Another day in Paradise!

As I went through the gates at the Rocks by Rail Museum that beautiful and emotional song by Phil Collins came on the radio - Another day in Paradise. For me it was another day in paradise. Although frosty the sun was shining and the museum had that inviting look and I was going to spend a day in a stunning, to me anyway, place with a group of great guys! 

Paradise for me is also being at the end of a shovel (it takes all sorts but at least my needs are simple! ) and todays task was to dig out all the spillage around the oversized washing machine ballast washer so that Harriot the JCB could get its bucket under the screen to collect the washed ballast. As the ballast comes out of the drum and down the screen the fine material goes through the screen and should drop into a couple of wheel barrows underneath. Some of that fine material inevitably misses the barrows and over time you get to the point where the barrows can not get under the screen so you have to dig out the spilled material. Despite the frost it was soon T shirt time!

 After that job was over it was time to start spreading the washed ballast where it was needed. Having had a full week of track leveling and packing over last week, looking down the track to where the loco and ballast wagon where was a bit of a shock and a bit of a walk! There has ceratinly been some major progress made. 

After the hard labour of the day I hitched a ride back up the line in the cab of Betty the loco which was nice as I can say I travelled in a Rolls Royce - well a RR powered loco anyway! 

Back at the other paradise of WMD HQ the Heller Scania 141 LB has progressed slightly. The various joints in the front wheel arches were filled early this morning with Vallejo acrylic putty. 

As I had a spare half hour before preparing Mrs. Woody's dinner I rubbed down the joints which just require a little more tidying tomorrow and then that will be ready for paint.

Hopefully the Sausage Hot Dogs for tonight's dinner will see a continuation of my day in paradise!

Big visual impact!

With a kit build such as this there are days when you work for an hour and so, sit back and although there is a part of the kit built it is small and has little visual impact. However there are other days when you sit back and just take in the big visual impact of what you have built. Today was one of those days as parts of the cab of the Heller Scania 141 LB went together. It may only be the floor and the rear panel but it has a big visual impact.

Unfortunately progress will be slower for a while as there are all sorts of joints to be filled and smoothed before too much more progress can be made. However its now looking like a truck and that is always a spur to get on with a model but with my history of being distracted anything could happen!

Putty time!

I managed to grab a couple of hours on progressing the Heller Scania 141 LB today. Given that the resin model water on my narrow gauge layout is still drying out I cannot progress with that at the moment so the Scania benefits my full attention - after Mrs. Woody of course!

One of the jobs I did apart from sanding a lot of parts was to glue the fuel tank ends to the main tank body. The fit is not good with a gap around most of it which when painted would show up unless filled. Not the easiest of filling jobs but in my continued quest to work smarter not harder I have used Vallejo plastic putty. This is an acrylic putty that is like a smooth paste. I used a paint brush to brush it along the joints and then wetted the brush to again run along the joints wetting the putty which then sinks into the gaps. It will probably need two or three goes to get it right but a lot easier than conventional fillers and sanding.

AI am getting near the point where I am going to have to start to paint the chassis in order to progress that but there are still a few more parts that need to be added. In the meantime work on the cab has started. You can see the continued issues with warped and twisted parts with the inner rear cab wall which will need some bending to get it to line up with the cab floor. More fun times then! 

Looking at the workbench it certainly looks a bit different to a week ago which is nice when you do see progress being made. As you can also see the wheels have now been dechromed using the Mr. Muscle oven cleaner. There was mention today by Mrs. W. that the oven could indeed do with a clean so at some stage I will have to bite the bullet or find a very convincing excuse!

Rolling, rolling, rolling!

Not the theme from Rawhide originally done by Frankie Laine back in 1958 and then given a second life by the Blues Brothers (and you can see that by clicking here ) but my Heller Scania 141LB which is now a rolling chassis - just! A couple of hours of work this evening saw the front axle completed including the steering gear. A few other parts added and then I thought I wonder what it looks like with its wheels on. So in the inevitable way that many modelers start balancing and temporarily taping parts of models together I started to put the wheels together. Usually the tyres in model truck kits are a one piece rubber moulding or a two piece plastic part. Heller have gone for a two part rubber moulding - never seen that before.

Although I have managed to temporarily put the parts together for all six wheels they are not glued yet and I need to experiment to see what glue will actually glue the two parts together. I then needed to get the wheels together and these are chromed - so another session with the Mr. Muscle Oven Cleaner to dechrome them will be needed in the near future! Mrs. W will no doubt think that at some stage my use of the oven cleaner will actually result in a clean oven! Maybe - one day! In the meantime, with wheels actually on the ground on all four corners - so I did manage to build a straight chassis - this is where the kit is.

I also managed to get the steering gear to work so the truck can turn as well as roll!

