Non-Gardener builds an Observatory, Garden Railway and even Dabbles with Plants!

22nd September 2025

On Monday the 22nd, I did some general tidying of dead stuff around the garden and some pruning. This included the Thyme in the kitchen border and the Lavender in the Sun Room border.



The Cyclamen and Campanulas were planted in my workshop planters, along with some mini Daffodil and Crocus bulbs. Since this picture, the planters have been moved right, along side the fence by the steps. The heather was also potted and put on the kitchen patio, where Lynne can see it from the window.



Down in the wood, I planted some Creeping jenny in and around the animal pond. These were some left-over cuttings, after the rest had been added to a bald spot behind the garage. Removed from the grey planters, were a load of Grape hyacinths that had been dug out while building the lawn edging. These were added between two trees at the front of the wood, just right of the middle entrance.

 

17th September 2025 ( missed update )

I missed this update a couple of weeks ago until I got some pictures. I spotted this 1941 railway lamp on Ebay, the perfect size for my crossing gate. I need to make a proper bracket to attach it to the gate, supporting it a little above the top rail. It could also do with stripping and repainting, as the original paint has crazed and is chipping off in a number of places. I'll also need to take the glass out and put some gasket sealer around the rubber 'O' rings to keep the rain out. All of that is a Winter project. In the picture here, it is illuminated with an LED torch.



Despite the porcelain shroud around the wick missing a piece, I got the burner working on some methylated spirits. I'm guessing it would have run off paraffin originally.



25th September 2025

I also discovered these in the lower lawn and railway lawn. I've pulled them out, but may need to weed kill if they come back. There's a few other small random mushrooms popped up here and there, probably due to the amount of watering I had to do for the new grass.



Lastly I've just uploaded my latest "What's in the Wood in....." video, covering September.

 

They look like ink cap mushrooms.
Great lamp.

 

4th October 2025

On September the 28th, I got a successful test drive out of the Dodge, following the engine work. With that back on the road, I was able to turn my attention back to the house and garden. The next day, I jetwashed the front of the house and cleaned the gutters, in preparation for waterproofing the brickwork.



I've been hovering on the edge of a cold for the last few days, so haven't done anything else until today. So I began the restoration work on my railway lamp. All three glazing pieces had their snap-rings removed to allow the glass to be taken out. All three rubber seals are perished, being dry, cracking and very brittle. As a result, I've ordered a sheet of rubber to cut some new seals. The glass and snap-rings, plus the lamp fixing bolt were all cleaned up.

Due to the paint cracking and flaking off the housing, I decided it needed a complete repaint. To start with, I stripped as much paint as possible with a rotary wire brush. The lamp was then placed in a bucket of water and baking soda for some electrolysis rust removal.

 

After about 20 minutes, it was disconnected and pulled out for an initial inspection. It was cleaning up fairly well, but there were a number of areas still protected by paint or with rust in small tight corners.

I'm not going to strip or do anything major with the burner, except perhaps repairing the porcelain flame shroud with some epoxy putty. That may not even live in the lamp when it's out in the garden and will probably just be fitted over the Winter, when I'll use the lamp as an ornament.



Further electrolysis showed the bottom of the lamp to be severely rusted through. Initially, before I'd started working on the lamp, I'd considered just repairing the base. Having seen how bad it was, I decided the whole base needed removing and replacing.

I carefully cut through the soldered/welded joints with a mini grinding wheel until the base came free. It wasn't in a good condition at all, but enough survived to take measurements from to make a template.



Most of the rest of the lamp body is in good condition, but the bottom edge at the back of the lamp, is rusted through where the bottom overlapped and was attached. I think the best way around this is just to make the new bottom piece with slightly longer edges that fold up against the sides. This will cover the rusted out rear area. I'll get plenty of soft solder into the overlapping joints to prevent water sitting in them, which is what caused the damage in the first place.

