Seeking coolness!

Tuesday and its a day at Rocks By Rail where mower, hedge trimmer and me pit our stamina against the sun and heat. The sun and heat eventually won against me, the mower and hedge trimmer could have gone on, but not until I had at least carried out a fair amount of vegetational butchery!

The strange thing is that you would think in such heat and sunshine a building made out of corrugated iron would be like a large scale oven. However the restoration shed is like stepping into a air conditioned room - lovely and cool! So I had a quiet half hour in there enjoying the coolness and doing a short video on what is in there to post on my YouTube channel.

Whilst in there I was reminded that Elizabeth the 0-4-0 steam loco is still awaiting reuniting with her cab and water saddle tank so I ventured outside to seek them out. I think it will be next year before she is finished but she will be a cool loco when finished!

Was it twelve months ago or eleven?

I never kept a diary as a youngster so it was a strange step for me when a few years ago I started this blog primarily as a way to record what I have been up to rather then rely upon my memory as well as to prove to Mrs. Woody that I had been getting on with at least some of her list of jobs for me! I have informed a bewildered Mrs. Woody on many occasions that my memory is fine and I never get things wrong and even the one time l though I was actually wrong I wasn't! Interestingly though, the blog has proved that my memory can actually get things wrong and the reality is that like most people my memory is not as accurate as I thought and this blog is a way of going back and actually seeing the facts in cyber print. Take today for example. Out on my bike ride this morning, early to avoid the heat, I took this photo to show that the sheep knew it was going to be hot.

In my mind I took more or less the same picture twelve months ago when it was a hot weather period and I was convinced it was more or less to the day that I took this one last year.

Actually going back through the blog the photo was taken and the blog posted on the 11 July 2022 as evidenced by clicking here. Well there you go! My memory was semi right but a month almost to the day out! The worth of the blog is proved! To my mind anyway so I was not wrong in starting the blog. There is a lot of convoluted logic there which will keep Mrs. W amused if nothing else!

Back then I was also building the MiniArt T34 Egyptian tank which seems a lot longer ago then a year. However lets get back to the present and progress on the Italeri DAF 95 Canvas Truck. Today I decaled the cargo body. Sometime ago Kit Form Services had a clear out and there were bargains to be had and of course I ended up with things that I knew would come in handy one day. These included these part decal sheets.

The sheets are for a fictional UK company (I must try the phone number just to see!) and were originally designed to fit a tractor and trailer set up. I had it my mind though for some time that the trailer ones would, with a bit of compression, fit the cargo body. A quick test with the various parts cut out confirmed that my hopes.

With that confirmed and having already sprayed the matt paint of the canvas with gloss varnish to aid the application process, the decals were dipped into a water filled ice cream container that I had had to empty - well it was a hot day!

Applying them to the cargo body was not the easiest thing to do as I had to do a lot of measuring to make sure they at least looked straight and centered. After a few hours this is what it all looked like and I am pleased with the result.

The rear of the cargo body required some custom cutting of the decals but I think it works.

I thought that the blue cab decals that came with the set did not really work on the green cab and with such prominent advertising on the cargo body why would the cab also be liveried up? I did however apply the ISO 9002 decals as a token gesture to some cab adornment. Not sure if it works so it may come off once I have thought about it a bit more.

All the decals were treated to a coating of Micro Sol to aid their adhesion and setting.

Hopefully if I can remember I need to also treat the decals to a coat of semi matt varnish. If I forget I can always look back on this blog in a few months time!

Your hot!

Out early on my bike ride to a) avoid the later heat of the day and b) as I was working at the Rocks By Rail Museum for most of the day, I dropped into a local shop to pick up a newspaper. I was greeted by one of the staff saying to me 'Your hot!'  Such phraseology related to me is something you do not hear! I have a face for radio. However for a brief moment I felt flattered. Then the next four words, which came a second or two after, brought everything back to ground level for me when the words 'from your bike ride' were uttered! Oh well - Woody is not a pin up!

Back to the reality of the Museum, if you have ever been on a sunny day you may well appreciate the suntrap the line is. Today was no exception with temperatures outside around 30C to 32C (almost 90F) on the concrete areas. Despite the heat enticing many to visit the cooler coast there were still a fair number of visitors. Steam always attracts the visitors and that is what was running today which I guess, unlike me, really makes steam hot in so many ways!

It may be a fairly open cab but it was hot in there. You can see the discarded drinks cans to the right of the firebox where the crew attempted to keep hydrated. 

However by this afternoon Stephen and Thomas had to seek shade and cool off!

That gave the rest of us a chance to do the same without looking as though we were slacking!

Trevor, John and Geoff take a brake by the brake van!

Trevor probably thinking a cooling pint in the pub beer garden would be nice!

However in the cool of the Sundew Cafe although there were plenty of snacks and cakes, ice creams were a good seller with stocks reduced to just two. I will need to replenish that next week.

This sort of weather brings out the topless cars but George not having such a vehicle has the next best thing with his cab-less Fergie tractor - brilliant!

Looks like I could be hot in temperature terms tomorrow from the weather forecast!

Roped and exhausted!

I can put you at rest - Roped and exhausted is not the opening line of a seedy Woody novel! It does however refer to the latest work on the Italeri DAF 95 Canvas Truck where the rope that fastens the canvas to the cargo body has been painted and the exhaust and its various parts has been fitted to the engine and chassis.

