Sunday - The day of rest?

Well it was a sort of day of rest at WMD HQ today. I did paint the ceiling in the bedroom where the wardrobe has been fitted and Mrs. Woody started putting her things in it whilst at the same time filling several bags to go out leaving space - for more new stuff!

A doze on the sofa after doing the painting took me back to our recent visit to Norfolk where I managed to visit several railways including the Bure Valley Railway based at Aylsham and running on 15 gauge track, 9 miles to Wroxham which is known as the gateway to the Norfolk Broads. I could give you a history of the railway but Wikipedia does a far better and more detailed job and you can see that by clicking here. I can however put some photos up of my trip and doze back to that delightful day with no wardrobes, painting duties, lists of jobs, etc!

Scania progress!

The pictures are probably the best at telling the story on progress. All that remains is to fit a couple of cooling pipes, the spare wheel, a side skirt, three light lenses and the landing light and then paint the exhaust and that is the chassis finished. Before I get any comments that radiator in the above photo is slightly off level but there is nothing I can do about it at this stage without a major risk of damaging the rest of the model. As it is unlikely to be seen as there will be a cab on top I am leaving well alone! I have learnt the hard way over the tears that trying to achieve perfection can in many cases lead to achieving nothing apart from filling the rubbish bin!

Talking of cabs I did pull out the cab from the box and just temporarily place it on the chassis to get a look at how it will all eventually look.

I think I will at least need to gently sand the bodywork of the cab and give it another coat as it looks as though I was spraying it in a sandpit with the present paint job. However, that aside it does look good - to me anyway!

The Great Wardrobe Project - finished?

 Its finished! The wardrobe is complete! Yippee!

The 'Expert' fitter was more than just an expert. He was a perfectionist and a really nice guy who it was a pleasure to have at WMD HQ. Now that the wardrobe is fitted Mrs. Woody has said that she will be having a clear out of her stuff which means she will be making room for more things! Oh well!

For me this is not the end of the whole project which will not be finished fully until I have completed painting the room which is something I will be doing next week after a hopefully restful weekend! Unless Mrs. W has other ideas!

On the Scania build, the lights are painted and most lenses fitted and I have fitted the fuel tank as well as finally fixing the wheels in place. The mudguards and front panel are temporarily in place although I suspect I may have issues with that front panel fitting properly. The semi gloss finish to the parts is giving a nice contrast to the matt finish on the chassis. Getting those mudguards and the front and side panels fitted properly is my next job. 

In the meantime I will be getting the bed back into service - sofas are not comfy for sleeping!

Radiator issues but progress with the great wardrobe project!

Taking on a kit started 23 years ago is always going to have an issue or two. Luckily so far there have not been any major problems although that changed today when I came to fit the radiator to the Scania chassis. It has two pegs that fit into holes on the inside faces of two mounting points that fit on the chassis. The manufactures intention is you fit one of the mounts to the chassis, then pop in the radiator and then fit the second mount. Of course I had fitted both mounts some 23 years ago. I ended up having to break the mount off one side to insert the radiator but it worked. The mount was reglued and luckily there appears to be no visible damage!

I have also sprayed the side skirts, mudguards and front panel in matt black. From what I could see I must have had a paint compatibility issue back in 1999 when I sprayed them originally as some of the paint was crazed. I figured after 23 years the paint should be fully hardened so I smoothed the rough parts and sprayed acrylic black on which worked well. I then sprayed a coat of semi-gloss varnish on just to give it a slight sheen.

Need to wait for the paint and varnish to harden and then fit the lights.

On the wardrobe front things have moved on and the 'Expert' is really showing his skills with a real top notch job.

Just hope my painting skills match up when I get to paint the room or Mrs. Woody will not be happy! 

Small and big steps!

With the wardrobe being fitted today I thought that I might have an opportunity to get some model making done. Well it did not really work out that way as I got involved in a bit of cleaning and sorting as instructed by Mrs. W. However I did sneak in an hour on the Italeri Scania making some small steps on its build. 

The engine and gearbox is now installed with the propshaft in place. I had constantly reminded myself that the propshaft had to go into position before the engine and gearbox was fitted as it can not be fitted once the engine and gearbox are in place. With this thought firmly in my mind I am still trying to figure out how I ended up congratulating myself on the successful fitting of the engine and gearbox without any contributions to the swear jar before I realised that I had forgotten the propshaft! In best Homer Simpson voice - Doh! Luckily the glue had not set and I was able to do the job as it should be!. Other parts have been fitted such as the small steps on the battery box and I have temporarily placed the rear mudguards in place which look as though they fit reasonably well. I just need to repaint them along with the side skirts.

 I am pleased I painted some of the details on the engine which looks better than it did

On the matter of big steps, the 'Expert' wardrobe fitter is here and I must admit he is an expert. There have been some big steps in its build but this is now going to be a two day job so Mrs. W and myself will be sleeping on the sofas tonight as the bedroom is covered in tools and the bed tipped on its side. A slight miscalculation by me means that the other bed is covered to a considerable depth with the contents of the wardrobe! In best Homer Simpson voice - Doh and Doh again! However as the old saying goes, you cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

Whilst Mrs. W will no doubt get the large sofa to sleep on tonight I will be left with the smaller one (such is my position in the importance of sleeping facilities) in the lounge. Luckily I don't have fight with the cats to get procession of their sofa in the cat conservatory. This lot may look cuddly and cute but they can bite and scratch! Honest! Upset that lot and I won't be taking any steps small or big!

