Christmas Modelling (1/35)

Besides celebrating Christmas and spending time with the family I've had some time at the work bench. Subjects of the Christmas attention were my Schöma gas generator loco and a Danish army lorry.

I'm preparing the 3D-printed Schöma loco for fitting of the BullAnt I have ordered from Australia. To add strength to the loco's frame I fitted brass bars to the frame's end plates. They also add weight to the loco. More weight will be added later when I have determined how much room the drive unit, decoder and light arrangement takes up.

Like a turtle... The Schöma is having its frame reinforced.

Close up of the operation: the brass bar will provide strength to the frame and prevent the front plate from deforming. I have no experience with 3D-prints' long term stability and I like to be prepared for all eventualities.

The army lorry is an addition to a recovery column I started building a few years ago. So far the column isn't too long, comprising only two vehicles; a CMP with scratch built generator and a Scammell recovery truck.  Most Danish army lorries in the years after the second world war were equipment drawn from the British army's surplus. The lorry I'm building at the moment is a Bedford QL from a IBG kit. Large numbers of this type of lorry came to Denmark after the war. Most were in need of repairs after use in the war, some even had bullet holes in their bodywork. The 1:35 kit assembles with no fuss and I really like to build a kit out of the box now and then.

The chassis of the QL assembled and primed. The cargo bed with a load of spare wheels isn't quite as progressed. The two sitting figures are from Ultracast (figures 35011 and 35036) and very nice. In the fifties the Danish army uniform relied heavily on garments donated by the British army, so WW2 figures in British uniforms only need minor modifications to pass for Danish squaddies. The beret was only introduced into the Danish army in 1958 (in armoured troops) but I really thought it going too far to replace them with forage caps.

I intend to make the recovery column  a little longer in the coming years. Hopefully with two more CMPs to make the column a bit more uniform. Some day, on a stretch of road parallel to the gravel line, you might see the column pause during one of the early Cold War's many manoeuvres in the woods around Nystrup and Skovby.

The Scammell recovery lorry built from an Accurate Armour resin kit in 2008. The Danish army had a few of these imposing vehicles of unmistakably British design. My model still lacks Danish army decals - which are currently being designed.

A Review of 2013 (1/35)

2013 turned out to be almost as productive as 2012. I managed to build a new resin kit of a Jung locomotive. Mostly from the kit's parts but as usual I couldn't resist fitting some scratch built parts, a specially adapted figure and my first custom made etched works plates with the help of Mark Hesketh. One of my older locos was fitted with decoder and new O-rings and could take its place among the serviceable locos at Nystrup Gravel.


The U-Models' Jung ZL 114 with etched works plates on the cab. The image serves as a reminder to me in Denmark that the cold and grey weather I suffer for the moment will give way to spring and summer in three month's time.

I also managed to finish several road vehicles (and a huge off road crawler tractor). Among the road vehicles were Nystrup Gravel's director's Opel Kapitän  and haulage contractor Hansen's Bedford O tipper.

My research in the history of Nystrup Gravel also made progress in 2013. I found a complete binder with papers from the company and quite a few old pictures. Here is one of the company's director's Opel Kapitän about to cross the viaduct over the gravel line.

In 2013 there seemed no end to the support from manufacturers for a modeller like me. A new etched brass O&K MD2 in 1:35 from Hesketh Scale Models and steel sleepered track panels from James Coldicott were very welcome. A surge of 3D-printed locos in 1:35 was suddenly made available on Shapeways. I bought my first and while the quality could be a little better, I was quite satisfied. And last but not least: What would be the release of the year (or the decade, dare I say!) is just about reaching the web shops: continental type skips in 1:35 in etched brass from the 1:35 industrial narrow gauge-alliance Hesketh & Snoodyk. I will now be able to exchange my old skips, first of all my Scale Link, some of which have served Nystrup Gravel since 1999. The Scale Link skips will not be scrapped but kept in reserve. I never throw out anything!

In October this little blog passed 30.000 page views. Just a fortnight later my collection of images on Flickr passed 100.000 view counts and November 2013 was the first month when Nystrup Gravel logged more than 3000 page views in a single month. I don't know if that is a lot in comparison with other related blogs, but I must admit being a little surprised that something so peripheral and downright weird as industrial narrow gauge modelling in 1:35 can attract that kind of interest.

