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!
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!
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.
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.
They still need a highlight wash of black so that will be another hour or so of paint one side, turn over and repeat!
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.
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 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.
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.
How the rest of the event went I will explain tomorrow!
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.