Painting the ropes was to be blunt a real pain. Fine paint brush and magnifier were the favoured tools and the grey paint was applied as neatly as I could. I did however have the pot of green paint as used to paint the canvas to hand to tidy up the inevitable misapplications! It took a few hours to do the four sides but it did actually get easier as I went along and developed a technique and discovered that with the hot weather I needed to refresh the paint every ten minutes or so as it was drying out.

The exhaust and battery box cover are now in place so the last remaining cassis part is the air intake filtr box and inlet pipe to the engine.

Well after all that painting I am exhausted and as I have been roped into working at the Rocks By Rail Museum tomorrow I think it is time to get some shut eye!

Things are getting interesting!

The chassis of the Italeri DAF 95 Canvas Truck is just about there which means things are getting interesting on this model. 

First off the chassis straps on the fuel tank have been painted red to match the chassis. I did actually mask up the tank to do this not trusting my paint brush skills on this one.

At least with the masking I did not have to worry about being neat!

And with the masking removed there are just a couple of small touch up jobs but overall I am happy with that especially as the camera's resolution is far better then most peoples eye sight!

With the engine and gearbox weathered as well as the chassis it was time to start bringing parts together. The fuel tank was mounted with a couple of spots of superglue. The dual rear wheel sets have been glued together and the tread of the tyres rubbed down to give them a worn appearance. The spare wheel is mounted to the chassis as well. The engine and prop-shaft are also now glued in and this is what it looks like now - I am modestly impressed!

In my usual impatient way I had to test mount the cab, front valance and cargo body just to get an impression of what the finished model will look like.

Still lots to do but I think it is looking good!

The weather is nice so I will do some weathering!

After a bit of a dull start and a bike ride that was not the warmest mid morning the sun came out and it began to warm up. I had planned a day of sorting things out in the WMD HQ loft and garage which Mrs. Woody refers to as the junk repositories but the weather just said come outside. So I did! So that Mrs. W does not think I frivolously wasted a day sun bathing I did cut the hedges and did some weeding. I did at one point wonder whether WMD HQ was going to have an over night visitor when I found this young crow that seemed lost.

My temporary guest however made his way up to the greenhouse roof after an hour and was crowing which attracted his mother and off they went.

Congratulating myself on a good job done and won't Mrs. W be impressed and that my potential overnight guest had found his mother, I had a leisurely hour in the man cave to get out of the sun - don't want heat stroke from my exertions! 

Todays job was to start weathering the engine and chassis of the Italeri DAF 95 Canvas Truck. It is not a pristine truck but is cared for so is generally clean but is grubby on the unseen and difficult to reach parts. At the moment I am using my favoured dilute black wash to highlight edges and bolts.

Before...

After.

Subtle but it makes a difference.

Looks like the weather will be good tomorrow as well so looks like I will be doing more weathering! This is getting confusing!

Some light relief!

Continuing the build of the Italeri DAF 95 Canvas Truck gave me some light relief by fitting the lights! The various indicators brake and side lights clear castings have been painted with Tamiya clear red and orange paints. Where the headlights and fog lights are the body parts have already been painted silver giving that effect of a reflective backing to the light unit.

Whilst I had various clear paints out I put some green in the  airbrush and painted the sun visor.

Talking of light relief, todays bike ride which I took for light relief, took me past these rather beautiful poppies in the middle of nowhere that I just had to take a picture of.

Instatnt gratification!

It is a Tuesday so it is a Rocks By Rail Museum day for me. Arriving on site this morning I found this, which I thought was fly tipping, in the car park. Someone, to my mind, had got instant gratification, by dumping their rubbish!

However, it was not fly tipping but someone who had dismantled their somewhat derelict garden shed donating it to the museum as kindling for the steam locos! Apparently the loco crew were most excited by its donation! There you go - one persons rubbish is another's gold as the saying goes and no doubt they still got gratification from the donation!

Back to the reality of the summer months with grass and hedges growing I was out as usual with lawn mower and again the cordless hedge trimmers. Amazing what you can do in a few hours. This was just part of todays vegetation butchery! 

Before....

 

After...

This is the view that always makes the day seem worthwhile when I can look up the carpark and see acres of cut grass - just waiting to grow again! 

That is the thing about grass cutting - it is instant gratification! For the projects in the restoration shed gratification can take months, years and even in some cases decades! John has been progressing quickly with the restoration of the Shark brake van but so far this is about two months work. It has come on a long way but it certainly is not instant gratification. Latest work has involved the replacement of the running boards and painting of the chassis.

Whilst taking the photos John was busy at the work bench and always being nosey of an inquiring nature I had to find out what he was doing. John is one of those guys who has so much experience of things that he always has a novel way of doing things and you always learn from him. Today he was cutting bolts from a length of threaded rod. 

All had to be the same length and when cutting threaded rod you also run the risk of damaging the thread. Johns solution - simply thread the bolts onto the rod at the required length and then cut to length. All the bolts will be the same length and the already threaded on nuts mean that they can be unscrewed from the rod clearing cut the cut thread which is a lot easier then trying to thread nuts onto the cut rod. Brilliant and in this case instant gratification in getting the bolts made! I like it!