Painting!

At the moment my life appears to be centred around paint! On the 1/35 Tiger 1 build the painting continues with the inside of the turret being weathered partly with a brown wash and partly using an airbrush. Much as the white interiors of tanks is suppose to brighten them up and make life easier for the crew the reality was the white got dirty fairly quickly. In the case of the turret you won't see much of its insides once the top is on but with the hatches in the open position there will be enough visibility to see that it is well weathered in there!

Whilst the actual kitchen rebuild has stalled as the rest of the floor needs to be delivered first - hopefully tomorrow - I have been busy with the paint brush. Three doors have been painted with three top coats of satin white on each side. which changed the creamish primer from this .....

to this.....

I'm pleased with the finish and they do look a lot better than the old doors. To avoid getting paint on the door furniture I did mask up things like the hinges with masking tape. A roughly cut to size piece was put over the top and then a modelling scalpel was run around the perimeter of the hinge and the surplus was removed leaving a protected and paint free hinge in place. Working smarter not harder as I get older!

 

Too clean!

 Even with an initial brown wash toning the wheels down on the Tiger 1 build they still looked too clean! Out came the black wash to add some further grime and hopefully realism.

Although not the best picture this does show the transition from freshly painted, then toned down and finally made dirty.

Just to see how it might look I added some wheels and a track temporarily to the lower hull and I think that is going to work well once all finished - or should I say when finished!

Paint one side, turn over and repeat!

With the wheels painted in dark yellow the tyres now needed to be painted. Normally tanks have a rubber tyre on the running wheels. However, from my research and looking at the kit wheels, most Tigers were fitted with steel tyres. Two reasons for this. Firstly was the issue that rubber during WW2 was a scarce material so alternatives were used by Germany especially towards the end of the war. Secondly, slthough the early Tigers were fitted with rubber tyres, the weight of the tank literally ripped them to bits. Most early production Tigers received steel tyred wheels later on in their lives. It was, apart from emergency situations, forbidden to mix the two types of tyres on a tank.

With that sorted out it was easy to start painting the tyres on my Tiger build with some Tamiya Dark Iron paint which seemed like a good shade to fit the bill. Again, a monotonous job and a case of paint one side, turn over and repeat but it got done eventually.

With the tyres painted it was time to tone down the paint with a brown wash. The effect is shown in the photo below and markedly makes the wheel look much more realistic. 

Once again, another monotonous job but I have at least done both sides of every wheel now.

They still need a highlight wash of black so that will be another hour or so of paint one side, turn over and repeat!

Its a bit brighter!

It seems like one of those periods when everything seems to have either slowed or stopped at WMD HQ. The kitchen rebuild is on hold awaiting the rest of the correctly coloured floor. Some should have been here on Wednesday but then was put back so hopefully next Tuesday will see us able to get back on with that project.

On the Tiger 1 build, I am dealing with the wheels and there are a lot of them on this tank! About 20 sets in all and they all need priming, painting, treads painted and then weathering which means that the build is now very slow - almost glacial in speed which is about normal for me! However I have already primed the wheels and parts of the underside of the tank hull as well as the tracks so all, apart from the tracks have received a spraying of Tamiya dark yellow making it all a bit brighter and which is the rightish shade of yellow for the colour scheme used on most German WW" tanks mid to late period.

 

Lego wagon at the Rocks by Rail Museum.

The World of Lego is certainly different to when I was a child which to be fair was some time ago although Mrs. Woody maintains that I am still a child at heart! The change in Lego was highlighted when a group from the Lego UK Railway Club attended the Rocks By Rail Museum last Sunday and presented a very accurate copy of one of our hopper wagons made entirely from Lego for display. Brilliant it is to and a long way from my days of Lego!

The guys who came to the Museum to present the wagon were a fantastic group and well versed in railway matters. They have a website showing what they do which you can see by clicking 

here. It is well worth a look if you want to see just how far Lego has come along!

Meanwhile, in the kitchen rebuild, new doors have been fitted. In fact the whole of the lower part of WMD HQ has new doors which has pleased Mrs. W and that makes my life so much simpler!

The painting begins!

The painting has started! Parts of the Tiger 1 tank build are now in black primer including the wheels and the tracks. This is a good undercoat for the lighter top coats and will give shadows where necessary.

In addition parts of the main gun have been painted up. You wont see a great deal once it is in the enclosed turret but with open hatches there should be enough vision to at least show some detail.

 This is going to be a complex kit to paint so it will take some time and knowing me I will have to rectify some errors I make along the way!

Mr. D derails!

I hinted that it was an unusual day at the Rocks By Rail Museum yesterday with the Bank Holiday Monday quarry day. It was almost derailed by Mr. D derailing on the point to the exhibition centre where the locos are stored. Luckily, two of the three we needed were out on the main line when the incident happened so it could have been worse!

Here is Mr. D off the rails in-between the point rails.

Jacking the loco up required high powered manual jacks and lots of wood.

After three failed attempts one set of wheels went onto the rails following a big push from one of the Sentinel locos.

Then, at the end of the afternoon Mr. D finally was back on the rails - much to the relief of everyone!

How the rest of the event went I will explain tomorrow!

Detail painting.

Having been shunting at the Rocks by Rail Museum, more about that later in the week, there has not been much time to do anything else but I did get half an hour to paint the seats in the turret of the Tiger 1 tank.

I just followed the instructions on painting so have no idea why the gun loaders seat is painted red. Maybe it was a hot spot to be in?

Anyway, small progress it may be but it does bring the build another step forward.

Similarities between the kitchen rebuild and the build of the 1/35 scale Tiger 1!

There are similarities between the kitchen rebuild and the build of the 1/35 scale Tiger 1 as I have informed Mrs. Woody! Basically, you have to paint certain things before you can progress to the next stage. In the case of the kitchen the clear walls and ceiling needed painting before the units were fixed in place. With the Tiger tank, there are interior parts to paint before the upper deck to the hull can be glued in place and likewise with the turret.

White, which is the colour most tank interiors were painted in,  has been applied to the undersides of the various hatches, the gun and the turret which will require further detail painting of some parts such as the seats in the turret and parts of the gun. Once that is done I can progress onto the next stage of the build!

Although it is the Bank Holiday weekend I have not escaped working on the kitchen. Whilst it should really have been done before the plastering but there was no time, Phil the builder has fitted new door casings. The old ones were somewhat twisted and to fit a new door to current standards would have been impossible so two new ones have gone in. My job is to try to fill the damaged plaster and also to get something a bit straighter to match the straight frame! Nearly a kilo of filler has gone into this project but it is just about there now. Then I will need to get the paint out again so that the next stage can progress!

Grill time!

It is a Bank Holiday in the UK signifying that summer is coming to an end and what better way to celebrate than getting a grill out on a BBQ and having a feast. However, this is the UK and it being a Bank Holiday it has rained most of the day! That did not stop me grilling though! Only this grilling was related to the etched brass grills for the Tiger 1 tank build.

I was really pleased to find that they had been pre-bent to form a lip around their edge which made life a lot easier for me.

Fitting them to the model with a few drops of superglue really brought the rear to life.

Another step forward! 

Talking about grills, I saw this parked up by a dog training section. 

Never seen anything like it but apparently the dogs are happy with it although I did see this one looking from behind the grills of his travel compartment.