Belligerence!

 A day as a volunteer at the Rocks By Rail Museum usually leads to a variety of work, much of it involving physical exertion! Take for example the continuing work on the Plant Shed. The scissor lift to reach the roof is about as mobile as a rock! So moving it is an exercise involving either mechanical power or physical brute force. Given that Harriot the JCB had decided that a flat battery was a good thing to have, the mechanical power option was off the agenda and so it was down to physical brute force. Getting it out was easy as the shed floor is on a slope and Andy and Martin managed that on their own. 

Getting it back in at the end of the day was another matter! Whilst the old adage that many hands make light work may seem appropriate, the sheer belligerence of the scissor jack to move needed some additional ingenuity! In this case it was to put a strap between the stationary flat battery Harriot and the scissor lift and then use the strap to winch it in!

And after a lot less physical effort the scissor jack was back in the shed ready for some rest - just like the rest of us!

More work had been going on with 1391 but today the smoke box door was closed but I was assured that there had been lots of physical work removing valve gear that was also being belligerent in not wanting to be removed!

Not being belligerent, was Mr. D who John is continuing to paint with things looking really good on the outside - and that is just the undercoat of paint!

In the cab John has been busy preparing for that to be painted as well. Not sure if he thought my suggestion of wallpapering it went down too well!

For me, I reacquainted myself with the lawnmower for a short spell - mowing grass in mid November wearing a T shirt and jeans - that is not normal but neither am I as Mrs. Woody will confirm!

After that it was down to the Bone Yard as it has now become known, with the strimmer to do some vegetational butchery on the belligerent vegetation that is hiding all sorts of hidden gems! Following last weeks work  it was obvious that the vegetation was fighting back as this picture shows!

However, I am as belligerent as the vegetation so armed with Mr. Strimmer the vegetation soon found out who was boss!

 

There were plenty of gems to be found like that pallet of corrugated iron sheet that everyone had forgotten about. 

Or this pallet of yet to be identified metal bits!

However, more exciting for me was uncovering the piles of hardcore and bricks which are needed for the gabion baskets/cages that I talked about in my last post on the Museum. It was just belligerently hiding and needed uncovering!

Alex was conveniently passing by so he got roped in to start moving some of the new found hardcore to the gabion baskets/cages. 

First barrowful in place. It is going to take a lot of hardcore and barrow trips to fill the three baskets/cages!

After six barrow loads the first basket/cage is about a quarter full.

If the weather is good next week hopefully at least one will be filled but I somehow doubt that I will be wearing a T shirt unless I am totally belligerent to the cold weather that is forecast!

Points to a problem!

 Despite the warmish weather it is only a matter of weeks to that day in December which I am not naming yet but we all know what day it is! A visit to a local store with Mrs. Woody reminded me of how close we are with its seasonal display which did actually take my eye as you will no doubt see why from the photos!

They probably built this whole display in a couple of days whilst my progress in a couple of days is usually five parts of a kit built!

And back on my Last Great Project layout I have been carrying out further testing of the trackwork and the BOC tankers from yesterdays post were hauled around by this Class 25 which, era wise, is correct although whether this combination ever happened in real life is unknown to me. However it is my layout so that golden rule prevails of running what I like!.

The testing has however been useful in that it has illustrated a problem with the track. I got odd derailments and stuttering in the running with some steam locos. It always appeared around one point but I could not see any obvious reason as to why. I was going to substitute another point to see if that had any affect but I did not have one in the WMD Stores. To ensure I got he right one when placing an order I measured it and that revealed the issue. Look at the photo below and the rail next to the red line should be straight. It is not! and that is altering the gauge of the track enough to affect some steam locos. Most of the diesels have enough weight to overcome the problem but the steamers with larger wheels and not so much weight are affected by it. A new point is on order but sometimes it takes a lot of playing operating of a layout to discover the point of a problem!

BOC tank wagon and the canal mystery continues!

 One of the things, or if Mrs. Woody is reading this, the only thing, that I bought at the Spalding Model Railway show last week was this rake of four Hornby BOC tank wagons at a bargain price. 

What caught my eye was not only the price but the livery. Not seen this before or more likely I cannot remember seeing it before. 