As usual I have spent quite a few weekends at the 700 mm. gauge heritage railway HVB and besides helping explain industrial railways to modern families and preserve history the work also gives great first hand knowledge of what works in reality. An important ingredient in modelling. A few trips abroad provided me with visits to narrow gauge railways.

Surely the weather isn't always supportive of volunteering on HVB, but when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Here the parasol I was holding to protect my friends from the rain has collapsed because of a sudden gust of wind. Working on a 1:1 railway surely is different from sitting at my modelling work bench. Photo: Finn Sørensen.

Despite all other accomplishments at or near Nystrup Gravel, the emergence of a twin to Nystrup's speeder no. 7 surely counts as the year's most notable occurrence. A 1:35 speeder built in Canada that exactly portrayed all features of my own little speeder really surprised me. I was incredibly honoured to see one of my models inspire a fellow modeller to build a model. I'm quite sure it was a once in a life time experience and I must look forward to other things in 2014. New skips, a running gas generator Schöma, a few road vehicles and perhaps the two bogie flats will enter service on my 1:35 version of Nystrup Gravel. The anniversaries of the battles of the Great War will probably lead to some modelling projects in the coming years. I don't expect to run out of inspiration.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Progress (Minor) on Two Bogie Wagons (1/35)

I have been making slow progress on the two Hudson bogie wagons. After having done the four bogies for project from rebuilt Scale Link skips, I started bending some of the etched metal parts while on a small vacation in the summer cottage. Returning from vacation brought a lot of non-modelling demands on my time and other modelling projects even managed to overtake the bogie wagons' place on my worktable. Now it's December and I thought it might be possible to finish the wagons before New Year.



Bending frame/bottom of the wagons. One frame/bottom has been bent up in my little etch bender from Mission Models. A full etch is seen in the top right of the image.

I think I mentioned, that the wagons come without bogies and their associated mountings. After some head scratching I made bogie mountings from scrap brass and nuts to fit my standard M2 bolts. To make life easier I have long time since standardized my use of bolts and nuts for mounting bogies, loco bodies etc. to M2, making sure I'm not in doubt what to do when a nut or bolt is lost. Unfortunately I was one M2 nut short.

My old supplier of small nuts and bolts had closed down so I ordered a nice selection of M2 nuts and bolts from www.modellbauschrauben.de in Germany.


A frame seen from below. Bogie mountings soldered inside the frames. On the other side of the brass piece with a hole in it is a M2 nut to take the bogie mounting bolt.

As a consequence of the missing nut, I decided to concentrate work on one wagon. With the end plates bent up and the associated angles ready to solder in place, it turned out that the angles were too short by several millimetres. Not wanting to worry about who's fault it was (me or the kit designer), I simply soldered the end plates in place. I will fit strengthening angles from brass or plastic profile later.

Being slightly put off by a missing bolt and short angle irons, I put both wagons back into their card board box. I will spend the coming Christmas Holidays doing some preparatory work on my gas generator Schöma and building a Danish army lorry. The wagons will have to wait...

Playing With Track Panels

This weekend I got to play with track panels. Not the 1:32 track panels I bought from James Coldicott, but 1:1 scale track panels with 7 kg/m rail in the gauges of 700 and 600 mm. On the heritage railway where I work as a volunteer, we are currently laying track in a large shed to house all the locos and rolling stock that isn't yet servicable. To maximise use of the building we lay the tracks close, and as the tracks isn't subject to much stress, we chose to use some old track panels.

Three weeks ago we picked out a number of track panels from storage. Itself not an easy task as trees and shrubbery during the years had shot up among the panels.

Loading track panels from the HVB storage facility at km. 1,5. After having chopped down a few trees the excavator could get to the 700 mm. panels having been in storage for more than 20 years.

Laying of track panels is easy and if our panels hadn't been old, a bit croocked and in need of a new sleeper or two, the work would have been no match for our experienced team.

One track is finished, one track is being adjusted while the third track is being assmbled. All with a gauge of 700 mm. Great to work indoor as it was raining cats and dogs outside!

