When things just dont go according to plan!

It was worked out in my mind that I would start dealing with the baseboard join and track breaks on the back four loops on my 00 gauge layout. Cut the sleepers off as required, attached already cut copper clad strip, prepare wires and solder track and wires to copper clad strip. Fairly simple which it has to be for my mind to process it!

It started well! Tracks lined up ready for sleepers to be cut off.

Sleepers cut off.

Then things started to go wrong. The copper clad strips should have just slid between the baseboard sub board and the rail itself. They didn't!

Running a wagon over the track with my hand on top told me there was a slight hump in the track. Not good!

I don't really know why there is a hump but I need to deal with it now or running trains in the future will just end with problems emanating from the hump.

I did try the pre-cut sleeper strip to see if that would slide in between the rail and sub base. There was still a hump! I need to ponder. Sometimes it is just better to stop, go away and think about before doing anything rash!

Cut and stick!

My day at the Rocks By Rail Museum began by adapting last years banners for the May Bank Holiday events to reflect this years date. Scissors (good job I was not at home as Mrs. Woody doesn't allow me to use sharp objects!), Double sided tape and a recent find of cut out parts of previous years banners saw the new dates cut to shape and to stick them down the double sided tape was perfect.

Just another 10 banners to hang around the nearby countryside!

After a bit of grass cutting it was time to catch up with what was going on at the Sundew cab. Obviously outside had some primer applied.

However it is inside where the biggest transformation has taken place. The walls and control panel areas have now been painted and Rob was adding the finishing touches to  the floor with a coat of green floor paint. Just hope it doesn't need cutting!

Mind you this seasonally early ladybird likes it!

It was then time for a bit of fun as under Robs eye I had a go in the drag line excavator.

I do enjoy my time doing this and especially when the play pen is still muddy! You can really cut that up and stick the bucket in!

Track and glue!

Back to sorting the sidings out on my 00 gauge layout. More wiring is needed, in fact a lot more wiring as this shot shows - 24 wires!

I am soldering the wires along with the rails to the copper clad sleepers - makes sense to combine one soldered joint.

Before soldering the rails and wires I applied PVA glue where the track would lie.

I did manage to solder three of the tracks - its slow work!

To ensure the glued track stays in place a few weights were added and the load spread over the track with some scrap pieces of plywood.

Hopefully the rest of the soldering should be finished in the next day or so then it is onto the four loops at the back of the board.

Brute force and ignorance!

Sometimes, despite thinking I may have a logical mind to getting things done, sheer brute force and ignorance are a tactic that I employ. Mrs. Woody would say that is more like the norm for me and I guess she would see evidence in her claim when I started tackling the pile of tree bits on the front garden that have blighted her vision of horticultural bliss for some months now. Having a log burner means you need logs to burn in it and seeing my wallet more as a source to fund my hobbies then buy logs I do collect bits of tree when they become available. At the end of last year I was lucky in that I had two trees in kit form having been felled by the local highway authority having fallen in the high winds. Unfortunately for me the bits are big - far too big to fit in the log burner so I need to get them into smaller bits and let them dry out for a couple of years. I know that you can get log splitters but again my wallet is closed to such expenditure especially when I have a lump hammer and a selection of cold chisels!

Its taking some time but a few more sessions should split the rest and then I can cut them to length. I really need to move those bags of compost for Mrs. W as well!

Continuing the theme of brute force and ignorance I decided to cut the strips of copper clad sheet for the hidden sidings on my 00 gauge layout. I decided that cutting four strips from a sheet of copper clad material was a far better idea then cutting 32 sleepers from the sleeper strip I have. I soon regretted that idea as I started cutting with my modelling saw. It took over half an hour to cut one strip.

Sitting back and thinking, a rare moment for me, I saw a panel saw and much as it would see many carpenters cry at the misuse and ignorance I used it to cut the other three strips. Brute force got the job done in 10 minutes and seemingly no harm to the saw!

This is where they will be used on the layout, the other two at the opposite end of the baseboard.

Now its time to get back to wiring and soldering the siding tracks hopeful without too much ignorance or brute force!

A minor monumental moment or two!