A bit of an internet search revealed that they were only manufactured between 1973 and 1974 meaning these models are now 50 years old and given their age they have survived well - better than me anyway!

They have obviously had some modifications done to them to improve running with someone trying to add weight by gluing two washers under each bogie - not seen that done before but it seems to work!

Also of interest is that these four may have been part of a larger rake as scratched into the under body are numbers. I have 1,2,5 and 8 which I presume referred to their position in the rake.

 

On other matters a bike ride taking in the local canal revealed that its status has once again changed from babbling brook with stranded boat back to full size canal which is interesting to me and no doubt loyal blog reader Mrs. B! As to why it is yoyoing in this manner I have no ideas anymore! Its a mystery as Toya said in her hit from years ago! Perhaps the canal people read this blog and are just messing with me!

Woody goes for a walk with Mrs. Woody!

As it was a bright day Mrs. Woody persuaded me to break away from the never ending list of her jobs for me to do and go for a walk with her. Much as I did not really feel  doing like that (the walk that is - not being with Mrs. W) and was keen to continue completing her task list chores, I must admit the weather and the views along the walk and Mrs. W's company made it all worthwhile. I think this one picture sums up the why....

Back in the Man Cave and having deposited autumnal leaves on the floor - wonder where they came from? - I had some more wheel cleaning to do on rollingstock for My Last Great Projet layout. This time a rake of TTA tankers that had a tendency to derail at random points on the layout.. 

IPA or rubbing alcohol and cotton buds soon had the wheels cleaned and a few of the couplings were adjusted. Back on the layout running had improved immensely but still the occasional derailment so further investigation is needed - most probably into the wheel set back to back measurements - i.e. that the wheels are at the right gauge width..

Back on the layout itself, there has been an issue at one of the baseboard track joints where a small sag in the viaduct board has caused a hump in the trackwork both sides of the join. It is not really that noticeable visibly but put a straight edge on it and it is clearly there is a problem which also explains one or two derailments¬

Luckily I was able to break the glue joints of the track and the supporting plywood piece so that I could thin down the plywood reducing its height.

On the bench it was a case of cutting one ply off the plywood using a scalpel to cut through the glue join between the plys and then clean up the main surface.

The thinned strips were super glued back on the baseboard and then one side of the track at a time

Although ending up not bowling green flat there is a massive betterment to the track as the straight edge shows which should reflect in more reliable running of trains which means more time for playing trains going for a walk with Mrs. W and doing more on her chore list for me!

Wheel cleaning

There has been a fair amount of playing operating trains on my Last Great Project 00 gauge layout and with good reason. Firstly I need to test the new wiring and track that it powers but secondly and more importantly, I am building the layout to run trains and that is what it is doing! However, and there is always a however in Woody's World, it also shows that I need to do maintenance of the rolling stock.

I have a rake of LNER wagons that ran reasonably well but would occasionally derail. Those derailments got more frequant and knowing that other rolling stock ran the same tracks without problems the issue had to be with the coaches themselves. Examination showed that there was a large build up of dirt on the wheels which is enough to cause derailments. The red arrow shows one particularly dirty wheel.

Some IPA or rubbing alcohol and cotton buds were enough to get the dirt off but with 6 carriages to do that took some time.

Was it worth it? Yes! Once the wheels were cleaned and the rake back on the tracks the W1 Hush Hush pulled them round for an hour or so with no derailments. 

Finding things out!

A day of finding things out before starting a project is something I don't really do - ask Mrs. Woody! However in this case I have some old Bachmann DMUs which were manufactured in the days before DCC was seen as the way forward and everything now comes at least DCC ready. I knew there would be some complexities to adding DCC to these DMUs not least because they came with directional lighting which is nice but can add complexity to the DCC conversion process. Anyway first off to be examined was this Class 170/6 in the very smart Central Trains Livery which was so very modern when introduced over 20 years ago!

It is a three car set with the motor strangely in the centre car.

Two screws and a four clips get the body off - I do like the old style simplicity!

Interesting to se that even at that age the model has twin flywheels which made it a really good runner back when it was introduced and even today that is true. In terms of DCC chipping it, it will be fairly simple - my famous last words!

Moving onto the outer cars, they are both the same so I only dismantled one which again had two screws and four clips holding the body on.

