One for the birds!

In this case this is not an entry into this blog about the strange ideas I come up with which in many cases are indeed ones for the birds! This is actually about a bird table/feeder. 

Built by me back in around 1996 from scraps of wood that I had lying about it has lasted remarkably well to say that all that I have done to it is occasionally slap on some wood stain. However, as you can see from the photo above it had got to the stage where no self respecting bird would come to it regardless of the feathered friend style culinary delights that I would place on it. Time had come for a makeover. So, hard on the heels of the garden bench restoration here comes the bird table restoration.

Following examination the base was condemned and had to go. It promptly feel off as if to agree with the decision so that was simple. other wise apart from re-nailing a few of the roof slats and a paint job this was going to be reasonably easy and swear jar free! 

Whilst I was cutting the slats for the garden bench restoration that featured in an earlier post, I took the opportunity to cut the required pieces for a new base with the miter saw.

I took the opportunity to paint all the new parts before assembly so that they at least all had a coat of protection even in those areas where two parts come together. A few minutes with my drill and some screws and the base was complete.

The old base had rooted from the bottom up. Where the wooden 'feet' of the base stood on the ground, water had impregnated and started the inevitable wood rot leading to this.

Nice! In an attempt to avoid this happening in the future I used part of an off cut from some roofing felt to put on the feet. The theory is that the felt should stop water impregnating the wood - we'll wait and see if my theory works!

A large screw sourced from the WMD HQ collection of screws that might come in handy one day was greased and joined the base to the post. Further screws saw the supporting pieces reinstated and low and behold and much to my amazement the bird table stood straight and solid! 

Some nails in the roof slats and a couple of coats of wood paint and the end result was something that perhaps birds may indeed feel inclined to use now - better put some food on it! 

Another item saved from the scrap heap!

More on the Straight and Narrow!

Whilst WMD HQ has been busy with the garden bench restoration highlighted in the last post there has been some progress with the Zvezda K5350 Mustang model build. The chassis continues to develop and I just cannot believe just how detailed it is. Most of it will no doubt be lost as the cab and body go on but its been a pleasure to build so far. Here is where I have got to - Section 23 on the plans.

Motivational music provided by the compilation album The Greatest Hits of 1993. Was it really 28 years ago that Relax by Frankie goes to Hollywood was number 1? Time flies!

Are you sitting comfortably?

For those of a certain age this is not the introduction to that radio programme Listen with Mother from a time so long ago I will not admit to having remembered! In this case it refers to an old garden bench here at WMD HQ that is about 33 years old which you would not be comfortable sat on in the state it is in the pictures!

To be fair it looks 33 years old and apart from slapping the odd coat of varnish on the wooden bits every now and again it has perhaps not received the care that it should have. Mrs W was of the view that it should go but I had other ideas! You can't simply throw something away on the basis that its a bit old and looking worse for wear otherwise I would have been on the scrap heap years ago!

The bench had a positive lean to it and the varnish was peeling. The main issue was that the wooden slats had rotted where the bolt goes through to fasten each slat to the cast iron metal frame. The frames themselves were fine - no corrosion and probably cast from metal previously used in a tank or warship so likely to outlast me! My plan of action was to shorten the slats by about an inch and a half, approximately 40cm for metric users, at each end which would cut the rot out, drill new holes for the bolts and strip and re-varnish. Well I had to pick the warmest day of the year to do this task! However it was pleasant in the garden and some of the activities were carried out in the shade.

First job was to remove the slats from the cast metal sides. Luckily I had greased the bolts years ago so there were no incidents where the swear jar was needed! Next up was to strip the old varnish. There are all sorts of ways to do this including varnish stripper and sanding. Both get the job done but being me I went for the more unconventional approach - the electric plane! My theory was that if I set the plane on its lowest setting it would strip the old varnish and leave a smooth surface to the slats - cunning! For once, unlike Wylie Coyote from the Road Runner cartoon, my cunning plan worked! About 25 minutes saw the 12 slats stripped and where there was some varnish left a few minutes with an electric sander sorted that out! Working smarter not harder as I get older! On examination there were a couple of spots of wood rot in other areas on three slats and ideally all the slats could do with replacement. Given the difficulty in getting hold of decent wood at the moment due to covid and the high demand from house builders I decided to leave replacement until another year.

