Well Mrs. Woody will be getting chips with her dinner tonight but there has also been more DCC chip work. This time on the Virgin livery Class 86 locomotive. Some interesting wiring but more space then the Britannia class loco I did yesterday.
Not had time to test my installation yet as I have had to make the chips for Mrs. W's dinner! However, in the meantime there is a YouTube video of my work yesterday.
'Do you want chips with that?' is something that is usually heard in the type of eating establishments that I take Mrs. Woody to. You can tell I take her to classy places! However in this case the chips I am talking about are DCC chips for model railway locomotives. Having gone to the Spalding Model Railway Exhibition last weekend it was inevitable that something would come back with me and it did although it also cost me a handbag for Mrs. W in the nearby retail center!
These two are old Hornby locomotives. The Britannia steam loco is a model probably over 30 years old and was made in the UK, whilst the Class 86 Virgin loco is about 20 years old. They cost just £38.50 and £31.50 respectively. Both come from an era prior to DCC. So the question is - Do you want chips with that? - to which the answer is Yes! However I am going to have to wire in the chips myself.
First job was to remove the body of the tender as this is where the motor is. With that off the wires to the motor were removed and desoldered.
Having recovered from the Spalding Model railway Exhibition yesterday I have had time to look through the photos that I took. The quality of the layouts and the trade support were the best yet. Not sure whether attendance was down on my last visit but it never seemed crowded which was nice.
Layout wise I will just deal with two at the moment which caught my eye.
You could not help but be impressed by this 009 gauge layout that had come up from Dorset with the Wimborne Railway Society’s ‘OO9’ Tarrant Valley Railway. I have never seen an 009 layout this long - 43feet! Packed with all sorts of details, its building spans several decades - almost makes me hopeful of completing my layouts!
Always good to see some humour on a layout and this submarine conning tower sticking out of a river made me smile!
The other layout was this 0n30 layout. Pergatory Peak, which is 0 gauge running on 00 gauge track giving a narrow gauge - if that makes sense! An extraordinary layout which captured the Colorado setting so well. There are some photos below but a video clip might just illustrate this 24 foot long layout better.
Yes, it is that time of year when the Spalding Model Railway Exhibition takes place. I have been going, accompanied by Mrs. W, for well over two decades and have seen it grow in stature. This year was no different. Even better than last time with some great layouts on show and I will talk about that tomorrow once I have recovered! In the meantime there is a new video up on my YouTube channel which brings together the recent work I have been carrying out on My Last Great Project 00 gauge layout as well as having some trains running. If you have a need to fill 1 minutes or so then this is for you!!!!
Given the ever growing Mrs. Woody task list for me I am pleased to report that I am coping well! However if Mrs. W is reading this then I am not! However, as well as I may be coping with the task list I have also been coping on the various walls of the bridge abutments. In this case the coping is the coping stones that grace the top of most external brick walls to provide some protection from adverse weather to the otherwise exposed top surfaces of bricks.
I have used strips of balsa to make mine. To highlight the gaps between stones I have used a triangular file, pointy side down, to 'cut' the gaps in the stones.
Well that is another job I have coped with!
Despite the latest storm in the UK I ventured off to the Rocks By Rail Museum where I safely ensconced myself in the Restoration Shed where a few other volunteers were getting on with things. Rob had said that the last time he operated the CAT teleporter the windows were that dirty in the cab it made it difficult to see which is not the best thing when trying to maneuver the vehicle. In view of my recent window cleaning ventures at WMD HQ I therefore took on the job of making the CAT a more pleasurable vehicle to drive!
Dirty!
I even tried to give the cab interior a bit of a clean. It still looks.....well worn but is better then before - honest!
Pete and Pam were busy on the continuing painting of Harriot the JCB. It is like painting the Fourth Bridge. However it is looking a lot better than a few months ago.
Meanwhile Ketton No3 is still moving on. It starts and apparently has brakes that work which is an important operating feature!
Although it did not look as though much was going on I followed the noise of the vacuum cleaner to find Alex deep under the cab floor cleaning the chassis and components of cement dust which had gathered whilst the loco operated at Ketton Cement Works.
With the profiles in place I was able to mark around them with a pencil the shape of the hills. Taking them off again a jig saw was used to cut the hill shapes. As I don't know what exactly I am going to do to the right of the bridge I have left the board at full size. Once decided, and with me that could take some time, that part of the profile will be cut to shape.
With the boards cut to shape they were painted both sides with the Slate Grey paint I used on the other profile boards and then reattached to the baseboards. Although there is still much to do around the girder bridge area the profile boards do bring some harmony to the layout.
Well that title should at least make you think that Woody may have lost it but I will clarify as we go along.
A fair amount of progress today. I had much of the day in the Man Cave - just don't tell Mrs. Woody. It was a wet, cold day so I was not inclined to do much outdoors although I did take advantage of a small break in the rain to go on a bike ride. It was a small break in the rain and the bike ride was cut short after 8 miles as I was getting soaked from the rain which had come back with vengeance. Bad weather appears to be the story of my cycling this year. Last year at this time I had well over 500 miles done whereas this year its 3684 miles. Never mind, November and December could be good!
Anyway, back in the dryness of the WMD HQ Man Cave I was able to review the morning's ballasting operations which had been assisted in drying by Mrs. W's hair drier which had been reliberated from her dressing table!
It was then time to think about getting some greenery on the bare hills. Most people would reach for static grass or flock powders but I wanted a more wild unkempt look so I naturally turned to hanging basket liner! Not what you would think of to model grass but its use has been described before in the model rail press and I have used it before too. Both hills had full strength PVA brushed on them to which pieces of hanging basket liner were pressed into.
It was taken inside to dry and then transported back into the cold Man Cave where Woody took to his haircutting skills! A suede shoe brush was used to tease the fibers up.
It was then down to scissors and hair trimmer to bring about some uniformity yet unkemptness! I certainly would not make a barber and I don't think Mrs. W will ever let me loose on her hair! However as the before and after pictures show of both hills I managed something close to what I wanted!
Just like the barbers there was a fair amount of sweeping up to do afterwards!
I also took the opportunity to add some green to between the tracks. Still more to add but this is a good base.
Putting everything in place temporarily it is looking very much as I hoped for!