The See Saw Game!

 Having taken apart the old wardrobe yesterday I needed to get the parts off to the tip before the rains started and the whole lot became a soggy mess of saturated chipboard. Most parts would fit in my car with no problems but there were some long parts that needed halving in size. Getting close to 8pm, it was not the time to annoy my neighbours by getting a power saw out so in the Woody way of unconventionality I persuaded Mrs. Woody that I had developed a new see saw game that required her assistance. Note the subtlety of the word 'game' rather than work. Mrs. W readily agreed to take part but was probably disappointed when the see saw was a piece of the aforementioned wardrobe balanced on a piece of 3 x4 inch timber. Anyway the game started with her standing on one end of the board and me then stepping on the other. Hey presto and Woody's wizardry saw the board snap in half just right to fit in my car. By the time we had done the 9 boards Mrs. Woody had concluded that this was not a 'game' and went back in to watch some TV shopping channel!

All fits nicely - never go to the tip without a full load!

My hopes that the wall would paint itself unfortunately failed to materialise so last night at 8.30 I painted a first coat. Given that I was at the Rocks by Rail Museum today that was one of my better decisions as it was obvious this morning that it needed another coat. That went on this after noon....

Hopefully that is it until the 'Expert' fitter comes tomorrow. Once the rest of the room is painted after that then hopefully a bit more time for model making although looking at this scence out of the window which has not been like this for some time, it will soon be time to start cutting the grass again! Maybe I can persuade Mrs. W that grass cutting is a 'game'....

Archeological discovery whilst Woody's wizardry makes wardrobe disappear!

Now that is a title and a half to a blog post! It has been a very hard day. Why does everything take twice as long as you plan? However, the wardrobe is dismantled and I kept Mrs. Woody updated of my wizardry with pictures of the progress so she did know I was doing things! Apart from the length of time it took, the job went remarkably damage, injury and swear jar contribution free.

The wizardry slowly happening...

Almost there....

As if by magic all gone....

Unfortunately what was behind the wardrobe was not the best in wall integrity. So, before painting a packet of wall filler was mixed and all of it used in making good cracks, missing plaster and various other issues. At least with the hot weather and almost sauna like conditions in the bedroom it should dry fairly quickly.

Well it has to be dry by tomorrow as this kit form wardrobe is being fitted on Wednesday by the 'Expert' who I explained in an earlier blog is not me according to Mrs. W! 

As to the archeology. Well it won't excite the historians but it is never the less  a slight insight into the builders of the house some 50 years ago almost to the month. I uncovered this pencil calculation on one of the floor boards - remember this was in the days before calculators although I have to admit the calculation is not exactly complex! It will be covered up again when the new wardrobe is fitted but it is recorded here for posterity or when Mrs. W decides on another new wardrobe! 

Now if only I could wizard the walls to paint themselves.....

To hot and dry for steam!

Rocks by Rail was where I was today. It was scheduled to be a steam day with at least one steam engine in operation. However the reality is that with the tinder dry conditions in the UK at the moment which are a result of the now declared drought, to have steam engines running past agricultural land would be somewhat irresponsible. However being prepared for such contingencies the Museum got out Betty the diesel Sentinel where visitors could have rides down the line in the cab or even drive it as part of the Driver for a Fiver ticket. WE had a fair few visitors and the coolness of the cafe saw much food and drink being bought and consumed. All in all a great day and many happy people who had a memorable day.

Staying in the coolness of the cafe I took time to look at the various models that are on display. Firstly we have the Hornby Family Fun Project as built by Phil Parker of British Railway Modelling (BRM) magazine fame. He took the Hornby Family Fun Project (see the Hornby website here for details of the products) and built it with a few modifications - see here and here for details. Once complete and following its use on various media it needed a home and when the BRM team visited last year they brought along the layout so we could give it a home. It has proved very popular with the younger visitors although some of the more mature visitors have been seen taking on the controls as well! AS a credit to Phil's building skills, apart from a level crossing gate that needed gluing, a loading gauge that has been broken and some people that have been moved from their original glued locations, the layout has survived well. 

The other models are related to the iron stone quarrying that the Museum is all about and they are incredibly useful in giving a sense of scale of operations that were still active up to just over 50 years ago as well as illustrating the techniques used.

The model of Sundew, the World's largest walking drag line excavator at the time (until our American friends built one bigger), is perhaps the most dramatic. The work that went into it is amazing and the whole model is very detailed.

There is also another quarry model based on the nearby quarry at Market Overton. Not so large or detailed but never the less a great illustrative model in its own right. You can see the size of the excavator when compare to the steam locomotive at the far left of the train.

Finally we have what I term as an engineering model of an excatator. Not sure of the history of this but never the less another superb model.

All this puts my model making skills to shame! Never mind though its been too hot and dry to model as well as run steam trains!