Two tracks are finished. Gravel is poured in the third while the first 600 mm panel is already laid. To the right the laser we use to make sure the tracks are level and to the right height. In the background the excavator is loading a skip with gravel. Just because we like old technology we shouldn't avoid modern blessings that can help us.

3 tracks with 700 mm. gauge and one with 600 mm. gauge in place in the shed. In front is the traverser giving access to the depot tracks. Two more tracks will fill the empty foreground and provide more room for the railway's rolling stock. 

Among our supplies of 600 mm. gauge track panels we found these. They look quite different from what we are used to see in our stacks. From a search through my books and materials, I think they bear a strong resemblance to the French army standard track panel from World War 1. It just seems very unlikely that track from French army stocks should come to Denmark and would be so well preserved 100 years later? Please leave a comment if you recognise the type of track.

Haulage Contractor Hansen's Bedford (1/35)

In Nystrup haulage contractor Hansen was the prime mover of gravel from Nystrup Gravel to costumers that didn't have the possibility to pick up gravel in their own vehicles. The gravel was loaded into lorries at the ramp at Nystrup. Hansen had a small fleet of lorries of quite a varied origin. In the mid 1950's Hansen still had some old ex. German army lorries, a postwar Chevrolet, while the pride of the fleet was the new Bedford O tipper bought specifically to offer fast and easy delivery of gravel. No need for hard work shovelling gravel from the lorry!

Hansen's Bedford O-tipper driving unloaded from Ubehage to Nystrup to pick up a load of gravel.

I started assembly of the Roadcraft Models' kit back in March and finished building in June. After the primer was dry, I air brushed bonnet, cab and rear body with Vallejo 967, Verde Oliva. Front bumper, radiator and front mudguards had a layer of glossy black while the chassis was given a coat of matt black. I applied custom decals from 'Skilteskoven' and they went on very fine, despite a quite demanding surface with metal strapping and rivets on the tailboard. I used Mr. Hobby's decal solutions to help the decals soften and adjust to the surface.

Basic colours applied to the lorry. Next is decals. In the background some of the old 35 mm film canisters I use for mixing and thinning paint. Good thing I kept a bag of them when I switched to digital photography!

I managed to destroy decals and paint on the cab doors when applying matt varnish. The Games Workshop varnish normally works fine on Vallejo paints (and did so on the tailboard), but on the doors something clearly went wrong. I just hate when things like that happens. Particularly when there is no obvious explanation. The doors were stripped of paint and primer and I started all over again. This time I chose to use Vallejo varnish to avoid further nasty surprises.

The license plates are the yellow 1950-1958 type with a single letter indicating which county the lorry came from. After painting I fitted a windshield wiper from the spares box.

I kept the weathering to a minimum. Basically a few washes with thinned oil paints and a light dusting with powdered pastels to represent dust. The rear body inside was weathered somewhat more and I applied a little dried gravel in the corners.

The Bedford O apparently parked on the ramp from the viaduct taking the road between Nystrup and Ubehage over the gravel line. At least no driver is to be seen in the driver's seat?

I peviously built Hansen's Chevrolet lorry and perhaps another lorry from the company will show up on the layout in the future?

Lorries made up a good percentage of the automobiles on Danish roads in the fifties. Almost a third of all automobiles were lorries. It reflects that only a limited number of Danes had the means to buy a car in those years.

Another scan from my collection of the 'Who, What, Where' year books. This time the 1950 issue.

Boxing Two Models (1/35)

Building models from scratch or kits is an exiting way of getting unique models. But it also gives me the challenge of how to preserve them from dust, excessive sun light or the accidental fall to the floor. I have earlier shown how I use some small boxes to store models. Recently I took a larger wooden box in use for two locos and thought I'd better share a few snapshots with you. My loco 3 (the Sala) and 6 (the Jung) now share a wooden box lined with tailor made foam insert to protect them during transport and storage. 

Working with foam to obtain a firm fit around the model.

Both models fitted in their foam beds. The foam bits glued to the box lid (left) applies pressure to the models when the lid is closed,  keeping them firmly in place. The loose foam bit (top) keeps the Sala driver from travelling freely around inside the box.

Box contents clearly marked with numbers in the font 'German Typewriter'. When you have to hand paint, there is no reason to pick a font that isn't compatible with the era of Nystrup Gravel.