Next up was the use of one of my best buy tools, the miter chop saw. Guaranteed 90 degree cuts even with me using it. Some careful measurement of each slat ensured that all 12 were the same length when I finished - Result! 

Drilling the bolt holes followed on. Here my Working smarter not harder philosophy came into play again as I made a drilling templet from a scrap piece of wood to ensure all the holes were going to be in the same place and more importantly allow the slat to be bolted to the bench.

First hole was a pilot hole. As the bolts are recessed into the slats a flat 16mm drill bit was used to sink a recess into the wood before drilling the final hole for the bolt.

It was then time for varnishing. Search the WMD HQ garage or as it is better known, The Room of Doom, I found a half full tin of exterior varnish. Several coats of this was sucked up by the wood as though it was thirsty for some liquid! I left them to dry over night and then gave them a final coat with the remains of the varnish this morning. 

This evening the kit of parts shown above was bolted back together with some new bolts from Wickes. I found their 40mm roofing bolts just what I needed. A spot of grease was put on the bolts before the nut was fastened so hopefully they will come apart again in the future without any swear jar requirements!

Once complete the bench was moved to outside my man cave other wise known as The Room of Gloom where it was tested and provided a solid seat - I was indeed sitting comfortably! Even Mrs W approves! 

Small and Beautiful!

 

The picture above illustrates the size of many of the parts I am dealing with - they still need cleaning up with the removal of the plastic from where the parts were located on the sprue. You have to admire the guys who developed this kit and that is something we model makers sometimes forget. We admire completed models and praise the builders for their skills and abilities but usually forget that there was an immense amount of skill and ability put in by people into developing, making the patterns and sorting plans out for the actual kit itself. I am still very impressed by this kit so for those at Zvezda I respect you and thank you! Please note the £1 coin is this week's pocket money from Mrs W. Just enough for a small ice cream!

Progress has continued with the chassis so I am now up to Section 21 on the plans. Its beginning to look like a truck - well in my eyes anyway! We will see how progress goes with the impending heatwave coming this weekend in the UK. It could be ice creams all round here at WMD HQ! Well a small one maybe!

Music for the latest build was provided by that great band Level 42 with their album Running in the Family and then to a compilation album from the 80s Our Friends Electric. Strange how you forget about certain songs which were big at the time and the memories that they bring back when you hear them again for the first time in years - oh happy days! 

Keeping on the straight and narrow!

Building a chassis for a model truck is a bit like keeping on the straight and narrow. The chassis has to be straight so that all the wheels touch the ground and everything is level and it is narrow meaning the chances of getting it straight are difficult. Luckily this kit of the Zvezda K5350 is great in that the parts fit so well that you have confidence that it will have a straight chassis even with me building it. I am further amazed by the detail in this kit. For example all the valve blocks for the air brakes are included. Although I am down to using a magnifying glass to clean the joints up from where I cut them from the sprue and to actually fit them, they are there which is something I have never seen on the bigger 1/25 scale kits of trucks that I have build. My build yesterday got me as far as Section 16 on the plans which means I have a basic chassis to which all the other parts will eventually fix to. As well as this progress I also managed to prime the engine/gearbox and fan and surround in Vallejo black primer ready for top coat. 

Cassette tape music entertainment was supplied by re-listening to Sounds of the Suburbs and then moving onto Soft Metal - It ain't heavy (various artists) and 18 Driving Hits (again various artists) Those of a certain age will remember the continued release of complication albums claiming to be The Best Driving Hits, The Ultimate Driving Hits, The Greatest Driving Hits Ever Vol 96 and so on and so on to the point you ended up with 17 tapes all with Free Alright Now and My Sharona and many other duplicates. Those were the days! 

