Mrs. Woody gets a day out!

Somewhere that Mrs. Woody has wanted to go for some time now is Grimsthorpe Castle near Bourne in Lincolnshire. After a few abortive attempts today was the day we actually finally got there and it was open too! From that you can probably deduce that we have tried to go on a closed day before now!

Whilst not a castle in the traditional sense with a moat and battlements it still is impressive.

You can tell its going to be impressive when you see the driveway which is nearly a mile long!

Inside this is the entrance hall.

Certainly impressive for any visitors!

The castle is lived in and the present occupier and owner is Lady Jane Willoughby. Going upstairs there are rooms just oozing with history. This is where the throne and footstoll for George IV have ended up.

The throne is that big because he weighed between 28 and 30 stone - over 400lbs !

These are the thrones for Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and one of their sons. Apparently in this upstairs room Henry VIII held court but was so unfit he could not walk up the stairs so rode his horse!

We spent about two and a half hours wandering round and chatting with the knowledgeable and very friendly guides. Getting outside we did not really have time to fully explore all the gardens and grounds - there are about 10 miles of walks to do! - but we saw enough to decide on a return trip in the not too distant future.

A nice croquet lawn if you fancied trying the game out. I decided not too as it looked far too strenuous!

Mrs. W and me sat outside overlooking the croquet lawn and ate our packed lunch which I had carried about in a plastic carrier bag! We then headed for the gift shop where this ultimate picnic hamper made my plastic bag look somewhat inadequate but at £149 for the hamper, the plastic bag won't be thrown out just yet!

Back at WMD HQ the Panzer Ferry pontoon is being primed. It takes alot of paint with all those large flat surfaces!

I have also started to assemble the tracks which come as individual links and handily they are already off the sprue which saves some time.

According to the instructions I need to glue 105 links for each set of tracks - that's an awful lot of eye strain and carful gluing! I can see the swear jar getting a contribution at some point!

Pontoon built and if I can predict this well I should buy a lottery ticket!

Having cleaned my car and predicted that Mrs. Woody, would as a result of this, want her car cleaned I can claim a 100% success rate in my predictive abilities! So this morning her car was cleaned and a lottery ticket bought! 

Back to the Dragon Panzer Ferry kit and the 14 parts which make up this part of the kit are now assembled. That was quick for me!

The outriggers are where the attachment chains from the accompanying amphibious tank are attached to prevent the pontoon floating off.

Putting it next to the amphibious tank illustrates the size of this model and there is still another amphibious tank to add!

I also did some more ballasting which means I am over half way through doing this first baseboard - Nice! It will be even nicer when I finish it!

Boring ballasting so lets have some pontoon fun!

A trip to the recycling center saw the garden waste accumulated after several hard days of gardening activity (hope you read that bit Mrs. Woody) sent off on its journey to become compost for next year. However, no matter how careful I am the inside of the car always looks as though it is part of the recycling center after one of these trips so that needed hoovering out and then it seemed only right that if the inside was clean the outside should be so out came bucket and sponge. 

Feeling good about having a clean car I suddenly realised that it will mean only one, well actually two things. One is that it will get dirty again this weekend and the secondly Mrs. W will want the same cleaning treatment for her car! 

With those thoughts in my mind I did the only sensible thing and head off to my Man Cave where I pushed forward with a couple of things. Firstly a bit of ballasting on my 00 gauge Last Great Project layout.

Ballasting for me means doing shortish lengths at a time. To get a reasonable and realistic look to it does mean you have to spend time brushing and prodding the ballast into place and after 30 minutes or so of that I just get bored and can not face anymore!

So deciding I needed something a bit more light hearted I moved onto the Dragon Panzer Ferry kit and decided to have some fun with the pontoon part of the kit. Not much to it but some very big parts and some small parts all contained on two identical sprues.

Strangely, Mr Beecham had popped round earlier and to cut a long story short I gave him a bottle of Plastic Weld liquid glue from the WMD Stores so that he could get on with his model building until he gets to a model shop to replenish his own stocks. I have several bottles in stock and I suddenly realised I had not used any of this solvent for several years having moved onto Tamiya cement. The Tamiya product is a gentler solvent and if you over apply it to a joint you don't end up with melted moulded details. The Plastic Weld is a much more aggressive solvent which if you are using to join large, substantial parts is ideal as it really provides a strong joint and dries much more quickly then the Tamiya product. Looking at the parts for the pontoon it suddenly occured to me that Plastic Weld would be the best product to use and so another bottle came out of WMD Stores!

