A day at the seaside and that is a strange looking tool!

The past few days have been a bit of an extended birthday holiday for me with quite a few trips out with Mrs. Woody but little time for model making. Things return to the more hum drum tomorrow but we did have a great day out today at the seaside at Skegness or as it is sometimes known Skeg Vegas!

Whilst it may not be Las Vagas it was certainly hot and sunny today and this is September in the UK!

Hot weather calls for ice-cream which was enjoyed by both Mrs. W and me but I have never seen dog ice-cream before now!

Before heading back to WMD HQ we came across this small classic car show. A real mixture with an old Austin and a more modern Porsche at either end of the spectrum! Nice to see though although I think Mrs. W thought I had spent too much time looking!

I did have time to have venture out to the Man Cave and unpack this rather strange looking tool which was a birthday present to myself

The description on the packaging gives it away but this is something I have been meaning to buy for some while now. For anyone reading my posts on building military vehicles they will have gathered I have a love hate relationship with etched parts for these kits. On the one hand they can look very fine and detailed but in the other they are incredibly difficult to bend to the right shapes. This tool should make that easier.

The light grey part is held to the darker coloured base by the black knob. The light grey part has various cut outs and shaped 'fingers' that allow the etched brass parts to be held firm at the point where they are to be bent once inserted between the light grey part and the base - the black knob tightens the two together. The white coloured parts are thin plastic shims that slip under the fastened etch part and enable the part to be levered up so that it bends. 

Probably not the best description of how it is used so when I use it for real, rather then just posing some etched parts at the side of it, I will photo the process. 

The photo below just shows that the top part of the tool can be rotated four ways making it very versatile. 

There are some etched parts on the Panzer Ferry that will need bending so this tool may well be seeing action soon!

Over for another year!

Yes, Woody is a year older today! That is the bad news but the good news is that wont happen for another twelve months!

Anyway, Mrs. Woody got me some lovely things which speak for themselves especially this one!

A really nice bike tool which wil come in handy.

No birthday would be complete without a train or two! Thank you Mrs. Woody - you are the greatest!

Right, I am off for some cake or I wont get anymore until next year!

Making tracks!

Apart from making tracks for the Panzer Ferry where I have started the other side....

I have been taking Mrs. Woody and making tracks for some interesting places.

First off The Priests House at Easton on the Hill. A National Trust Property where you have to go to a local house to pick up the key! 

There is not a great deal to it but a museum on the upper floor is one of the most eclectic collections of things I have ever seen including the history of Colleyweston slate, the tail plane off a WW2 bomb...

..and for those of a certain age the dispised IZAL toilet paper that was more like tracing paper then toilet tissue!

Second place was Rockingham Castle set near to the Northamptonshire/Leicestershire boarder. 

It may not look like the traditional castle but it dates back to the tenth century built by William the Conquer and altered over the years. You can understand why the site was choosen when you look over the countryside - views to die for - and many did over the castles long history! Wish I could build model countryside that good!

Nowadays things are much more tranquil with wonderful gardens to wander through.

Last off has been Bede House at Lyddington. 

Dating from the 1300s it is full of history and character but nothing prepares you for the attic!

It is big! It is impressive! It would make a great model railway room! Somehow I don't think that is going to happen!

Anyway making tracks back to WMD HQ!

The ideal number is 'X plus one'!

Been a busy few days so lets start off with something that has been done during the less busy times - the Panzer Ferry. Yesterdays post showed one side of the tracks in place with pieces of card in place to make sure the sags between the idlers were in the right place. Having removed the card I am pleased to report it looks good!

Talking of yesterday this joined the WMD loco fleet.

It is the Hornby D16 LNER 4-4-0 and if you are interested in the history there is a detailed one on a third party website available by clicking here.. A second hand model bought at a very reasonable price and being 'DCC ready' according to the box (it has an 8pin socket already fitted in the tender) it was a fairly easy job to fit an appropriate DCC chip. Once fitted it ran well and I like it! Even though most of the locos operating on my 00 gauge layout are diesels I do have a collection of LNER steamers so this expands that! 

As I have explained to a puzzled Mrs. Woody on several occasions the ideal number of anything that I collect is 'X plus one' where 'X' is the existing number of whatever I am collecting! Not sure why Mrs. W finds that simple mathematics hard to follow or maybe she is just rolling her eyes out of frustration!

In order to cure her eye rolling I did take Mrs. W back to Easton Walled Gardens again. What struck me as we walked around was the neatness of the hedges grass - unlike my vegetational butchery at the Rocks By Rail Museum! 

I don't think my horticultural skills will be called upon by the walled gardens!

Lets track it!

Much as Mrs. Woody enjoys tracking the progress to delivery of her latest purchase the tracking I am talking about relates to Panzer Ferry. As the build of this kit progresses it has got to the time to build the tracks. I had already started a small section some time ago but now I needed to add to it to get the right hand side finished. The links are individual parts and altogether there are 105 to make each track. I also had to build them around the wheels to get the right bends and sags. 