Still some more parts to add but I am pleased it sits on its straight. Now, I better order some more oven cleaner which may build up unreasonable expectations!

A country with no motorways!

It has been a bitterly cold day with fog making it feel even colder than it actually is. Even my bike ride was curtailed to a mere 7 miles - I am just not as hardy as I was in my youth! I did therefore spend much of the day inside and I sorted through some of my parents things. My Dad never threw anything away so I have the job of going through it all. Household bills from decades ago may have some interest but they are not things I wish to keep. However there are some gems hidden away such as the cloth Bartholomew's Contour Motoring Map of the British Isles I found.

I have no idea when this dates from but suspect the 1940s. It cost 5 Shillings which is 25 pence in todays money. It is a fascinating insight into the transport system of the nation in a time when the motor car had yet to reach the ownership levels we now see. The most interesting visual impact for me is that there are no motorways. Maps today are crisscrossed with the blue lines of motorways linking major cities but this map was in an age when travelling around the nation meant you drove through every major town and most villages.

Apologies about the quality of the photo but London is somewhat different to how we now see it circled by the M25.

I will be looking at this map more closely when I have time but in the meantime it is safely stored at the WMD HQ reference library in amongst all the other junk, as Mrs. W puts it, that I have accumulated!

I did find an hour to do a little more on the Heller Scania 141 LB which now has front springs. Like most of this kit these are warped and need some brute force (not my strong point) and ignorance ( I am good at that) to get them to fit. However knowing this kit so far there are more trials and tribulations with parts fitting to come! 

Yes - its good to be alive!

One of those days where you think yes - its good to be alive! I got the hoovering and other jobs off Mrs. W's chore list done early this morning, got a 10 mile bike ride in and then off to the Rocks by Rail Museum. One of the things that you have to do when you arrive is safety related and that is sign in - you also sign out when you leave so you hopefully don't end up left locked in a wagon or some similar predicament! The signing in hut is near the entrance and then you have to walk down to the tracks where todays task was more use of the oversized washing machine cleaning ballast. As the loco sheds are open I always walk through them rather then walk outside on the way down to the tracks - why would you miss the chance to walk past so much history? On a day like this with the sun shining the sheds take on a whole new appearance.

Apart from being sunny the weather was also warm if you were in the sun but the ground was still frozen in the shade. I was soon down to a T shirt - not muscle shirt if you read yesterdays post - and noticed this on the nearby gate.

No, not my sweaty top but a fleece that covers the batteries that power the various water pumps - don't ask why the fleece covers them probably they are old and cold -  which you can just see in the photo is steaming in the heat of the sun as it dries!

The Museum may be Rutland's largest railway museum (and only) but it runs on the goodwill of a lot of volunteers and their ability to repair the older equipment that keeps it going.  Harriot, as the JCB is known, has a bit of a fuel issue at the moment and every so often just stops. People with magical mechanical skills then need to get her going again - not easy when you have to lean into the engine bay but they know what they are doing and we got about 10 tons of ballast washed today ready for more track packing and levelling.

Back with my own vehicle issues on the Heller Scania 141 LB, some more progress. Its actually beginning to look like a truck chassis!

So all I have to do now is get Mrs. W's dinner right tonight and it certainly will be a good to be alive day!

Mr. Muscle - but that's not me!.

Much as I might like to think that I could be referred to as Mr. Muscle days of being able to wear a muscle T Shirt are unfortunately long gone! However Mr. Muscle Oven Cleaner as referred to in yesterdays post has done its job without me having to raise any muscle myself! The chrome plastic parts of the kit required dechroming so in an old ice cream container they went.

 The Mr. Muscle oven cleaner was then sprayed on.

The lid was then put on and a note left to remind me that the container no longer contained ice cream. I have a short memory!

After 4 hours lid off, upset that no ice cream but delighted in that the Mr. Muscle had done its job - does what it says on the tin - and had removed the chrome to reveal the clean plastic parts ready to be assembled. You may notice that the fuel tanks are back in pieces. I decided after doing yesterdays post that it might be easier if I dealt with them as separate parts in the dechroming process so I split them before the glue had set.

I also had an hour building further parts of the kit. Unlike the Zvezda mustang truck where all the parts fitted perfectly this kit is something of a let down. The mouldings are old and you expect some flash around the parts but when you end up with holes like these in the springs you wonder how they ever got through any quality control. A lot of time is being spent filing and making good.

Even where the parts do not require filling the fit is poor. On the engine block I had to add some plastic strip to where the cylinder head on one side of the engine block mounts as there were gaps at either end. Luckily at WMD HQ there are long held stocks of things such as plastic strip which I told Mrs. W when questioning me as to why I had so much junk stock would come in handy one day - just not which day!