I glued the two parts of the hull to one of the side pieces and then the other side piece was added. 

The Plastic Weld did a great job but even its strength was not going to strengthen the rather weak joint between the two parts of the hull. So out came a scrap of plastic card and suitable pieces were cut out to add a strengthening part to both the hull and the deck..

Those joints should be fully hardened by tomorrow so hopefully the pontoon fun will continue although I suspect that there will be some boring ballasting too!

More of the same 2!

Yes it was another day of more of the same for me! More hedge/shrub/tree cutting at WMD HQ. In particular there is a conifer tree which is about 15 foot high and I normally trim it twice a year. However this was its first cut this year and it had certainly bushed out. Not the easiest of trees to trim either given I have to climb on a shed roof to get to the back of it and then use a ladder to get to the top of it at the front. I have always been cautious with ladders but the older I get the more cautious I become!

The before!

The after!

Tomorrow will see this lot go to the recycling center where it will begin its journey to become the compost for next year. As I said yesterday it is amazing just how much stuff is generated when you start cutting things back.

Having satisfied myself that Mrs. Woody must see the work  have done (yesterday she did not notice that her drive onto the driveway was tree branch free following my work until I told her!) I ventured off into the Man Cave where the Dragon Panzer Ferry kit awaited more painting. The deck and everything apart from the cabin needed to be painted light grey so some masking was done.

The cabin was masked by using a piece of card held against it as I sprayed. There was a little overspray but that was touched in with a brush and some of the dark grey paint that I had sprayed.

It is beginning to look interesting.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit different to the last few days as I am shattered and need a rest but try telling Mrs. W that!

More of the same!

You would think that after a day of vegetational butchery at the Rocks by Rail Museum yesterday that the last thing I would do would be to carry on with more of the same but back at WMD HQ! However that is exactly what I have been doing! Hedge, shrub and tree cutting has been carried out and there is more to do but Mrs. Woody should be happy as the tree that overhung the drive and blocked her view as she drove on to the drive is now cut back. Once you start hacking away at a tree it is amazing just how much space the cuttings take up as they are packed in sacks to go to the recycling center.

Continuing on the theme of more of the same the Dragon Panzer Ferry kit got some more paint treatment. This time a darkish grey for the hull and cabin. According to what I can find on the internet there is conflicting information as to what it was painted in real life so I have relied upon the instructions. Whilst the hull and cabin are a darkish grey the rest of the hull will be a light grey. Given that none of these vehicles survive as far as I know and there are no colour photos of it I don't think anyone can prove my choice as wrong.

I will leave the dark grey to dry overnight and then after tomorrows further adventures in vegetational butchery at WMD HQ I will be painting the other parts light grey. So it will be another day of more of the same! Oh joy!

A lifting experience!

Tuesday, so it was a day at the Rocks by Rail Museum. As I drove in I had a lifting experience! There had been talk about a Coles crane being donated to the Museum and it had finally arrived!

Seeing it on site is indeed a lifting experience! 

It is old. Dates from the mid 1960's and as far as I can ascertain it is built on an AEC Mandator chassis. It certainly needs some work but I am told it does work. Historically it worked in one of the nearby ironstone quarries and when that closed the driver bought it and operated it as his own business. The owners wish on his death was that his crane be donated to the Museum and painted in the dark red of the Colsterworth Quarries so we are fortunate to get it and we now need to plan how we bring it back to its former glory in that livery.

There are certainly a lot of interesting parts to it such as this makers plate.

And this boom loading gauge.

And I have no idea what that cone thing is but the hubs may have oil leaks!

For me it was a day of vegetational butchery with the front road side grass and hedges being cut back. As the wet warmish weather continues the growth of grass and hedges just increases! 

However it looked somewhat neater once I finished!

Back in the Museum, the ever resourceful John was demonstrating his experience and skills in making rocker cover gaskets from scratch for Ketton No1 locomotive. His wide range of skills are something that only years of experience can bring.

After a short time two gaskets were made and sitting in place ready to have the rocker covers fastened down after the valve gear has been gapped.