Back to the model where breath taking progress has been made so far on this kit which is unusual as here at WMD HQ progress is usually measured in geological terms! Will this keep up or will Mrs W find some important, must be done now, not to be questioned chore for me to do???? Stay tuned! 

Back to the 70s and 80's!

Well my music choice for today's model making session was Hits of the 70s, An anthology of Supertramp and Sound of the Suburbs! That all added up to about 4 hours of music/model making as the Hits of the 70s tape is a double one.

The time saw me complete the engine and gearbox of the present build of the K5053 and even get as far as starting part of the chassis with the winch which fits in-between the chassis rails. 

The next stage with the engine and gearbox is to get it painted The instructions don't indicate what colour it should be but a brief internet search reveals that the colour is usually aluminum/silver as I guess the components are mostly aluminum! A coat of black primer should give a good base for the aluminum paint that I will be using and then it will be picking out the few components such as hoses and fluid reservoirs in the appropriate colours. Having used a magnifying glass to see various parts of the engine I can see the hose clamps have even been included on the moulding. I continue to be impressed by both the quality of the mouldings, their detail and the fit of them. Despite so many parts the locations are all positive and when you bring sub assemblies together all the parts meet up where they should which given my ability to get things wrong is amazing! Hopefully the rest of the build proves as good as these first stages. There are a couple of small areas at the bottom of the engine where I had to fill a gap in the plastic. For these small areas my filler of choice is Vallejo acrylic putty which literally can be brushed into place, dries quickly and sands easily to a smooth finish. 

I have now completed up to Section 11 on the plans which totals about 50 parts so far. Given that there are 69 sections in the plans and over 400 parts there is still a long way to go! Good job I have a few hundred music cassettes to go through before I even start on the CDs!

Back to reality!

Well what can you say other than the England Team did us proud in the Euros! Penalty shoot outs are not my favoured way of  dealing with a draw and for what its worth a points system of some sorts might actually be better. If it included a recognition for sporting behavior it might actually discourage some of the almost rugby type activities that go on in football today. 

Enough of my thoughts and back to reality! Reality today is that back at WMD HQ we are again sticking bits of plastic together! Yes a kit is underway! I have had a growing itch for some weeks now to actually start building models again after what seems an eternity of garden and similar type activities. Looking back through the blog (which was part of the reason I started this blog in the first place so I could put dates to things and events and it works - Wow!) I see it was the end of March that I last progressed with a kit - the T85 from Miniart. I could have gone back to this kit but if you recall I had almost stalled with the tracks which have some issues. Since moving most of my modelling stuff from within the house to my man cave AKA the Room of Gloom that kit has sat in a box and to be honest I thought about starting it again, I even looked through the box but at the moment its just not doing it for me. So with another breaking of my New Years Resolution of not buying any more kits, I bought the  Zvezda Russian K5350 Mustang 3-Axle Truck in 1/35 scale. The Kamaz Мустанг (Mustang) is a family of general military utility trucks with numerous variants which is based on the 1st generation KamAZ family launched in the early 1980s. A three-person cab is standard across the Mustang range. It has a sleeping berth and tilts forward for engine access. The cab can be fitted with an add-on armour kit. I have wanted to build a Kamaz truck for a long time. They are typical Russian in that they are simple but very robust. If you have ever watched Ice Road Truckers you know that in Canada and Alaska they run trucks on ice roads in the winter. It is also the same in Russia but having watched some videos on the conditions they have to deal with I have to say they do need a really tough truck - have a look at this short You Tube Video to see or just put in Russian Ice Road Truckers into YouTubes search engine.  

First time with a Zvezda kit and looking through the box it looks stunning. Will it look as stunning once my hands have been on it or will it end up a glue bomb once completed? We'll have to wait and see! The kit itself comes in a stout cardboard box which is sleeved by an outer cover with the illustrations showing the truck in action. Inside the parts are all in plastic bags so no loose, flying off into oblivion never to be seen again as the box is opened parts. I like that! The instructions and painting guide look as though some one has actually thought about what to illustrate and hopefully will actually aid building this kit rather than becoming a cryptic set of clues which have several differing answers according to how you look at them! I like that too! Looking at the parts themselves the detail is stunning and having built a few 1/25th truck kits in my time I just wish those larger kits had this sort of level of detail. You guessed it I like that as well! So far the guys at Zvezda have struck a chord with me.

