Fitting Works Plates On The Jung (1/35)

Having finished the U-Models Jung ZL 114 I wondered if I could fit works plates to the model. I was particularly inspired by Anders Runnholms thoroughly rusty ZL 114 that he seems to have fitted with photographic reproductions of Jung works plates. I wondered if it was possible to persuade someone to do a set of etched works plates for the kit. The U-Models kit is great and deserves that extra bit of detailing.

One evening I was looking at the parts for the O&K MD2-kit from Hesketh Scale Models in 1:35. Amazed by the fine etchings of the O&K-logo and works plates I wrote an e-mail to Mark Hesketh asking him if he could make some plates for me. Fortunately Mark Hesketh said yes and supplied with some photos of Jung works plates and measurements of the model's raised plate detail he took up the challenge. Despite Mark's busy schedule it didn't take long before I received an etch. Mark's own research also meant that he had included an example of an agent's plate (some locos were sold through agents that also fitted plates to the loco).

The U-Models kit has raised plates (without anything on them) several places. I should have researched my photos and books a bit more before I assembled the kit. It turns out that the model has more plates than usual for most Jungs. With my model all assembled and painted I decided to live with that and focus on getting some nice plates fitted. You can see the result below.



Nystrup Gravel no. 6 with etched works plate on the lower cab rear side.

After cutting the plate from the etched fret, I gave it a quick pass with clear, matt varnish. I then flooded the plate with thinned black oil paint. After some drying time I carefully wiped the plate on a stiff piece of card. After the black paint had dried completely I gave it another pass with matt varnish. The plate was fitted to the loco with two component epoxy. That gives you plenty of time to adjust the plate's position. I'm sure someone with more talent and patience could make the plate stand out even more.

Seeing the Jungs that have been assembled and those being built at the moment, it was logical for Mark Hesketh to make a few more etchings now he was at it. If you want a set for your own U-Models Jung kit you can see them here. I'm not affiliated with Hesketh Scale Models.

A photo of the etch I received from Mark Hesketh. The plates are drawn from images I picked up on the internet, and the works numbers are not checked for correctness on a ZL 114. The agent's plates in the lower right corner are from Oving, a Dutch agent and loco hiring company. If building the U-Models kit in the 700 mm. gauge version these plates would fit perfect! Photo: Mark Hesketh.

Tracked Tractor (1/35)

In a previous post I mentioned my latest kit purchase - a Soviet S-65 tracked tractor. Two such tractors came to Nystrup Gravel after the German occupation. See my interpretation of the tractors' history. Having recently worked on two locomotive models I could hardly wait to get my hands on a tractor model, so I started building immediately after opening the box.

Frame with gear box and the two track assemblies ready to be joined.

The Trumpeter kit fits together well. The only challenge is the tracks that are made up of some quite tiny parts. Even though the tractor has only 32 track links in each track, the assembly seems to last an eternity (each track link having three parts). I made frequent breaks so as not to get bored - or getting sore eyes. Working on several models at a time is a benefit here, as I could switch from model to model as my mood suited me. When the challenge had been met, I was in possession of two workable lengths of track ready to go on the tractor.



Modelling in the summer cottage on the checkered table cloth. The tractor is test fitted with the workable tracks. The seat has been clad with kitchen aluminium foil to give some texture to the surface. I fitted a small tool box from a Fordson kit to the S-65. Other than that the model is assembled more or less straight from the box. I didn't fit any lights on the tractor as I imagined they would have been quickly lost on the tractor's way from Russia to Denmark.

The Trumpeter kit comes without an engine. As the huge engine is such a prominent part of the tractor, building the model with the louvered side panels on seems a shame - at least to me. I bought a resin engine (kit no. 35406) from LZ-Models. The engine is a little kit in itself containing 40 resin parts and 27 photoetched items. LZ-models has many interesting kits, among them some very detailed 1:35 standard gauge goods wagons.