Storing models in foam lined boxes is a mixed blessing if I am to believe several online articles. The foam can deteriorate and loose its tension, thereby reducing the protection it provides. That is one thing, but some foam types can actually degrade in a way that makes them stick to a model and even damage paint as a result of chemical reactions. I don't want that to happen, and although my foam lined boxes are still quite new, I check my boxes once a year to make sure everything is still well.

Those modellers modelling in more usual railway modelling scales have products available to them for storing their models. Some are generic and will fit serveral types of models, some are even made for specific models.

Nystrup's Last Crawler Tractor (1/35)

Nystrup Gravel used a Soviet built crawler tractor for pulling machinery and cut down trees from the areas to be quarried. The S-65 was huge and unpractical, but it was bought cheap and in the 1950's you had to use what you could get your hands on, as machinery was under import restrictions. When restrictions lifted somewhat Nystrup Gravel managed to buy a much smaller Ransomes crawler tractor from the United Kingdom.

The Ransomes type MG6 was introduced in 1953 but I don't know when Nystrup Gravel got hold of their's. Here the tiny tractor is photographed outside the loco shed at Nystrup. 

The MG6 was the first crawler tractor I ever built a model of. I assembled a Model Tractor Co. 1:32 kit of a MG6 in 1994 and recently went over it again with some paint and weathering. As with any Model Tractor kit the MG6 is of whitemetal with a small number of etched brass parts. I left off the three point linkage at the rear of the tractor and fitted a protective steel plate with heavy coupling and chain for hauling tasks.

Fuelling of Nystrup Gravel's wheeled or tracked vehicles were usually done from jerry cans. Here the MG6 has been driven to the loco fuelling site. Had 'Stalin' done that, the track would probably have needed repair.

The Ransomes MG6 was a small crawler tractor designed to operate on small orchards and market gardens. They were often fitted with power take-off drive and hydraulic three-point linkage. The first model of the Ransomes crawler, the MG2 was released in 1936. A total of about 15,000 Ransomes MG series tractors were built - 4800 were MG6s. The MG6 was Nystrup's last crawler tractor. It was last seen during the clean up after the close down of the company in the late 1970's, probably ending up as scrap.

750 mm Gauge in Southern Germany

Once a year I usually travel to the 'Feldbahntreff' (last year at the Muskauer Waldeisenbahn) to meet other enthusiasts that keep alive narrow gauge railways – almost all of them with an industrial connection. The mostly continental, German speaking enthusiasts keep each other updated with their latest challenges and accomplishments. This year I chose not to attend and teamed up with some friends for a trip to the 750 mm. railways in Saxony in southeastern Germany.

While not particularly 'industrial' the railways we visited gave us much inspiration. To see how others have developed heritage railways is always interesting and regarding work shop facilities the visits set new goals for us Danes.

99 1741-0 in the work shop at Oberwiesentahl on the Fichtelbergbahn. Notice the well laid out work shop, removable floor panels and over head crane. 99 1741-0 was built in Chemnitz in 1929 and still going strong between shop visits.

The hilly and wooded area gave great views from the trains and one day on the Pressnitztalbahn was devoted to nothing but goods trains. A great day in the woods watching trains.

99 715 with a train of standard gauge wagons on transporters. The train is working uphill towards Jöhstadt.

99 568 and 99 542 ready to double head a long train from Schmalzgrube.

On our way home to Denmark we managed a visit to 'Ferropolis' and the five huge machines once used to quarry brown coal. They are marvelous creations of steel weighing from 700 t. to almost 2.000 t. Not as huge as the F60 Förderbrücke I visited last, year but impressing anyhow.

Bucket and chain excavator type Es 1120 built in 1962 by the VEB Förderanlagen Köthen. The machine weighs 1250 t. Notice the standard German car passing.

Back home I have been getting the etched parts for the David Provan bogie wagons unpacked and ready for bending. While the kits have half etched rivets to be pressed into rivets I have chosen to fit rivets with my trusty method of gluing one plastic rivet head after the other. More on the subject in a future post.

More Bogie Wagons for Nystrup Gravel (1/35)

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to be offered two Hudson bogie wagon kits by a friend from France. The kits were made by David Provan in 1:35 and I'm unsure if they (or other kits by David Provan) are available anymore. The wagons are in etched brass and comes without bogies.