Starting the actual build the first stages centre around the engine. For something that will probably end up mostly hidden the detail is remarkable. There is also something else I like about this kit. So far all the parts for the engine are on the same sprue and amazingly just about all the parts follow on from each other. I have started with Sprue G and it starts at the bottom with part G1 and G2 is next to it and so on. There are a couple of exceptions to fit the part into the overall sprue where a part number does not follow on but its close. If you have never built a kit you may wonder why the excitement of  what probably sounds a logical way of doing things. Logical it maybe but I have never come across a sprue laid out like this. Normally you end up with the parts for something like an engine over two or more sprues and the parts are laid out randomly to minimise the number of sprues. You end up spending ages looking over the sprue trying to find the part that you want. Zvezda make it so simple to find the part. G65 is between G64 and G66! 

Moving on from my overstated joy about this kit, an hour and a half got the first three stages of the engine done.

How do I know that it took me an hour and a half to reach this stage? Well here at WMD HQ we do like our music and have done so for many, many years. Before the advent of new technology, MP 3 files,  downloading, streaming and probably a whole host of other things I don't and probably never will know about we had vinyl, cassettes and CDs. WMD HQ still has a large collection of them all and facilities in the Room of Gloom include a cassette player on which both sides ('You mean you had to physically turn it over?' will probably be the reaction of some) of a favorite cassette purchased in the early 90s was playing whilst I built the engine. Roughly 45 minutes a side which gives me 90 minutes and unlike the football yesterday I didn't go into extra time!

A great easy listening album full of fantastic music which if you are interested is: -

A1	Eagles–	One Of These Nights
A2	The Doobie Brothers–	Long Train Runnin'
A3	Fleetwood Mac–	Little Lies
A4	Hall & Oates*–	I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)
A5	Greg Kihn Band–	Jeopardy
A6	Starship (2)–	Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now
A7	Christopher Cross–	Ride Like The Wind
A8	Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers*–	Breakdown
A9	The Cars–	Drive
B1	R.E.M.–	The One I Love
B2	Lynyrd Skynyrd–	Sweet Home Alabama
B3	Allman Brothers Band*–	Jessica
B4	Rickie Lee Jones–	Chuck E's In Love
B5	Joe Walsh–	Rocky Mountain Way
B6	J. J. Cale*–	Hold On Baby
B7	Timbuk 3–	The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades
B8	Steve Earle–	Copperhead Road
B9	America (2)–	Horse With No Name

Bridge to Nowhere!

There has continued to be a lack of posts on this blog and its all to do with lighter evenings and summer weather! Although some may question the summer weather bit, the odds are that I will be outside doing something rather than inside in front of a computer screen as I try to make the most of the light warm (!?!?) evenings. Hence the lack of posts but there are things being done, usually with the garden, which continues to demand attention! 

However this week has seen a few days out which given the past 18 months mainly spent at home in the WMD HQ is something nice to do. For some reason we ended up in north Lincolnshire so Mrs Woody was treated to a fascinating trip across the Humber Bridge at a cost of £1.50 for the toll and a CoOp £3.50 lunch deal of sandwich, crisps and drink - other lunch deals are available! This was consumed on what remains of the Viewing Point car park on the north shore which didn't have any view of the bridge as most of the rest of it has been turned into a Covid Vaccination Centre. Having consumed the gastronomic delight, a further £1.50 secured a return trip south bound across the bridge. The Humber Bridge has always been somewhat controversial and was nick named The Bridge to Nowhere. I am not into the politics of it all, its been built, it serves a purpose but most of all it is a fantastic engineering feat and stunning to look at.

