Frustrations!

I have decided that my 009 narrow gauge layout Chalkdon needs some use. I literally have not run a train on it for about 6 months! Too many other projects on the go and I sometimes just put some aside thinking I will leave that for a week or so and go back. Unfortunately that week or so turns into months or years and in some cases decades! However that is me and the way I work but I think the last time I ran a train on Chalkdon it was the West Highland Railway Baldwin. It is a sound chipped loco but I now recall it was not running very well, stalling and refusing to run. I further now recall that was the reason I parked it and the layout up in frustration thinking I will leave it a week and come back to it in a better frame of mind. Well even having left it 6 months that loco still was not running properly so it was time to get the screw drivers out!

You can tell just how long the loco has been static by the amount of dust on it or should I actually say that is weathering!

I was fairly certain that the issue was with the electrical pickups from the wheels. These are contained on the base plate so this was unscrewed. The pickups were dirty and twisted so work with some rubbing alcohol and some tweezers were used to bend the pick ups back into a shape that would make continual electrical contact with the wheels and therefore power from the track.

There were frustrations with dealing with small parts and I did loose a spring that went off somewhere never to be found until a time when I am not looking for it. Luckily I had a feeling that the spring from an N gauge coupler would fit so a wagon was raided for the spring. It did fit and I will find another replacement for the wagon - promise!

Anyway, despite that frustrations the work I did has certainly made the loco run a lot better. Its not fully sorted but definitely a lot better and more importantly no where near as frustrating! Despite its faults I can not help but love the looks of this loco. It just needs a crew now which I am sure I will find frustrating to fit!

If I had a hammer!

Well actually I do have a hammer - several in fact - and today my large lump hammer got some use at the Rocks By Rail Museum!

First off was the cover door to the hydraulic pump on Harriot the JCB. The red arrow shows where it should be but following some, should we say, slight mis-maneuvering, it is bent!

It had been bent some time ago and being thick metal was not going back into shape very easily. In fact the only way to get it back to shape was to cut along part of it with an angle grinder to free the flat side so that it can be beaten back into some resemblence of a flat panel. Once that is achieved it then needs welding back together. Simple when you just say it but not so easy n reality. Rob did the angle grinding and I have started the beating with my trusty large lump hammer!

You can see just how bent it is by the fact that straightening the edge has pulled it away from the curved part. With more brute force and welding it should be OK!!!

Before having time to do too much hammering and creating a lot of noise, Rob suggested, probably for the sake of everyone's hearing, that we ought to go up to the drag line and try to fully close the rear doors before the onset of Winter. Great idea and it was hammer time again! The problem was the middle door was jammed. Not sure why it was jammed but it needed moving to the right to weatherproof the engine.

Rob had hoped that his improvised car jack would do the business! 

As you can see it had possibilities and my hammer even played a small part! However it did not do the job !

Therefore it was hammer time! That, a bit of wood and me hitting it, without actually hitting me or Rob, had the door slowly moving into place. 

It needs more work but for now and over Winter it will do!

You can tell how far we moved it by that stripe of unfaded red lining and maroon paint to the left of the door. Only took us a couple of hours!

Back at the restoration shed I did notice that John has made further progress with the wagon with the end planks ready t go on and the sides are now up.

I wonder if he needs anything hammering!

  

20 years apart but both look good!

One of those days where the time to do any model making was, well, just not there! However I did have a chance to compare my Hornby Class 86 loco in Virgin livery that I recently converted to DCC with its British Rail Blue counterpart. 20 years or so separates the liveries and possibly the models too which shows just how good the original design was and how well the models have faired. I think it is one of those iconic designs that looks good in what ever livery it is but that's my bias! Anyway I just enjoy looking at them on the layout.

Anchors away!

Well, hopefully not literally away but they are on the vehicles with ropes fastening them to the deck so that they actually anchor if needed! Its been a day of adding small parts but the Panzer Ferry is coming on . The boat hooks certainly add a splash of colour. A few more parts to add to the upper parts of the vehicles and then it is how to add the chains fastening the pontoon to the vehicles. It would also be good to add a suitable vehicle to the pontoon but I am jumping ahead of myself! In the meantime a pew pictures of where I have got to.