The way I have achieved that is by using Tamiya cement to assemble the track links. The glue dries enough to keep the links together but is still flexible enough to bend and sag them to the right shape. Some packing ensures the sag stays in place until the cement hardens.

Just the other side to do now although I have then to do it all over again on the sister vehicle to this!

The Panzer Ferry gets dirty!

As a young lad I can remember going on a Saturday morning to the local newsagent, who like most at that time. carried a selection of the 'pocket money' Airfix kits, paint and glue. Great sellers and many of my friends did as I did and deposited their weekly pocket money in the newsagents till in exchange for a kit. Getting home, the plans were glanced at, the parts twisted off the sprue and tube glue liberally applied to parts. A few hours later the kit was built. Sunday saw an assortment of Humbrol paints and less then clean or flexible brushes come out and by the end of the day the model was painted and decals applied. To me these were great models built by me and before school on a Monday! The reality was that they were glue and paint bombs! However we all had to start somewhere. 

Move forward more years then I care to recall and my experience and learning over the years means even those pocket money Airfix kits can take me many days or even weeks to complete now. No more twisting parts off the sprue or applying paint with a near tar brush applicator! That young desire to create something quickly has been replaced by a more measured and matured approach of wanting to produce something that is the best I can - within reason and sanity! That takes time and as I work on the Dragon Kit of the Panzer Ferry I realise that as I am now at the weathering stage. I have probably spent about seven or eight hours on that aspect alone. However despite the time I do enjoy it and each time I do it I gain more experience. It is a therapeutic activity in todays sometimes rushed World. It is probably a good job I enjoy it as I will need to repeat the process when I build the other amphibious tank!

Any way back to the kit and having already started to weathered the sides of the pontoon and tank that process has continued all over both models and includes the wheels.

I have used a mixture of paint brush applied washes and very dilute paint airbrushed at a low pressure to build up some weathering. Being amphibious creates issues in how I weather these two models but to some degree I am assuming that water would leave sediment and general dirt so that is what I have gone for and I think it works.

That clean deck has been dirtied and looks more realistic. This is something that I could never had got my young head around all those years ago building those pocket money Airfix kits!

Putting the two models side by side gives an idea of the size of this and there is still another amphibious tank to add!

I was going to paint the deck grey and then use the hairspray technique to weather it but given how good the wood effect has turned out I am going to leave it. The Panzer Ferry was a prototype so this may well have been the case in real life! That is my excuse anyway!

Possibly some more dirt to add but I need to add the tracks and there are some parts that need to go on the deck such as the engine exhausts and stanchions which will add more interest. Then do I raid the WMD HQ kit stash to find something suitable to put on the pontoon? I better steady myself before I go back to that youthful exuberance of wanting to build models in a day!

Design stupidity?

A day at Rocks by Rail which should have been on Tuesday but I was that shattered after Mondays open day I needed a rest yesterday! No sooner have the two August Bank Holiday events finished then we are advertising the next ones which I have been putting some banners out for.

At the Museum there were, as always, things going on in the restoration shed. Eric, Derek and Trevor were battling to get the air dump valve working on Jean the Sentinel. As with such old things rust is an issue and finding the right imperial sized socket adds to the frustration but they did manage to dismantle it and clean it up to a working condition.

John and Steve had their own battle replacing the accelerator cable on the CAT. You would think that this should be a simple job. However the build of the CAT is such that the designed way to get to the underside of the accelerator is to take the cab off! What should be a ten minute job suddenly becomes a ten hour job! Surely a classic example of design stupidity? However John introduced Mr. Grinder who made a few cuts in the floor allowing a part of it to be folded back sufficiently to allow the accelerator to be removed and the underside accessed.

For me it was the usual grass and hedge cutting and both vegetational items have been growing quickly.

Interrupted by the rain I took shelter in my car!

The rain abated and my vegetational butchery continued to make this area look at least semi cultivated!

Real plastic imitation wood?

Progress on the Panzer Ferry. First off the masking tape covering the wooden deck of the pontoon was removed. Always an anxious time as you wonder if some paint will peel off if there has been seepage under the tape. 

Luckily no peeling and what paint seepage had occurred was only slight.

That was quickly touched in with a fine brush.

The problem with the finish was it was just not like real worn wood! It may have suited the deck of a liner but for a military pontoon it just did not look like wood! So it was time to try to make the plastic imitation wood look real! I started with using some dilute washes of Vallejo Flat Earth paint.

Gradulally adding washes and some dilute black I have got to this stage.

Looking better and more like real wood!

I also started weathering the pontoon and amphibious tank with dilute Flat Earth.

Slow work but adding some character!

Where does time go?

Where does time go? That was what I asked myself as the day drew to an end and yet it seemed as though only an hour or so had passed on a busy bank holiday weekend at the Rocks By Rail Museum. Being busy time just flies by! There were many guests - all of whom seem to have had a great visit from the feedback we got with many saying that they will be back! 

Being a quarry operating day there were both steam brake van rides and quarry trains operating.

It was that busy for me being on the front desk that I had little chance to actually see anything let alone photo much so these are just what I managed to grab in a few quiet moments! 

There are only three more events and then the 2023 season will come to a close - where does time go!