In the ranking of monumental moments, mine are fairly insignificant in the making of the history of the World, but never the less to me they are still a significant and indeed monumental moment! Mrs. Woody is still waiting for the monumental moment that all the jobs on her job list for me are done but that is a moment that is perhaps some time off! However with respect to my 00 gauge Last Great Project Layout the monumental moment or two are that firstly all the holes for the point motors have now been completed and secondly all the track underlay is now glued in place (well apart from a two small parts for the two lead off points on the edge of the layout but until I figure out exactly what I am doing with them they will have to wait).

The last two point point motor holes were cut in my usual way of making out where the tie bar is with the hole in it for the point motor pin that comes up from under the baseboard. A series of holes were then drilled.

The line of holes were then joined together by using a craft knife and then by using a file the resulting hole was tidied up.

This is the minor monumental moment when the last hole was cut!

I needed 24 copper clad sleepers so these were cut to length and then tinned with solder where the rail was to be soldered.

The plastic sleepers were then stripped from the rail where the copper clad sleepers were to be glued to the baseboard. With that done the sopper clad sleepers were super glued into place.

That is the second minor monumental moment with all the track underlay now in place.

There is a danger that fairly soon yet another minor monumental moment may arise with possibly all the track laid and fastened in place but don't hold your breath! In the meantime I need to solder the track to the copper clad sleepers and add some wiring.

Sorting the sidings!

It is now time to finish track laying in the sidings of my 00 gauge layout as at present they are a bit short! I selected some short off cuts of track which was a good way to use them up rather than on the main circuits. Once selected they were airbrushed with weathering paint.

The photo below shows how much track was needed.

With the tracks in place the sidings look far more railway like!

As planned (?!?!) or more by luck (more likely) my longest rake of wagons that will use the sidings just fits!

I now need to wire the sidings and then strip the plastic sleepers at the baseboard joints and put in copper clad ones to which the rail will be soldered before I can cut through them. Then it will be fully sorted!

Happy!

I am generally a happy person despite what Mrs. Woody would tell you! So my mood of happiness continued as I powered a train around the inner circuit of the newly laid track on my 00 gauge layout. In facat I got a bit carried away and spent a couple of hours playing operating trains! Now that makes me even more happy!

Will my happiness continue as I move onto the rest of the trackwork? I hope so as it means I am doing it right!

Large Scale Model Making!

Whilst out on a bike ride I came across this very nice wooden play tractor and trailer set up in a children's playground. Now to my mind this is great and I can remember that the young me of years, decades ago, would be very excited if this were in my local playground! However I resisted the urge to revert back to my childhood and to sit in the drivers seat - I wouldn't fit probably! But this is just like a large scale model - brilliant but I don't think Mrs. Woody would allow me to build one in the garden!

Gauging it!

 As I progress with the track laying and wiring of my 00 gauge layout those little red sticks have come out again! But before they could I had to finish gluing some track underlay and wiring some more track.

With that done it was time to glue the track in place and as glue does make later adjustment just about impossible without breaking something - my heart and wallet usually - I needed to make sure that things were right. The eyeball is usually good at seeing slight deviations but these track gauges also help. 

If you look at any real railway track it will never be absolutely straight so I am not worried too much about a slight kink but at least I should end up with something that doesn't look as though it was laid whilst wearing a blindfold!

With the track glued and in place I used some pieces of plywood to spread the weight of some suitable heavy objects to keep the track flat.

If I am gauging it right I might actually get to run a train soon and hope that it runs without derailing on my straight and flat track! 

Are their tigers in there?

A second day this week at the Rocks By Rail Museum and I can confirm there are no tigers in the Sundew drag line excavator cab but there are these tiger orange electrical components now adorning the wall making the cab look a lot more interesting thanks to Rob

Rob is continuing his wizardry with the exterior of the cab preparing it for a repaint in preparation for its celebration this year. It is the 50th anniversary of Sundews Greta Walk when it walked from Exton quarry in Rutland to Corby. The story is on the Museum Facebook page and you can see it by clicking here.

Are their tigers in there? That is what someone asked me today at the Rocks By Rail Museum as I battled to get the mower through the somewhat thick and over long grass. There may not have been tigers but there was an assortment of largish tree branches lurking, hidden in the grass.

Back in the comfort of WMD HQ where I could rest my mower battered body, things move on slowly with the 00gauge layout. The last of the track underlay on this section of baseboard has been glued down. One of the issues with glue is that you have to wait for it to dry and unlike instantons superglue, PVA takes some time to dry! At least it gives my body some time to recover from the mowing unless Mrs. woody finds a job for me to do!