The wagons with steel sides match the two wagons Nystrup Gravel used to transport bagged sand for foundry use. Nystrup's foundry sand was a specialised product that was sold to foundries in both Denmark and Germany. When demand for the product was high, trains of sacks sometimes included the two-axled stone wagons. Even the long bogie wagon that on photos seems to have been mostly used for beer, were sometimes used for foundry sand.

As the kits are not including bogies I roamed through my unbuilt kits and found four Scale Link Hudson skips (item SRWD6) that I decided to use for bogies. I did the same on the beer wagon. I have high hopes for a 1:35/1:32 kit of a standard continental skip so it seemed a good plan to turn the Scale Link skips into bogies.



The beer wagon in front of the loco shed. No less than 34 crates of beer and a few with apple juice make up the cargo. The wagon is modelled after a real Danish prototype used by a contractor on a dam project. The beer crates are kits in etched brass by 'Epokemodeller' while the decals are designed by me and printed by 'Skilteskoven'.



Four Scale Link skips during assembly as bogies for the new flat wagons. Bearings have just been fitted to the axle boxes.

I have the skip frames on my worktable and is slowly getting them assembled and fitted out as bogies with plastic profiles from Evergreen. I use the same method of construction as on the beer wagon as it has achieved good running even on below average Nystrup Gravel track.

 

Five minutes later the four bogies are in different stages of being finished.

I don't expect further progress on the wagons any time soon, as I'm off to Germany next week to watch trains on the Pressnitztalbahn with some friends. We'll probably manage several other locations of interest on the way to and from Saxony. We will be staying in a hotel made up of old sleeping cars - the Wolkensteiner Zughotel. Haven't slept in a sleeping car since travelling through Romania in 1992.

One Hobby Shop Less (1/35)

You probably know the story: The local hobby shop you used to go to as a kid or young is closing. Sometimes it can make your modelling life a lot more complicated even though you can have everything you need from online shops. Copenhagen's oldest hobby shop 'Model & Hobby' closed this summer and now leaves the centre of Copenhagen without a proper hobby shop. (There is a War Hammer shop just around the corner from my office, but that is not the same...)

I know that many live far from a hobby shop and will probably find me sort of spoiled when I think it's hard that the nearest hobby shop from where I work is now not 5 minutes away but 15. But now I cannot visit a hobby shop in a lunch break - something I will miss. In the future I will be visiting Stoppel Hobby a lot more on my way home from work.

An image from the now closed hobby shop - a long time before I visited it for the first time. Beside minor details and the kit boxes the shop looked the same when it closed. I even believe the lady behind the counter was the same - just some 40 years older. Scan from 'Danske model- og jernbaneklubber, 1970'.

The shop supplied me with plasticard, wooden profiles, knife blades, landscaping materials and paint for almost 20 years since I began studying (my old department being just a short walk away). The shop was in existence for more than 65 years and closed because the owners wanted to retire - not because me and many other Danish modellers spent too little money there. But the shop hasn´t left without a trace. On the internet there is still a memorial site - and my shelves are full of models that owe their origin to the little shop in central Copenhagen.

Two French army wagons from the first World War built on Pechot bogies. The bodies are home built from wooden profiles from 'Model & Hobby' in Copenhagen and painted with Vallejo paints bought from the same shop.

Works Plates and Primer - My 3D-printed Schöma Loco (1/35)

After having cleaned the model, I sanded off the raised lines on cab front and rear and used sanding sticks to make the roof appear nicely rounded. After another wash with Ajax window cleaner, I primed the model with a thin layer of 'Chaos Black' from Games Workshop.
 



Current status of the Schöma KML5.

I’m also in the process of getting together the parts I need for the building of the loco (if the term 'building' applies to a model coming out of a printer). With the help of a German modelling friend I have received a set of etched metal plates.

 

The plates are made by a German manufacturer, Beckert Modellbau and are tailored in 1:35 scale to fit the Schöma loco both my friend and I have bought from the Shapeways’ site. My plates are made from etched nickel silver and were delivered painted black with the raised lettering rubbed down to show the metal and finished off with clear varnish. All that is left for me is to glue the plates in place. At 22 € the 4 plates are not exactly cheap, but well worth the investment anyway. The plates are quite a prominent feature on the prototype so the model wouldn't be complete without a set of plates. Next up is a drive unit for the model.

