Working smarter not harder as I get older!

I often highlight thing n this blog with the phrase 'Working smarter not harder as I get older!,. And as you get older you learn by experience - usually! I say usually because what should have been a half hour job to bolt two baseboards together on my Last Great Project Layout ended up taking two hours just to do half the job! If I had been smarter I would have bolted the baseboards together when I built them. It would have been easy with nothing in the way. Instead, and for reasons I cannot recall, I left it at the time thinking that I would do it later. Well a year and a half later I am doing it and its hard! I had to clear stuff from under the baseboard just to get access. Even then with the way the boards are supported I had limited access. 

Eventually I got the first hole drilled.

Two hours later the first two bolts are in and my back is out! Ouch!

 Just the other two at the other end of the board to do and hopefully my back lasts!

Hush, hush 2!

Life is full of all sorts of non model making matters at the moment, many of them related to items on Mrs. Woody's list of chores for me! That list must be like the universe - ever expanding! Anyway, what time I have I am doing small, accomplishable in an hour or so type jobs. So another loco came out to be DCC fitted. I thought that I had this for about a year but looking back through the blog |I found that Woody's memory was not that good as it was 19th January 2021 that I blogged about getting this! Gosh! Where does time go when you have so many Mrs. W chores to do!

With box out of store it was onto the workbench.

There is a great deal of packaging but some useful instructions!

The DCC chip fits in the tender which makes life so simple - just remove the coupling and undo one screw and the tender top is off reveling the DCC socket.

With the blanking plug removed the LAIS 8 pin chip was fitted and a 9volt battery applied to the wheels just to see that I had it the right way round - amazingly I did!

Process reversed and loco ready to be programmed.

With it on the track and coupled up to some LNER teak coaches it looks wonderful and runs beautifully. In real life it must have been a striking loco to see which makes the fact that none survive all the more sad.

Back to the 90s with Central Trains!

I am slowly going through my collection of rolling stock. Some of it has unfortunately been boxed away for far too long so I am getting them out and enjoying them which is the whole reason for having them. This example is a Hornby Class 153 that I bought second hand about 15 or more years ago. It had been fitted with a DCC chip which was nice and saved me the trouble. 

Out of the box it is a single unit rail car that was very much a backstay of many lightly used services in real life. Central Trains, which was one of the first tranche private companies to take over from British Rail in the 1990s had several of these and very smart they looked in that two tone green livery 

In fact I have a bit of a soft spot for Central Trains as they did operate where I lived and worked in the 90s. I have a number of their passenger units including this Class 156 two car unit just coming into shot.

This is the unit which again is a Hornby model. I do have two of these so they can run as a four car multiple working if I want.

In that 90s period, whilst Central Trains were providing passenger services, EW&S, as they started out as, before becoming plain EWS, were hauling freight with a wide variety of locos such as this Class 58 behind the two Central Trains units in the picture below. The two companies did operate in the same geographical area so it was common to see the two companies trains pass each other and as I do have a few EWS liveried locos I have on my bucket list to get them all out with the Central Trains stock and go back to the 90s!

 

Homework!

It is a long time since Woody had to do homework and as with most school related matters that interfered with free time I was never that keen on it! However, there were always some subjects that you enjoyed and homework in these was sometimes quite enjoyable. For me that was technical drawing. I had a wooden drawing board, T square and the inevitable school geometry set, which I think I still have, with compass, dividers and the all important eraser! 

My current homework is also something that is enjoyable. Leaning to drive the drag line excavator at the Rocks By Rail Museum is not just practical experience in operating all those levers and pedals that I showed a few days ago. The theory is important as well with knowing how the machine works and the full maintenance procedures. That is why I have been sent home with this rather thick tome of reading!

And as you would expect at WMD HQ anything new brings about a feline investigator team with Marty and Monty, AKA The Destructo Twins, being todays nominated moggies!

Wonder if I will get a gold star for my homework????

The art of answering the right question and Crowd Funding!

Did you get what you needed? was the question from Mrs. Woody as I returned from a model railway shop that I had stopped off at to pick up some DCC harnesses and sockets. Yes, was my reply.

