Building a viaduct.

Getting back to My Last Great Project I need to build a couple of viaducts to span the dropped area in one of the baseboards. I had decided to use kits to build these. I have to accept that life is too short to get involved in complex projects that I could actually get a better result from using a readily available kit rather than scratch building. The kits of choice for me in this case are cardboard and produced by Metcalfe.

I have built some of their kits before and always been impressed by the quality and ease of construction. Card kits may not be everyone's choice but with care and some weathering they can make really great structures.

The Metcalfe lit has a plain card core that is then covered with an outer sheeting of brick printed card.

Gluing the sub-structure together gives a strong and stable base for the rest of the kit. There are two of these two arch sections and then two end boxes that provide the approach to the arch section.

Having built the four sections it was time to see just how accurate or otherwise my baseboard frame measurements and construction were. To my utter surprise the various components slotted into the dropped section with no gaps or tightness! Unbelievable! Maybe I should have more faith in my abilities?

Flushed with success I started the job of cladding the sub-structure with the brickwork. This involved some thin printed card with a series of flaps that are glued to the sub-structure. All very clever and the pictures probably show it better then my words can describe it!

Hopefully some more progress tomorrow unless Mrs. Woody has other plans for my free time!

The curtain closes but what a show!

The final day of the season for the Rocks By Rail Museum today. The metaphorical curtains are now closed but our guests got a great show. Two steam engines and two diesels running, brake van rides, shunting wagons and excavators working all on a gloriously warm and sunny Autumn day. Wonderful!  

For me it was a different day too. I was up at the quarry end of the Museum working with the Shunter getting wagons coupled and uncoupled and changing the points. 

I got to know this point lever very well today!

All very different from my usual role but so very interesting and educational. I have to admit by the end of the day I was shattered. Good job Mrs. Woody had a lovely dinner prepared on my return!

A short video just to give a flavour of today.

5200 miles and putting a wagon back together.

5200 miles was the target I set at the beginning of the year for the distance I was going to cycle this year. It is mid October and I clocked that mileage up today well actually 5201. That leaves me with about 11 weeks before the end of the year - that is frightening in itself as to where three quarters of the year has gone and no doubt someone will tell me how many days to Christmas before to long! So I could simply put the bike away and have a restful and warm time staying inside until 2023 when I start cycling again. Or, I could stretch myself and try to break last years total of 5544 miles. Or I could actually do something a bit more stretching and go for 6000 miles. Despite the attractions of the first two options the Woody mind (and remember according to Mrs. Woody that is a strange place!) has decided to go for 6000 miles by the end of this year. So I have 799 miles to do which is not that much when the weather is warm and the winds light but as Winter approaches and the temperature drops and the winds rise, getting out becomes at my age harder! So it will be a good challenge! 

Meanwhile back in the warmth of WMD HQ I had to deal with a victim of my recent Man Cave upheaval. It is almost inevitable when you do such work that something will get damaged. In my case I was pleased that all that has been damaged is one wagon that fell off the USA switching layout. The strange thing is that it actually did not really break. It just broke into component parts which was very lucky! It was even luckier that I found the two pins that hold the bogies to the base.

The parts literally just clipped back together.

Until it was a complete wagon again. I took the opportunity to give it a bit of a clean as well and the dirty cotton buds in the picture below shows it did need it.

Back on the layout looking slightly better than before its accident! Having cleaned it I guess I should really weather it to make it look dirty again!

 

WMD goes to the seaside and has a time travelling moment!

With the news full of doom and gloom and will anyone get sacked in the Government Mrs. Woody decided she wanted a trip to the seaside to get away from it all and knowing my place I was not arguing! We ended up at Skegness. If you have been there you will have your own views about the place but one thing you cannot argue with is that it is by the sea even if that is a long way off if the tide is out as it was today! Being at the seaside Mrs. W had to walk on the beach although I noted her shoes stayed on so she didn't get that sand between the toes. Mind you although it was a warm and sunnyish day for October I don't think atmospheric conditions were quite right for bare footing it. 

The local gulls did not seem that impressed with either us or the apparent tractor tyre doughnuts in the sand - remember this is agricultural Lincolnshire where tractors rule!

Off shore there is a large wind farm which I guess is how much of the view out to sea will look over the next few years

In contrast to this new technology what remains of the once 1,844 ft (562 m) long pier provides a taste of the old historic Skegness. Much of it was destroyed in a bad storm in 1978 and like most piers in this Country the money was never there to rebuild.

Although the sea front is full of amusement arcades and parks at this time of year they take on an almost apocalyptical atmosphere as they shut down for the Winter.

Despite the almost apocalyptical atmosphere there were still open topped buses offering a tour around the town although why is a question I probably will never find an answer to!

One thing you have to recognise is that Skegness knows how to look after our canine friends as this Dog Bar illustrates!

Having had a pizza lunch and bought some cheese for dinner (how I ended up buying cheese at the seaside is another unanswerable question!) we headed home along some back roads which became a time travelling moment - literally! We ended up following these two USA WW2 jeeps with the drivers in full GI uniforms and a large gun mounted on one of the vehicles going through the small backwater villages and countryside which probably has changed little in the 70 years or so since the war. Was I in the early 1940's? Well any illusion of being there was shattered by Mrs. W wanting to know if we should get a French stick to go with the cheese!