With the bottom off, it gave better access to the inside, to allow further paint stripping and it is now back in the electrolysis bucket, slowly lifting rust particles from the surface.

 

6th October 2025

With garden bin collection this week, I did some general tidying on Monday the 6th. There was lots of dead stuff to collect and a number of plants that needed a trim and dead-heading. I also did some weeding up the lounge side border. With one bin full, I was about to call it a day, until I spotted some moss in the path.

I'd recently watched a Youtube video about growing moss for aquariums etc. I want quite a lot of moss to plant around the stream slates next year, so decided to gather a load up and try to grow more. I ended up with enough clumps to spread around five containers, leaving gaps for it to spread. I don't know how much it will grow over the winter, but as it does, I'll divide it further to build up a good supply.

8th October 2025

Bin day tomorrow and still one empty bin. It's been mostly dry for the last few days, so managed to get the whole lawn cut properly today, starting with strimming all the edges and tree rings first, before mowing. Last time, I just strimmed the newly planted grass and ran the mower over on a high setting, just to suck up the clippings.

This time, everything got a proper cut. With everything cut to the same length, I was pleasantly surprised at how smooth and flat the lower lawn looks now. Most of the bald areas have now filled in, with just a few small places that can be over-seeded in the Spring.

Next out was the leaf blower, as there was a ton of conifer debris all over the railway gravel and railway embankment, following storm Amy. Once that was clear, I also blew a load of twig and leaf debris off the slates at the lawn edge and further into the wood.

I began to pull the two bins to the front garden and then realised just how much grass and weeds were growing in the driveway gravel. Back on my knees again and another half an hour of plucking had most of it pulled out. I then had to pick my daughter up, so that was it for gardening.

 

Also today, I was back to the railway lamp. The neoprene rubber arrived yesterday and the brass sheet came today, so I did a bit more tinkering with the lamp. Time for the new 'O' rings. After cutting and test fitting some card templates, I started cutting out the large rubber 'O' ring with a scalpel. This is the main window for the red lens. The rubber was tested for size in the hole before the inner hole was cut.



The centre of the card template was then cut out and held firmly over the rubber disc, cutting around the inside of the card, bit by bit, until the centre of the rubber was removed. It took a while, cutting gently over and over until cutting right through the rubber, so it didn't stretch while cutting.



With the large one done, the two smaller 'O' rings were cut, one from the waste that came from the centre of the larger ring. Like the large one, the rubber disc was test fitted in the lamp housing first, before the inner was cut out.



The next stage will be to form the new bottom panel. Once that is attached, the lamp will be given one more electrolysis bath, to remove the surface rust that has appeared on the un-primed metal. It can then be rinsed, dried, wiped down with some thinners, primed and painted inside and out. I'll use some smooth black Hammerite to give it a tough, weather-proof finish.

 

9th October 2025

Over the Moon with my achievements today. I hate metalworking, but managed to make and fit a good replacement for the rusted out bottom of my railway lamp. I began with a cardboard template, folded and trial fitted to the bottom of the lamp. This template was then taped down to the brass sheet.



I lightly scored the edges and fold lines with a scalpel along a steel rule, so I could work the metal without loosing the markings. The piece was then cut out of the sheet and the corners cut with a mini stone cutting wheel.

 

I grabbed a piece of concrete paving stone from the garden, to rest the brass on, while I annealed it and then left it to cool while I assembled my sheet metal folder.



After the back and one end was folded, it was test fitted to the lamp to check on the size and other fold line positions. Satisfied that the fit was good, the other end was folded. I began to fold the front lip, but as this is completely folded over on itself, the brass was annealed again in this area. These folds were done with the brass clamped between two pieces of MDF in a vice and tapped with a hammer, via another brass bar to spread the force of the impacts.

 

Two additional small cut-outs were needed in the sides, to clear the hinge parts. This is because I needed to make the sides taller than the original, to hide rusted out parts of the main lamp body.



