Even the simplest jobs take time!

Sometimes even the simplest jobs take time as I tell Mrs. Woody on a regular basis. One of those jobs is weathering a model tank. Using my favorite method of an initial pin wash of diluted black paint which I started yesterday and continued today at intervals between a hard labour job, but more on that later, the Italeri SU-100 assault gun is progressing well. The seven track links in grey in the photo fit to the front of the tank. I was sure I had built this when I built the main model but I just cannot find it! No doubt it will turn up as I finish the model. Luckily there were enough spare parts in the kit to make another one which I will now have to paint.

It is amazing how such a simple technique can really make a difference to how a model looks. The details begin to 'pop' as they say. Those exhausts will be getting a coating of soot - the engines were not that clean in burning diesel and certainly would not meet todays emission standards!

The tracks take several washes of the diluted black paint to add some relief to the links. They will be treated to some weathering powders as well when I do the same to the tank. As I said even the simplest jobs take time.

My hard labour today was a session of gardening cutting back trees. I then moved onto the issue of access into the rebuilt conservatory. At the moment this is it!

Not exactly a long term solution! So a step is required which I will build in bricks with slabs on top. Should be a simple job - so I thought! Under the wooden board was the usual builders rubble.

Cleared that and found the drain pipe slightly higher than I thought it would be!

Basically it is too high to build a foundation to lay bricks on. It needs lowering! Hmmm this simple job is becoming a major project! Something to work up to whilst I think about alternatives! It all takes time Mrs. W!

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!