Had the question from Mrs. W been slightly differently phrased, such as, did you get what you wanted? I might have had to admit to also getting this!

It was just sitting there on a shelf in amongst the blue Bachmann and red Hornby models and to be frank it was the box that struck me as rather attractive! Having seen the rather reasonable price I was tempted to pick it up and have a closer look. 

What I did not know at the time is that this is an example of the first crowd funded model railway loco in the UK done by DJ Models as confirmed on the instruction leaflet. 

The crowd funding was started in 2014 and the Class 71 loco was finally released in mid 2017. I must admit that this is a model that passed me by at the time. I can recall Hornby issuing a Class 71 but not this one. However a test run on the shops track convinced me that this was s great model at a price that I later found out was significantly less than the 2017 price! Bargain!

I just think that it is a stunning looking loco and the various lights and that pantograph just highlight the beauty of it.

Unfortunately for DJ Models, despite their successes with several locos that they released, they went into receivership in mid 2019.

Now whether Mrs. W will see it as an item of beauty is an unknown factor at the moment but I guess I really ought to start some crowd funding of my own to ensure my future is safeguarded when she does find out!

Life is a drag......line!

Rocks by Rail Museum today where I could hang my doctored event signs up that I made the other day.

Then a few QR codes were distributed about linking to the Rocks website - all very high technology especially given that most volunteers can still remember the days of only having three TV channels!

Then for the fun bit! Rob and me wakened the drag line from its Winter slumber. Batteries reconnected, oil levels checked, greasing points greased and fresh fuel added all took time but all very necessary.

Then it was tine to play test it! There are a lot of controls that I am still trying to get my head round but no major incidents as Rob teaches me to operate this massive machine.

Strange how something grows in desolation but this sole daffodil has survived and grown in the mountain of earth that has been moved about - we couldn't dig it up!

Until next time anyway! In the meantime life has indeed been a drag today!

Moggy Minor Restoration!

Many things going on at WMD HQ today but no model making! However, this is the type of day when I can spare a minute uncover and have a look at a few things in my collection of treasured items or as Mrs. Woody prefers to refer to them as 'junk'! However, this particular model is actually one that Mrs. W bought for me - as she liked it! Well I cant argue with that! So here it is, the uncovered Moggy Minor (as Morris Minors were referred to) with moggy (cat) on top!

I like that!

Sign making!

The Rocks by Rail Museum opens to the public on Easter Sunday which is the 31 March this year. The Museum has used banners placed at six local locations to advertise its events which last year became my responsibility to put out on site. Given the number of events during a year and the fact that each banner is unique with the event and date details, there are a lot of banners needed during the year. A lot of banners means a lot of cost! In an effort to save money I have been developing a way to reuse last years banners. Basically the text advertising the event is reusable but the dates need to be changed. I did think about paint and stencils but that has issues such as paint adherence to the banner material and getting stencils lined up. I have therefore used some image software to print off the necessary dates. Using a website I was able to identify the font that is used on the banners so it matches reasonably well. I was also able to reasonably match the background colour using the imaging software. With the dates printed off I sprayed the paper with some varnish to seal the printer ink.

I then cut out the individual dates.

 

The individual dates were then wrapped in clear sticky back plastic - very Blue Peter!

I then attached double sided tape to the back of the wrapped dates.

As with most things in the WMD household a cat became involved and Monty here was curious as to what was going on. As you can see last years opening Easter event was on the 9 April.

With the original banner cleaned with some IPA the backing to the double sided tape was removed and hey presto one updated 'new' sign!

Well the concept is proved so I just have another five banners to do and then the 6 for the Easter Monday! I will be busy but signs are that it will be worth it!

Finished!

At last its finished! Not my best build and one that fought me especially towards the end but look at from a distance and it looks reasonable! So its off to the shelf for the Heller Scania 141 LB where it will be seen as a reminder of my perseverance and my frustration!

So now I can move onto something else with out any guilty feelings that I should finish this kit!