The Soviet Tractor at Nystrup (1/35)

I have been giving a short history of why Nystrup Gravel was in possession of a Soviet built tracked tractor for towing equipment and felled trees from areas to be quarried. Now the 1:35 model I have been building of that tractor is finished.

'Stalin' (as the tractor was known among the employees at Nystrup) has been in for serious maintenance at the loco shed. Minor repairs were done in the gravel pits to save the hassle with the local council over the road damage the tractor usually caused when travelling on them. Apart from it not being approved for road travel by the police...

A size comparison with one of the workers. By far the largest tractor to be found anywhere near Nystrup!

A rear view showing the heavy chains used for pulling logs and machinery at the pits.

After priming (see my previous post on the tractor), the model was given a coat of 'panzer grey' as it seems the Germans besides giving conquered equipment a mechanical overhaul, also took the trouble to repaint it in standard German military grey. I fitted a custom made decal from 'Skilteskoven' marking the tractor as a piece of equipment from FluPlaKo (Flug Platz Kommando). The tracks received a spray of a mix of brown and rust and several washes of rust and black oil paints. Wear on the tracks were made with a soft pencil.

The LZ-Models' huge diesel engine was a pleasure to build and it really lifts the model into another league. Do remember, though, to put some lead under the driver's seat or in the gear box as the resin engine has potential to make the tractor a 'nose sitter'. I added some fuel lines from copper wire and a few other home made details.



The LZ-models' resin engine fitted in the tractor. Radiator only temporarily fitted. The basic tractor kit has been primed in 'Chaos Black' from Games Workshop. Just behind the drive sprocket part of the towing chain can be seen. I fitted a brass shackle from Aber's set R-18 for Soviet heavy tanks.

Accident in a level crossing

From the binder I found this spring containing papers from Nystrup Gravel, it seems that the company also made newspaper clippings from the local papers. I have previously found clippings in a local archive, now a second source has appeared. The first of the new clippings I bring here on the blog is on a very mundane happening, but apparently still important enough to warrant a notice in the local paper.

The article mentions a crash between a tractor and two wagons with hay from a nearby farm and a Nystrup Gravel train. No serious damaged resulted, neither to drivers nor ‘hardware’. Some argument must have ensued, though, as the police was involved. The result being that the gravel company was forced to erect warning signs at every level crossing. As road crossing, especially with small farming roads, were numerous it was no small investment for the gravel company. Fortunately a standard gauge railway in the vicinity had just succumbed to the competition from road vehicles and closed down. A relatively cheap supply of cast iron warning signs was acquired from there. The signs could be found at crossings even years after the gravel line was abandoned and torn up.

A New Danish 1:32 Narrow Gauge Railway (1/35)

The number of industrial narrow gauge railways in the scale range 1:35-1:32 is growing in Denmark. The increase is an impressive 100 % ! With a continued growth rate of that size, scale and theme will soon outgrow H0 in Danish railway modelling. Well, the facts behind the story is that the number of operations has gone up from one (my own) to two! For me it is great not being all alone in my hobby. (And just because the owner of this new narrow gauge line and I share surname we are not related, more than 260.000 Danes bearing the surname Nielsen.)

On a 1:32 Gauge 1 home layout far away from Copenhagen a small narrow gauge line is steadily growing. The line is owned by a standard gauge railway company and used primarily for transport of wood and coal to supply the standard gauge locomotives. The line is different from most of the very short systems with that task. This line runs from a wooded area where firewood is collected to the loco depot covering a distance far longer than most depot serving narrow gauge lines. The line has several unique features: a level crossing with a standard gauge siding and a small bridge over the point rodding to a point on the neighbouring standard gauge line, besides crossing a major road. A wooden loco shed has recently been erected.

A view over most of the narrow gauge line. The line ends by the buildings in the background. The wooded area will materialize later in the right hand side of the image. Photo: Arne Nielsen.




The DG 26 with a short 1:32 scale train of small flats and a Bachmann skip. The DG 26 saw service on my modules at the exhibition near Odense in 2012 and is an excellent slow running loco. Photo: Arne Nielsen.

