It will bee a great spring!

I am not giving any weather predictions as we have snow forecast later this week in the UK but I was somewhat surprised to find this bee in the garden today. 

It must be a sign of a good spring!

Back in the still Winter like Man Cave more work on sorting the track on my Last Great Project 00 gauge layout saw the four loops at the rear sorted. When I initially laid them I just literally made the track fit without too much concern about the finesse of  the geometry. However that is now sorted and as the pictures show there was a need to add additional lengths to make it all align.

With all the addition pieces of track added it looked a lot better. Final alignment will be sorted when I glue the track down on some underlay.

Then of course it needed testing! Or is that just an excuse to play operate trains! It seems to run well! 

Next I need to spring into action with some wiring!

More Track matters!

Before making tracks to my bike ride this morning I had to take a photo which made an amazing sight.

Getting back on track the other track on the Trumpeter L/15 Mörser "Bär" had been glued to the upper wheels the other day. 

Having been busy with other things I only got round to removing the various ice cream and other sticks today which revealed further success! Amazing. Just need to weather the tracks now.

Still with tracks, but of the model railway type, work continues on finalising the track on my My Last Great Project 00 gauge layout. In my usual, I have a vision in my mind but no firm plan way, there has been a lot of moving track about and trying different formations out. I think I am now there though. 

One of those things I needed to get right was that the sidings were long enough to take a rake of wagons. In general any rake of wagons on the inner loop will be no longer than 10 wagons. Luckily there was just the right space left!

Things are on track to come together! Now I better make tracks for the kitchen and see what I can make for Mrs. Woody's dinner!

Back to track matters!

Lots of track related matters in my life at the moment and the Trumpeter L/15 Mörser "Bär" has had the other track stuck to the wheels as described yesterday. It is set to one side for the glue to fully go off. 

That is one track matter and cycling is another where I am tracking my mileage as I always do. With the warmish weather over the last few days I have managed 49 miles this weekend which is a good start to February bring the months total up to 60miles. Looking back through my blog I can see January this year was better than last month with 267 miles as opposed to 207 last year but a far cry from the 360miles I did in January 2022. I knew this blog had a use!

The other track matter is related to my 00 gauge Last Great Project layout. Having done a fair amount of track setting, wiring and ballasting last year on the viaduct section, the layout has not really progressed much in the last few months. I spent the last part of 2023 bringing Chalkdon my 009 layout to a near finish so time for the 00 gauge layout was limited. The start of this year saw me scratch an itch to glue plastic together so the Italeri Kangaroo and the Trumpeter L/15 Mörser "Bär" have occupied most of January. And, sometimes it is like that - you have to be in the right mood and frame of mind to move on with a project and I am now in that zone with my 00 gauge layout. I have started to sort out the circuit's passing loop and sidings. They were laid very roughly to shape and the trains did run but before I start to wire it, make the breaks in the track at base board joints and ballast the track it needs to be just right! So lots of measuring and looking at odd angles to see the curves and straights with some new pieces of track being fitted to make it flow properly and hopefully enable the trains to run without derailments!

You have to start somewhere and taking apart what is there is the start.

With some careful measurements I ahve managed to get the right geometry to the track.

I need to turn my attention to the other end of the loop next and then the sidings which do need some serious work to make them right! At least I can track my progress on my blog!

Having mulled it over!

It has been a few days since the Trumpeter L/15 Mörser "Bär" was last reported on with the problems with the tracks. Having mulled the matter over and having Mr Beecham also mention the same solution I was thinking about, the upper length of the tracks have been glued to the tops of the running wheels. UHU glue was used and the tracks were pushed onto the glue by some carefully placed shims - mainly ice cream sticks!

Having been left a few hours, the various shims were removed and thankfully the track sat as more or less intended. It just needs weathering but it looks a lot better then it did. Just the other side to do!

As I had some time I decided that it was time to rn a few trains. My enthusiasm was somewhat curtailed by the continual derailment of a coach. It was not the track as it happened in random places. It was time to investigate and I had suspicions that it was related to one of the bogies. I have in my colection of model making tools this handy pair of items. A wheel back to back gauge and some axle bearing reamers which I thought would be useful to dig out before getting into the coaches problems.

Looking at the bogie there were signs that the wheels were not rotating easily and that the bogies swing was not smooth and it could not swing fully in one direction - enough to cause the derailment issues. Taking the bogie off the underframe to the coach revealed Bachmann's close coupling system with some dust and debris in it. Once cleaned out things were better.

I decided to check how easily the wheels turned - not very! Out came the axle reamer which cleared some crud out of the bearings.

With both wheelset bearings done the wheels spun much more freely. I thought that I would also take the opportunity to check the back to back measurements which is the distance between the back of one wheel to the back of the other. Too wide and the wheels  ride over the rail, too narrow and the wheels fall off the rail. It should be, for normal 00 gauge, 14.4 to 14.5mm. I could use a micrometer to measure it but handily the gauge I have is set at 14.5mm and forcing it into the gap between the wheels revealed that these wheelsets were a bit too narrow. By pushing the gauge in, the wheels, which are a push fit onto their axles, moved out to the correct distance. 