 Need to see if I have a kit for a jeep in my collection of unmade models and if not why not!

Restoring calm after the storm!

Following yesterdays upheaval, comparable to a small earthquake or localised tornado, of my Man Cave today has seen some calm restored. The base board supports and frames are now installed and things moved around a bit. To say I never actually drew a plan for all of this, it was all conceived and thought out in my head (which Mrs. Woody says must be a strange place and who am I to argue?), it all fitted remarkably well. One board only has a slight gap on one side with its adjoining board which I can sort out once I have done a few measurements to find which board has the discrepancy. I still need to add the tops and four more legs but the bulk of the disruptive work is now done - hopefully!

Where the dropped section is will be a couple of viaducts which I have the kits in stock for. 

That complete baseboard is designed to lift out for ease of access and in case I need a long length of the room for some project which I mat like to do in the future. If Mrs. woody reads that last bit I probably won't have much of a future!

Meanwhile my narrow gauge 009 layout and the USA switching layout now live on a reduced wheeled trolley that used to support the old layout. 

Down to my brilliant planning or more likely just luck, the trolley can be turned around so that I can work on or use one layout or the other or if I turn it lengthwise I can get to both! 

I still have much to do including sorting out and clearing out more rubbish but it is nice when what you plan works out and I feel the room is a bit bigger and easier to navigate. What Mrs. Woody would think is another question but if it keeps me out of her way whilst she is viewing the latest murder series on TV she will be happy!

Earthquake, tornado or just Woody creating chaos?

 

It may look like an earthquake or a tornado has hit my Man cave but its just me rearranging things for my new baseboards. Some normality will return from this chaos - soon I hope!

The season draws to an end!

After missing going to the Rocks by Rail Museum for two weeks following Covid and then the sickly cats saga (they are all recovering) I managed to get there today. It was my last day being there whilst the Museum is open to the public. It closes after the last event on Sunday until next year. Wow! where did that summer season go - it only seems like a few weeks ago that it opened for the 2022 season?

Anyway it was a quiet day - very quiet! However I had a chance to get round and have a look around at a few things.

First thing was in the main shed where the three Sentinels were parked in line. I am not aware of any other museum that has three near identical locos so this is a fairly unique thing to see.

Graham is getting a repaint at the moment and should look good next year.

Going into the restoration shed I was shocked to see a large open space.

I need not worry though! Elizabeth, the steam loco under restoration had been moved outside to be over the pit. She now has her reversing gear on and handbrake workings.

Being over the pit I could not resist the opportunity to have a look at the underside which was an interesting view especially of the fire box and its grate. Not many have seen these views of a loco at first hand.

It all looks very clean and shiny but that wont last long once she is back in steam!

Out in the sidings this little 0-4-0 is soon to leave the Museum. Its owner is moving it closer to home to restore it back to operational condition. Although looking in a sorry state it is in quite good condition and is restorable. Hopefully next year it will be finished - its owner has the resources to make that happen!

Although the season may be drawing to a close over the Winter there will still be things going on at the Museum so I will be kept busy! 

The Duchess is rotting!

A strange title to this post but as I hinted yesterday I now have first hand experience of what is termed as mazak rot. Many die cast parts to models are made out of this alloy. Unfortunately, unless the manufacturing process removes all the contaminates they do, over time, start a crystallization process which makes the casting swell and become brittle. There is a more technical description on Wikipedia - click here.

In the case of the Duchess of Sutherland the keeper plate which keeps the wheels in the chassis has this rot. It caused it to swell, bend and when I tried to straighten it, shattered into several pieces! Oh dear as I said or possible words to that effect!

A spare part would be a good way to solve the problem but an internet search revealed spare keeper plates are as rare as rocking horse droppings and as I don't have a 3D printer or the skills to CAD a new part that option is out - for the moment anyway. So out came the Gorilla Super Glue and I glued the parts together. It doesn't look pretty and wont last but it is hidden away and allows me to see if the loco runs fully. 

Whilst I let the glue harden I cleaned up the wheel rims, the axles and the chassis mounting points and lubricated them.

Whilst I was at it I also checked and adjusted the back to back measurements on the wheels.

With the 'repaired' keeper plate back in place the body was reattached and the tender added and the loco tested. After a somewhat stuttering and sticky start it actually ran reasonably well. 

The tender mounting point to the loco needs adjustment but I was impressed enough to think it is worth spending a bit of time and money to try to deal with the keeper plate problem. I may well end up making one from sheet brass or similar if there are no spares out there. Stay tuned on that one.

On My Last Great Project the first baseboard support has had four of its six legs added and things appear to fit together and line up - so far anyway!

As my wood butchery skills are questionable I have added these adjusters to each leg which means I stand some sort of chance on getting things level when these are installed in the Man Cave. Unlike the Duchess I hope that I won't be dealing with any wood rot on these in the future!