So far there is one Henschel DG-26 diesel loco from Asoa and a few wagons on the railway. More may arrive in the future if traffic on the line increases. The narrow gauge line is being built with clever use of cheap materials. The tread plate ends on the Bachmann skip based flat wagons are made from scraps of packaging band (free) and the loco shed built from coffee stirrers (basically free, too). It proves that narrow gauge modelling in a large scale doesn't have to be expensive.




The loco shed during construction. Notice the neat wooden cladding possible with simple coffee stirrers. Scale lumber may be more exclusive but not necessarily much better looking. Photo: Arne Nielsen.

The newest information from the narrow gauge line indicates that major investments are due. A new loco, a bogie flat and a closed goods wagon are among what the company plans to deploy on the little line. Several sidings awaits construction. Unfortunately the supply of PECO 016,5 points in Denmark seems to have been completely exhausted. Hints on where to shop both new and used points are most welcome - please leave a comment.

The modest loco facilities of the little narrow gauge line. Photo: Arne Nielsen.

Gas Generator Schöma (1/35)

New technologies are constantly changing what is possible in modelling. Years ago resin casting gave modellers a lot of kits and detail parts that would never have been available otherwise. The etched metal kit or detail part then made it possible to even further expand the number and quality of kits and parts available to us. Now 3D printing makes it possible to print models from a computer generated drawing. Like any (new) technology there is  improvements to be made. 3D printing doesn't differ from any modelling technique when it comes to compromise. All modelling involves some kind of compromise to be practical, so don't expect miracles.

While 3D-printing has been around for a few years, I only recently made up my mind to try a 3D-printed model. Not one I have designed and drawn myself (I have no skills for that), but one bought from the website of Shapeways.

Image from the Shapeways site showing the Schöma built KML5-loco. See the loco and more on Shapeways.

My first 3D model is a 1:35 model of a Schöma loco fitted with gas generator. The loco was built in Germany during the second world war when normal fluid fuels were primarily reserved for military use. The gas generator turned wood into gas that fueled the engine. The loco is of the type KML5 (Kriegs Motor Lokomotive) built by several manufacturers and based on the O&K type MD2. A preserved loco of the type can be seen today at the Oekoven museum near Köln.

Schöma 933/1946 type KML5 in the shed in Oekoven, Germany back in 1997 on my first visit there.

The 3D model came from Shapeways covered with some oily substance. I removed the grease with warm water, soap and some Ajax windows cleaner. What the greasy stuff does in the printing process isn't clear to me, but it has to be cleaned off before any painting can begin.

My first printed model. I ordered the loco in Shapeways' best quality material called 'Frosted Ultra Detail' (FUD). Despite a slight crookedness on the cab right side and some raised lines on cab front and rear I'm quite pleased with the model. The roof will need some work too, but most of the faults will be easily sanded away. 

With the complicated piping of the gas generator unit definitely not an easy model for printing. The quality of the piping is most impressing, nevertheless.

Despite the small faults I'm looking forward working with this model. I now have to find a power unit to drive the loco. Maybe a Bull Ant from Australia will fit?

Jung Driver (1/35)

I like to equip my locos with drivers. Having a large scale open cab loco running unmanned along the track isn't very realistic. You may get away with it in the smaller scales, but in 1:35 it looks quite odd! The figure also helps to make the scale more obvious. With a figure, the loco's small size immediately shows and my model isn't taken for a larger loco in a smaller scale.

The figure fitted in the cab. A snap shot on the garden table after a quiet afternoon of modelling in the sun.

The figure in the Jung is dressed in denim overalls and made by MK35 in France. I have used several of MK35's figures and most are great value for money. I have quite a few still in their bags for future use. I chopped off the figure's tennis shoes and fitted a pair of more appropriate leather shoes. To make him fit in the cab I had to performe extensive surgery to his leg and pelvis region. It involved some brutal sawing followed by glue and reshaping with Miliput. I also changed the position of the figure's arms.

Image from MK 35's web site showing the figure in original condition. Photo: MK35

My version of the MK35 figure before painting.

The problem with large scale figures is that they are hard for me to paint well. I keep on trying. The result this time is not much better than last time I tried. But I'll keep on trying!

With a driver in the cab, the U-Models' Jung ZL 114 is now finished.