Boat hooks!

Further work on the Panzer Ferry kits which has seen the boat hooks painted up in the white and red suggested in the plans and shown on the kit box art work. Not necessarily a good choice of colours if you are trying to camouflage a vehicle from the enemy but then who am I to question! The decals have also been applied which totaled eight in total so not too much stress there. I think it will be time to mount the anchors next so I need to find some scale rope to tie to them. Strangely there is no mention or illustration in the instructions of anything that would connect the anchor to the vehicle. I cannot see much use in an anchor with no rope!

 

The Panzer Ferry back on the workbench!

It is back on the work bench and it has been some time since I last worked on the Panzer Ferry kits so it took me some time to re-establish in my mind and with the instructions and the models in front of me exactly where I am with them. As always it is the small items I need to finish. There are a few small parts that need to be painted and fitted as well as the transfers needing to be applied. 

With that in mind it was time to go through the sprues and find the parts I need. Not so easy as you may think as there are so many surplus parts to the kits that what I actually needed has taken some finding! I have located what I need, there are others but I will return later for those. 4 boat hooks, 4 hull rubbing strips, an anchor and a pully were prepared for painting.

Being cold in the Man Cave is not the best for paint application or drying but hopefully these parts will be ready tomorrow.

I also applied some gloss varnish to the vehicle hulls where the decals need to apply. This will make them easier to apply and they should also set better.

Just hoping it warms up tomorrow!

Signal box progress.

Whilst Mrs. Woody basked in the warmth of inside I spent some time in the Man Cave where I manly put up with the cold! Its not that I don't have a heater in there but if I am only in there for an hour it makes little sense in turning it on as it would be getting warm as I left. If I am in there for several hours it makes sense to turn on the heat. However my argument that I should spend more time in the Man cave will probably not work on Mrs. W! 

However today did see the glazing finished on the Peco signal box kit and most of the parts are together. I still need to finish the interior with the control desk, seat and signaler so the roof is still loose and the balcony railings need to be glued to match the stairs but otherwise it is looking good.

It certainly does not look like a conventional signal box!

No model making today!

Just one of those days when the opportunity to get some model making just did not arise! 

A combination of things such as a garage door that got stuck open and took two hours to get closed, a shopping trip for a few small items that turned a two hour trek with two trolley loads and it being one of those cold days when you just want to stay in the warm, meant that I have stayed close to this rather than go in the Man Cave!

However staying warm by this does give me the opportunity to take a look at the latest WMD YouTube video - just in case I forgot what it was about and it should inspire me to get back out into the Man Cave soon!!!

Free wood!

Don't say I don't take Mrs. Woody out on some unique trips. Today it was a trip down a local road where I had seen on a bike ride that the council had felled some trees and left the wood for locals to collect. Well I am local so once back home I announced to Mrs. W we were going out. I think she though it was retail therapy time but soon realised it was her muscles I was after! We came back home with a car load that given a couple of years will be ready for the wood stove much to Mrs. W's delight. I wonder if she will now cut them up and spilt them to save me the bother?

Back at WMD HQ and away from the logs I managed to progress the Peco signal box. The base to the upper cabin was glued, filled and masked before being airbrushed white.

The windows have now been glued to the rest of the wooden cabin structure and the central control desk, which looks more like it belongs in NASA the in a signal box has been airbrushed grey. There is also a signal man figure and a seat for him to sit in which need further painting. I also started gluing the glazing into the window frames which will at least mean the 00 scale signal man won't be in a draught especially as this modern day type signal box doesn't have a log burner!

Another success - Amazingly!

Another success and I say amazingly because something normally goes wrong but the Hornby Class 86 in Virgin livery now is DCC chipped and works! I had it running on the layout hauling four coaches. It tends to wheel spin with more but these are old Hornby coaches which are not the best at free running.

I do like the livery and it was one of those iconic liveries that came about at initial privatisation of the UK rail industry. You never know there may be some more come and join it but don't tell Mrs. Woody!

With that project finished it is time to return to other half finished projects of which I have many! First off though is the Peco Manyways Signal Box kit. I had posed the various parts together to give the impression of a finished building but they need gluing together and some more painting is required. I have at least made a start!

And this is it!