Back in the Restoration shed John has also been busy painting the wood for the three plank wagon. In my last post on the Museum I explained that there were about eight coats of various paints on the wood and you can almost shave such is the gloss now on those pieces of wood. It certainly was not a lifting experience to see my face mirrored in the paint though!

John thinking, when will this end?

Thomas has almost finished the van paint with the buffer beams and chassis now receiving paint. This must be the best piece of rolling stock that we have at the moment - certainly until the three plank wagon is finished!

A good day and whilst I was shattered when I left I did feel lifted!

Dark like the clouds!

Another fine summer day here in the UK! Waking up to the sound of rain I thought I had woken early as it seemed dark but that was due to the clouds blocking out the sunlight. With no chance of a dry bike ride until later in the day the Dragon Panzer Ferry kit progressed a bit further with details like the marker lights and mirror arms being fitted. The various wheels were also prepared for painting. The running wheels in particular had a prominent mould line around them which needed some careful and delicate sanding to remove.

With the main parts that I wanted fitted to the hull glued in place and the wheels prepared it was time for some paint. In my usual way the loose parts were mounted on a board using upturned masking tape to hold the parts in place. 

Then it was time for the undercoat which in my usual way is a dark colour to give shading and darkness in places that top coat does not reach. Vallejo black primer was the colour of choice matching the ever darkening clouds outside!

I did two sessions of priming using the gap between to get a bike ride in whilst the clouds and rain broke a little. I now have a primed hull and various wheels and fittings ready for some top coats.

One side of the wheels done so all turned over ....

I also managed time to glue a further section of track on my 00 gauge layout which is making progress!

Things are brightening up!

Would it float?

Back on the Dragon Panzer Ferry kit and I glued the deck to the hull which brought about thoughts as to whether this vehicle would actually float? A bit of an internet search revealed that my model is that of a prototype  produced by Magirus in 1942. It consisting of the two tracked vehicles and a pontoon. It was capable of ferrying vehicles up to 20tons. Given the ever increasing weight of German tanks, the load capacity was insufficient to carry Panthers and Tigers and so this particular design never got further than the prototypes. Whether they were actually tested is something which appears to be confirmed by this picture which you can see by clicking here.. It floats but does not look too stable!

Back to the kit and there are a few more small parts to add but I am getting near to the point where I can apply some paint.

One thing is for certain I won't be trying my model out in the bath to see if it floats! I can just imagine Mrs. Woody's reaction to that! She would probably get me a rubber duck!

Airfix/Dapol JCB kit.

An unusual day at WMD HQ it being the birthday for both my departed sister and mother in law but one where we did have a get together of families over a meal which was nice. No model making activities today but time to reflect on a model I built around the time my sister died.

This is the Airfix JCB kit. Well it is not quiet the Airfix kit as it is now under the ownership of Dapol but more on that later in this post. 

Even though I built this kit years ago it is not, in true Woody style, finished yet! It needs the various rams painting silver, the decals applying and some weathering. Despite its small size it is a fairly detailed kit and the rear actor is movable.

At the moment the model stands in the quarry at Chalkdon, my 009 narrow gauge layout, where it will probably now stay.

There is some history to this kit. Originally released in 1966 by Airfix, the JCB was actually the load for a lowmac wagon kit so the JCB was never available seperately. Go forward about 25 years and Airfix had stopped production of their railway based kits, including the old Kitmaster range they had bought, back in the 1970s. Dapol however bought all the moulds from Airfix in the 1990s. They started to re-release the old kits but they had a major fire in their factory in Wales shortly after and a number of moulds were lost in the damage including, it was thought, the JCB moulds. Roll forward many months and the story goes that Dapol got a phone call from a local engineering works who carried out repairs to moulds. They wondered when Dapol were coming to pick up the repaired JCB moulds? Apparently before the fire the moulds had been sent for repair but nobody remembered that! Since then the kit has been released on its own and is still in the range.

Sometimes it is good to look back and remember things and not just models but those close to you.

A trio of tractors!

Not the farm type of tractor but the Class 37's which are nick named tractors because of their engine noise. Having spent so much time laying track and soldering wires it was only sensible to test it all out by running some trains so these three came out.

I also tidied up a bit with the layout cleared of most rubbish and clutter.

However some clutter soon went back onto weigh a section of track down that I had glued.

I think I'll just run the trio of tractors a bit more now!