Norovirus!

Sometimes the best laid plans go astray due to something unplanned and for me that is Norovirus! It started this morning and is still active in me so it has been a day of doing nothing but alternating between bed and bathroom! Nice! Hopefully tomorrow may be better - I just hope so!

Hinges.

Things are moving on with the kitchen rebuild but I have had a chance for a short hour (I don't like having only 30 minutes in the Man Cave so it is called a short hour!) to work on the Tiger 1 build. Nothing major but the hatch hinges for the front two hull hatches have been fitted as that would be difficult to do once the hull is glued together. This and the other parts I will need to deal with are in an attempt to get everything finished on the underside of the hull deck so that I can get that glued to the lower hull and then get on with finishing the painting so that the wheels and tracks can be fitted - there is a logic there even if it takes me time to understand my own thoughts - almost unhinges me in fact! I  have also had the opportunity to finish applying a black wash to the remaining running wheels which finishes that job. I had originally thought that there were 20 wheels on this tank but there are 28 which is almost double that on a Sherman.   

Never underestimate an old man with a bicycle!

 

Another year has passed for me and Mrs. Woody thought that this cycling top was the perfect way to celebrate it as she thought the picture was actually of me! Cheek, however it is great, I love the picture and slogan and I did wear it today on my birthday bike ride! 

She also got me this one for when things don't go right and I will be taking that advice!

Time now for a nice piece of cake and wait for it all to happen again next year - just don't underestimate me and my bike whwn I say that!

Its my birthday - almost!

 

It may just look like a pallet with a few boxes on it but this was like my birthday! In fact its a day early for that but that doesn't matter! This is the missing part of the kitchen floor which means that Phil the builder is back tomorrow to recommence his magic on the kitchen rebuild! You can tell from the scissors and cut packaging that I was had to satisfy myself it was the right stuff!

And talking of flooring, well not quite but it is partly the underside of the Tiger 1 tank build, I had a chance to add the front underside panel. Whilst it is included in the parts it is not on the instructions but is shown on the box art and from the inset in the moulding of the lower hull it clearly is meant to be fitted. However, it cannot fir due to the detail for the drive wheel casing. There are ways around this and taking a small amount off each side of the part enabled it to be fitted almost as if it were cast that way!

The ironic thing is that once some weathering goes on the detail of the casing will probably disappear!

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!