and 6 or 4 and 7 depending on how they were numbered. Even when you put parts together that look as though they go together they end up to big or small for the rest of the panels. A 14 foot wide front panel does not match the 12 foot wide roof trusses! So it looks as though we will have to make it up as we go along hoping that we can produce what we want with this kit of parts. It may not be that Lancaster bomber when we finish but it should at least be a bomb-proof structure! 

At least when I go next week I should know what I am involved in even if I don't know what I am doing, but as Mrs. Woody would say, no change there then!

I am a Rocket Man!

I have not tried to emulate Elton John with that great song of his but today I was out with Mrs. Woody taking her for some lunch. I diverted, as you do in such cases, to a close by model shop. I knew they had this in stock at a very reasonable price.

If you know model railways you will have gathered that this box comes from the 1960's. It was a time when Triang put some thought into the play value of model railways as at that time they were very much aimed at children. They had all sorts of innovative operating things such as the mail carriage that picked up and dropped off mailbags trackside. Then there was the giraffe wagon where the head and neck of the animal stuck out of the top of the wagon. By means of a trackside switch the giraffe would pop its head back in the wagon to avoid an overhead obstacle such as a tunnel. There were other things too but this is something I wanted as a child but I think the twelve shillings and threepence price about £0.62 in todays money) that is still on the box was out of reach of my pocket money in those days. However many decades later I have it! I am a Rocket Man! Or, as Mrs, W would say, Child!

That's right - it is a rocket launching wagon! Inside the box is this very good condition item....

It is all there, buffers, couplings and posts on the wagon but most importantly a working missile launcher with rubber tipped missile - there was some thought about safety even in those days. To set it up, you push the spring on top of the yellow launcher back. It locks onto a protrusion from the grey leaver to the left of the red wheel. The rocket slides on the yellow launch guide. Elevation is set by loosening the red wheel, lifting the yellow launch guide to the desire position and then tighten the red wheel and it is set to be fired. To launch the rocket just pull back the grey lever like a trigger. It may all seem so simple compared to todays things that children have but back in the day these sorts of things were brilliant! 

Run this at a model railway exhibition and it will upset a lot of the purists but delight many others!

Mrs. W did enjoy her lunch as I did so a good day! Maybe I'll launch a celebratory rocket!

Time for a hobby?

Mrs. Woody and myself spent today out and about. Mrs. W wants some form of lounging chair for the rebuilt conservatory in which she can relax and watch me do the garden! There are some nice chairs out there which are positively very loungeable (is that a word?) but I can tell this is going to be something that takes its time to decide on. Well for me anyway, although I think Mrs. W may have different ideas!

In the meantime I have not been able to progress with the backscene on my 009 narrow gauge layout today. Given I need to be outside to spray some glue to hold the backscene to the backboard, I probably won't be able to do anything now until Friday or the weekend due to other day time commitments. As anyone who may have dipped into this blog before will probably have gathered I possibly have far too many projects on the go and progress on them is usually measured in geological terms! Still, better to have too many projects going then to sit in a lounging chair all day! Oops! Hope Mrs. W is not reading that!

Talking of projects on the go, my eye was drawn to a die cast model by Vanguard that Mrs. W bought for me some years ago. In some ways it sums up my world of model making with half finished projects on the go and feline friends assisting hindering and limited time. 

It is a characterful model and I do like it.

We all have stages in life where your hobby or hobbies take a bit of a hit from a lack of time or pressures from other things going on in life. However hobbies are to be enjoyed in your spare time. If you do them full time they are no longer likely to be a hobby and become a job which probably is not enjoyable either! Anyway that is what I tell myself!