Progress is slow at the moment but the parts build is slowly growing. I may even have a complete chassis before too long especially as Mr. Muscle has now done his work!

Model resin water - showing signs of setting!!!!!

Not all that glitters is gold!

Back in the 1970s and 80s the pronouncement on a kit box that it contained chrome parts was a guaranteed selling point for many kits. The reality was and still is, is that the chrome is a plastic paint that at best is reasonable but usually it is poorly applied and can look simply terrible - just like me! The other thing is that you cannot sand it or abrade it to deal with the inevitable joints in parts which have to be joined. The result is that you either live with parts that have a clear and unrealistic join in them or you do away with the chrome. You can get special chrome paints that you can spray and these can look good but you both need an airbrush and know what you are doing.

For some reason three sprues in the Heller Scania 141 LB kit are chromed. I can understand doing the chrome for the fuel tanks and wheels but the sprues include such things as the seat cushion bases for inside the cab - comfy! This glittering array of kit parts is not gold to me! I am going to be dechroming the parts as it was rare for a 1980s truck to have any such items unless they were a custom truck and back then they were not many of those. Believe it or not i will be using oven cleaner to do the dechroming - but don't tell Mrs. W as she may hope that the oven gets cleaned too! 

In order to cement the chrome parts together you have to remove the chrome from the surfaces to be cemented.

The kit is that old that the parts are warped. This is an end view of one of the fuel tanks.

To try to straighten it up I have tempoarily put the ends in.

The progress for today!

In the morning it was back to the Museum and more track leveling and straightening! Its less than 3 months to opoening so its got to be done!

We must be getting somewhere as the photos are taken from the same point but it looks so much further than a few weeks ago!

You can't see the join!

You can't see the join is something that decorators are praised for when they hang wallpaper or if you remember far enough back was Eric Morecambe's classic jibe at Ernie Wise who he thought had a taupe. For me though and most modelers hiding the join between the plastic parts of a kit is essential in achieving a good quality model. As I highlighted in yesterdays post the chassis to this kit is unusual in that it is made up of a lower and upper half. I glued those together yesterday and left them to set with some weights on top to get a nice flat and level chassis. That seems to have worked as I examined it today but I shuddered at the joint line which would need an awful lot of work to disguise. The engine block and rear axle were not much better. 

In between sanding and scraping the various joints, I did fit a few more engine components so that is progressing. Most of the outer joint on the chassis has been eliminated but there are places where some filler is required so a few dabs of Deluxe Material Perfect Plastic Putty were added and have been left to set. 

It may look a bit of a mess at the moment but just like me it will improve in appearance with some further preparation! That is what I tell Mrs. Woody anyway!

Model Water update - Still not set! Doh!

Let's twist and shout!

No! Not doing a Beatles impression but I did shout and there is a twist involved but more of that later.

Having had a great time at the Rocks by Rail Museum yesterday, today was more of a 'normal' day - if any thing can be normal at WMD HQ! A couple of hours in the Man cave AKA The Room of Gloom this evening and I can report that the model water resin is still wet! No doubt the very low temperatures have something to do with it not setting but it is causing delays on getting on with things. I could really do with moving the board to get a better access to various parts but that would no doubt end up with a sloping river with dust in it! So for the moment I am just tinkering around the edges . However some progress with the cobble infill by the canal wharf and the open doors on one of the sheds together with its floor having been attached.

Having now got to the 9th January I thought that it might be wise to start on one of my 12 in 22 kit builds that I committed (yes I should be) to at the start of the year. It is the Heller Scania 141 LB as shown a few posts ago. It is an old kit dating back from the 1980's which I recall desiring to build at the time but not having the money to buy the kit. It was one of the first 1/24th scale kits of a European truck to be released - Italeri started the ball rolling with a kit of the Volvo F10 which I did build. Anyway! You expect a kit of this age to show some signs of wear but I was taken aback by the first two parts too assemble which were the two halves of the engine block.

As you can see there is a big twist in the parts which caused me to shout! The swear jar now has its first 2022 contribution! Clamps were the order of the day with the back of the two parts being glued and clamped firs and allowed to set before the front halves were twisted back as they should be and glued and clamped. 

Having completed that task it needs to be left to set fully before I dare attach anything else to it so attention turned to the chassis frame. Usually on these kits you get the two chassis rails which are then joined by crossmembers. Heller for some reason have produced the complete chassis in two halves - upper and lower. A new one on me and the joint line is going to need a lot of filling and sanding to make it disappear. 

With the aid of several clamps and a lot of glue the two halves were joined together. I also glued the two halves of the rear axle together.

Given that the chassis looks slightly twisted I have left it on the workbench with several weighty paint and brush jars on top to see if that will straighten it up overnight. I will await to see! Maybe the model water may have set too? Maybe that's a twist too far!