Having crossed back to the south shore we ended up parking at the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust car park at Far Lings which is located in an area of ponds that were created by clay being dug out for the local clay tile factory which is now a museum. There is a path along the shore and it all looks very interesting for a longer visit. 

You can do a bit of ship spotting too!

The path passes the back of the tile works which look as though it could be an interesting visit but what really caught my eye was the boundary wall to the site made out of stacked clay tiles.

Meanwhile back at WMD HQ and specifically The Room of Gloom, some progress on My Last Great Project has been made. Slowly track is being sorted as the plans in my mind become a physical reality. However, as many railway modelers will admit, once some track is down the temptation to run some trains is overwhelming and I have to admit to doing that myself. 

A recent purchase was a Hornby Railroad Tornado with TTS sound from Bure Valley Model Railways in Norfolk. £102 bought this and it is a fantastic runner with a smooth slow running capability and a fantastic set of sounds. For the money it is simply stunning!

Something bought some time ago was this Bachmann Class66 with DCC Sound and a set of 10 Hornby Seacow wagons and a Shark break van. I have only got five of the Seacows out but the whole train looks and runs brilliantly.

I am going to have to get my mind set back into track work and you never know the layout may end up with its own Bridge to Nowhere! However, I have to admit that running the trains has been a great deal of fun and that is what a hobby is all about! 

Rain starts play!

That is right in my case - rain did start play for me. Let me explain. 

The last few weeks has been somewhat busy with other non modelling activities. At the beginning of June I had a Cataract operation which was a consequence of the treatment for my my detached retina which happened last April. My admiration and gratitude to the NHS here in the UK is overwhelming. Their care and treatment, especially at a time when covid has made things much more complex for the NHS, was superb and they saved mine as well as countless other peoples sight.

The good weather and light evenings of the last few weeks has also meant that I have spent a great deal of time continuing to landscape the garden and sort out the accumulated junk that I have horded over the past decades. Two trips to the scrap yard this week saw me take 450 kg of scrap metal to weigh in and a bewilderment as to why I had kept such junk for so long! Anyway the landscaping is done (mostly) and I now have an easier to maintain garden and hopefully something that looks better!

Hmmm! You could build a garden railway along that wall! 

Smudge the cat seems to be surveying the possibility!

One of those things that I had to do with landscaping the garden was to level off the lawn to the same level as the edging blocks that I laid. Mostly this involved lowering the lawn. If like me trying to cut a turf to a consistent depth turns out to be impossible with what emerges on the end of the spade being more cheese wedge shaped then flat bread, you will understand the problems of having to relay turfs which all have different depths to them. years ago I would have re-laid the turf and belted hell out of it with the back of the spade to get it to some resemblance of  level and then wonder why it died! As I get older such energetic activities are now beyond sensibility so with a bit of thought I created a turf cutting plank. I had an off cut of laminate flooring to which I nailed three pieces of inch and a half batten. The picture below shows it as well as the general idea of how to get consistent level turfs using an old and expendable saw riding along the top of the battens to cut off the surplus soil. You won't be using the saw for any form of woodworking again but it certainly made relaying the turfs much easier! The laminate floor is about the same width as my small spade which made cutting the turfs to the right width easy as well. Working smarter not harder as I get older! 

The good weather has now however broken and as with all UK summers the rain has arrived! This however has given me the chance to move myself into the dry of The Room of Gloom and make some progress on the Last Great Project which is my 00 gauge model railway and in effect start to play! The four segments of the baseboard are now bolted together with some M12 bolts and large penny washers to spread the load.

If I were organised or had some common sense I would have a hard copy track plan of what I was going to do. However I don't have hard copy but I do have in my mind the basic concept. As with most of my projects I know the basic concept I then work out the details as I go along. It may not be the best way but it works for me! So at the moment I have pieces of track laid out in roughly the layout I want it and it is now a case moving pieces about until the optimal layout appears. 

Apparently its going to be raining for a few days yet so rather than stop my play more progress may actually be made!