With that done and everything reassembled, an uneventful but pleasant running session took place! Just right to be able to mull over what I doo after finishing the  L/15 Mörser "Bär".

Hornby Jinty

Mr Beecham, he of cycling and model making prowess, dropped this Hornby Jinty off for me to have a look at. He had bought it for the bargain price of £29 which given its condition and that it ran was a real scoop! He said it was a bit noisy and I said I would have a look.

 First thing was to get the body off which with these older Hornby models is easy as there is only one screw!

With the body removed there was a lot of oil - too much. These mechanisms only need a few tiny drops in the appropriate places. Too much and it just flies about and gets onto the pickups and into the motor - not good.

I removed the base plate which was soaking in oil.

The pickups were not looking too good either!

With cotton buds, making sure no fibers were left in the mechanism, I cleaned up the excess oil and cleaned the wheels and pickups.

With that cleaned up and put back together I turned attention to the motor. It is one of Hornby's XO series. Three pole design and fairly bullet proof but being three pole it is not the smoothest running nor quietest!

With the brushes removed the commutator revealed itself as being a bit mucky.

Cotton bud and IPA cleaned that up. You can see how dirty it was from the cotton bud.

I then took the motor out to clean the gears.

Clean gears require a few drops of oil so out came the special gear oil designed for the job and harmless to plastics.

With that the body went back on and it was onto the layout for s test.

It is, as I suspected i would because of the characteristics of the XO motor, noisy but it does seem to run a bit better and can even get down to a reasonable crawl for a model about 40 years old as this video shows!

Lets get covered!

A great day at the Rocks By Rail Museum where I came away with a sense of achievement. The achievement was working with the rest of the volunteers in almost getting the new roof fitted on the plant shed. About three quarters of it is now in place and it should only need a few more hours work to finish it and get covered! 

With a group of us working together it was a case of bringing in a roofing sheet, raising it in place on the elevating platform and then fastening it to the steel roof framework. Sounds easy but a great deal of hard work and I am shattered this evening!

This is where we started this morning with half of one side already done.

By mid day we had one side finished. That elevating platform made life a lot easier!

By the end of the day we were just over halfway up on the other side.

Looking good from a distance and hopefully it will be finished in the next few days!

As I had to get some things from the Restoration Shed I took a few minutes to admire John's numbering on the newly bodied three plank wagon. It does finish it off very nicely. Not sure what his reaction will be when this ultra clean wagon goes into service and gets dirty and scratched! Maybe it should go in the plant shed getting covered by the new roof?

Damm good thrashing!

Its been a busy, but non model making, day here at WMD! Probably best with my frustration with the tracks of the Trumpeter L/15 Mörser "Bär" that I highlighted in yesterdays post. I was reminded of my frustration as I looked at a present (in the picture below) given to me by Mrs. Woody some years ago when she bought it off a second hand stall (or as they are now seemingly known as pre-loved stalls!) when we visited a show somewhere years ago. Those of you who recall the Fawlty Towers series on TV with John Cleese starring as Basil Fawlty may recall in one episode he had car troubles. His mechanical abilities limited, he threatens to give it a Damm good thrashing! Having finally lost it with the car breaking down for the umpteenth time, he rips off a branch from a tree and then proceeds to use it to thrash the car. The model issued by Corgi records that moment and I think it captures it well. Needless to say it didn't fix the car but probably made him feel better which I am wondering if I would feel if I gave the L/15 Mörser "Bär" a thrashing! Probably not but Mrs. W would find it amusing!

I knew I would have problems!

I hinted yesterday that I thought that the tracks for the Trumpeter L/15 Mörser "Bär" would cause me problems when fitting them. I was right! The first part of permeantly fitting the wheels went well enough.

Fitting the tracks was not to good! I had to stretch them but they are warped.

I packed both sides with ice cream sticks! The idea was to try to persuade the tracks to straighten out.

Things have improved a little but I am going to have to glue the upper length of tracks to the wheels. You may notice the grey wheel hub which is a spare from the kit as I have mislaid one of the painted ones! I will have mull over options for the tracks!

On track to complete!

The Trumpeter  L/15 Mörser "Bär" is nearly complete with the main components left to finish it being the tracks. I was aware that the kit supplied tracks are the 'rubber band' type but I must admit having got them out of the box I was a bit disappointed in the quality. They are not the best tracks I have had in a kit and probably rate as the worse! The rubber is not particularly pliable and the jointing of the ends is not the best. Superglue appears to be the only adhesive that will bond the ends so that is what I have used. 

As they come in the kit they are moulded in a black rubber that requires painting so I gave them an initial coating of grey.

Once dry the grey was overcoated with a thin coat of Vallejo rust paint. It will tone down with some weathering powders. 

I have a feeling that fitting them is not going to be without problems but that is for another day. In the meantime I am thinking positive thoughts that I am indeed on track to complete the model!