No motor obviously but I was interested in the lighting unit at the front. Whilst it looks as though there are just two wires so there are actually four. I was originally thinking of just extending the lighting wires to the DCC chip in the centre car using mini plugs from one car to another so that I only needed one DCC chip. However looking at this proved to me that I was not going to find a five pin mini plug or that it was feasible to run five wires between the cars anyway. Therefore I am going to have to install three chips in this DMU"

Having got over the shook of having to fit three DCC chips in the Class 170/6 I took a look at a class 158 that is of a similar age to the 170. I had an inkling of what I was going to find given the comparable age to the 179.

Again the body was held on with two screws and four clips so came apart easily. I knew that the powered car would be similar to the 170 but with lights at the cab end and my suspicions that the dummy car lights were the same as the 170 proved correct to! 

So that is two DCC chips needed for this and another two for the other one that I have! Seven DCC chips for three DMU's - that's going to be a strain on the WMD Stores when I get round tro doing the work! However, that might be a while after all it is me who is doing it!

Testing the layout is really an excuse for a leisurely day!

After several weeks of wiring baseboards and trying to fool Mrs. Woody into thinking items on her to do list are actually being done - just hope she doesn't read this - I took the day a bit more leisurely with some running of trains on My Last Great Project layout.

Nothing like watching the trains go by but my excuse for this leisurely activity, should Mrs. W notice my resting posture in the Man Cave and enquire as to why, is that I am testing the newly wired baseboard! This is, to some degree, actually true! I have found a couple of small jobs that need attending to so I will note those down and get them sorted - eventually! Now back to the trains.....

Is Woody caged up or just a basket case?

Is Woody caged up or just a basket case? No doubt Mrs. Woody will have a view on that statement but I will avoid asking her! The cages or baskets that I am talking about are actually gabion cages or baskets depending upon which term you prefer. The end result is the same in that you put together a steel mesh cage or basket and then fill it with hardcore, rocks, stone or anything else that provides a stable and strong foundation for whatever you need to put on top of it.

At the Rocks By Rail Museum we are creating a viewing platform so that visitors can get a better view up the quarry line of the shunting action - or inaction if I am doing the shunting! I posted last week that David had started to dig out the embankment where the platform is to go and this week rather than my usual vegetational butchery, I swapped mower and strimmer for a spade which in my hands can equally be a tool of vegetational butchery! Not sure if David was pleased with my assistance but this is where we started from.

This Robin seemed appreciative of our digging going through the spoil to find food.

After a couple of hours we had both fed the Robin and created the space we needed for the cages/baskets.

 

The cages/baskets themselves come flat packed and they are assembled using these curly inserts that are wound in.

I'm not the only one who takes pictures!

We assembled three cages/baskets and once filled with suitable material another three will be mounted on top, slightly stepped back, and then probably another three to get to the required height. That is going to be quite a lot of material!

Meanwhile, else where on site, John was continuing his painting of Mr. D which is beginning to look really smart.

Andy had been busy working on the plant shed with the welding station which is handily on a pallet so can be moved by the CAT.

Richard and Steam John had been busy de-rusting the smoke box of 1391 in readiness for the re-tubing work. Using a needle gun to de-rust is a noisy business even in the open air, but put yourself in a smokebox and use it really tests the ear defenders! Must be like being at a heavy rock concert!

I note that the saddle water tank must have been loosened as it now is supported with jacks either side. 

Just another day at the museum!

Profiling!

A day of profiling but not the type of profiling the law enforcement agencies do! This was creating the scenery profile boards for the current baseboard that I am working on for My last Great Project Layout.

3mm plywood is my chosen material, the same as other parts of the layout's profile boards. It was a case of measuring up and cutting and trial fitting which took time.

Once done it was out with the paint - good job it was a dry day!

Once dry the boards were attached to the baseboard which was on the floor by this stage - much easier!

And there it is! Just needs the scenery now! It does look like progress though which is something I don't see a lot of with my projects - just ask Mrs. Woody!

More video offerings on YouTube!

The WMD film crew have been at it again with a couple of new YouTube videos uploaded featuring parts of the work on wiring and point motors that I have been carrying out on My Last Great Project layout.

If you suffer from insomnia, viewing these could well be the cure!