Back to jig making next, with a hollow sanded into a block of MDF. The end of an old blunt 12mm drill was then ground into more of a curve, to use as a stamp for the lamp feet. With the bass lined up over the MDF, the drill was tapped with the hammer, to form the indentations that would be the feet. The first two feet went well, then I had to cut the MDF down a bit to fit the front feet.

 

The original base appeared to have five small holes in a cross pattern. I don't know if these were for ventilation or draining of moisture, but wanting the lamp to be more weather proof, I didn't replicate these holes.

Both the lamp and new base were tinned with solder first, then assembled and soldered with both a gas torch for additional heat and a soldering iron to help guide the solder into the joints.



Done! I did a quick test to make sure the burner still fitted in the lamp, as one of the runners unsoldered while I was tinning the lamp body. With everything looking good, it was put back into the electrolysis bath to give it one last rust removal treatment.



It's just come back out of the electrolysis bath again and following a rinse in clean water, is drying in the warmth of my curing cabinet. Once dry, it can be wiped down with thinners and primed.

 

It's for modelmaking when working in resin. It's an insulated cabinet, heated by a 60w light bulb that can speed up paint or resin drying times and is often used to dry out my gardening boots!

 

9th ~ 19th October 2025

After the lamp was dry, it was primed and left for the primer to harden. It was then given a brushed coat of smooth Hammerite, to get into all the awkward corners. Once that had time to cure, the whole lamp was given a rub over with fine wire wool, to matt of the surface for the next coat. The following two coats of Hammerite were sprayed. That's where the lamp is at now, but I really want to give it a couple more coats of paint before re-assembly.



22nd October 2025

Work in the garden is pretty much over for the year and I've now moved my focus to the lounge/diner/breakfast bar and kitchen; which is all open plan and huge. The whole lot is another treat covered in lining paper, hiding all sorts of cracks and bad workmanship. The plan is to have it all done by Easter!

I've stripped the wall on the right three times! Firstly, a scalpel to delaminate the top surface of the lining paper. Even when scoring the paper, the steamer wouldn't shift it. So I delaminated the top painted layer of paper, which then allowed the back of the paper to be steamed off. After that, back to the scalpel and hot air paint stripper to remove quite a thick layer of emulsion, leaving either the plaster wall or areas of white emulsion. This must have been diluted as it has soaked into the plaster and doesn't want to come off easily. That will just be sanded.

There are numerous cracks in the plaster and areas that sound like the plaster has delaminated from the brickwork behind. I don't want to spend the money on re-plastering the whole room, as it would cost thousands. Instead, I'm drilling along the cracks and injecting dilute waterproof PVA glue into the plaster, to harden up the plaster where it has cracked and to re-attach it to the brickwork. Where it sounds like there's more of a void, I've injected a mix of PVA and wall plaster to fill it. This procedure seemed to have worked well in the master bedroom.



27th October 2025

On the 27th, I took the Jeep out on my annual "Colours of Autumn" drive. A three hour drive for just 35 miles travelled, due to the number of stops to photograph the Jeep amongst the lovely Autumn colours.

My own little Pinetree Wood is also quite colourful right now, but the recent storms have been stripping the leaves in large quantities.



As a result of my trailcam and other action cams producing so many captures of wildlife, I've also created two new dedicated Youtube channels. The new "Pinetree_Wood_Trailcam" channel is just for my long-form wildlife videos ( https://www.youtube.com/@Pinetree_Wood_Trailcam ), while "Pinetree_Wood_Shorts" is for short-form ( https://www.youtube.com/@Pinetree_Wood_Shorts ) if anyone is interested.

 

9th November 2025

On the 9th, I moved two hardy Cyclamen from the Sun room patio, where the stream will be and relocated them to the woodland, near the pond. Not far away, at the back of the wood, there's also a Canterbury Bell still flowering, now into mid November. Most of the other Cyclamen in the wood are still flowering, but I believe they are annuals, so I don't know how much time they have left.