Back home in my modelling cave the tractor was primed. The many parts of the LZ-Models engine are being cleaned up from flash before assembly. An easy job, as the moulding quality is excelent. 

 

Monorail in Mosel

Well, not really within the normal realms of this blog, where I (with a certain off topic drift now and then...) usually keep focus on a narrow gauge railway in 1:35 scale. During my vacation I visited the Mosel area in south-western Germany and was surprised to seee a large number of small monorail systems.

Being monorail you can't talk about gauge and not having two rails I don't know if they really count as railways. The vineyards of the Mosel valley are located on steep hill sides and to transport the harvested grapes, tools, fertilizers etc. the farmers use small monorail systems. The vineyards of the Model valley are quite small and owned by many different farmers. Each have a monorail of their own, so both sides of the valley are lined with monorail systems. From Cochem and 10 km. south I guess I passed more than 30 monorail lines. You can learn more of the monorail system and their 'trains' from the website of a manufacturer of these systems: Clemens in Germany.

Interspersed between the monorails a few more normal two-rail lines reach the few hundred meters from valley road to the top of the field. These spurs are operated as inclines. Without measuring the gauge seems to be in the 40-50 cm. range and the rails are L-profiles rather than usual rail profile.

A standard 'train' on a Mosel valley wine monorail. On the western side of the valley between Ernst and Ellenz more than 7 such monorails can be seen clinging to the steep fields.



On another monorail line the steep gradient is obvious.

During a little outing from the Mosel I got to see a bit of the Maginot Line in France. Unfortunately I was 30 minutes late for the daily guided tour of the fortress of Hackenberg. Too bad, as there is only one tour a day. I had to contend with an outside view of the entrance and a Pechot-wagon and two skips parked outside. As much as I love skips and Pechot-wagons it didn't really seemed worth the long drive...


The Pechot-wagon outside Ouvrage du Hackenberg. As most of the Maginot Line rolling stock it was fitted with Willison automatic couplings instead of the original WWI-coupling. Two locomotives from the Maginot Line came to Nystrup Gravel via German ownership. I have built a number of Pechot wagons in 1:35.

Bedford and Vacation (1/35)

After a pause, I had time for work on the Bedford O tipper again. The work on the cab interior was challenged by missing parts. In fact everything except seats and dash board were missing. Once again the spares box came to my rescue (must write a tribute to the spares box one day!). Steering wheel came from a scrapped ZIS-5 lorry, gear lever and hand brake from the Italeri Bedford QL while the little box is the unused battery from my recently built Kapitän. I didn't bother to fit pedals as they can't be seen anyway. I added a small bag on the passenger seat and a British army fire extinguisher (from Resicast) on the cab rear wall.

Before painting. A horrendous sight - I can't say I managed to get things lined up here!

Cab interior painted and ready to be fitted inside the cab.

I fitted the last small parts to the chassis and aligned them with the tipping body. The spare wheel had to be trimmed a bit to make the body sit just right.  I didn't glue chassis and tipping body as I wanted to be able to paint the two parts separetly. To make sure everything would fit together effortlessly after painting I dry fitted cab, radiator and bonnet several times to check the fit and position of the parts. Finally I glued the radiator in place to act as a solid point to start from when fitting the painted subassemblies.

The cab interior was air brushed with Vallejo's 'Verde Oliva' 967, details brush painted and finally weathered. Fitting glass in the windows is alway rather tricky on resin kits, where hardly any opening is exactly the same size. But with determination and experience from several resin kits it wasn't too bad. I only had to throw away two pieces of glazing that turned out too small with the last stroke of the file. Glazing was glued with Kristal Kleer that dries up shiny and clear. I then closed up the cab and fitted the dash board which is best done through the still open doors and glued from behind (that prevents spilling glue over both wind shield and dash board).

After fitting of bonnet the lorry is now ready for painting. I have designed decals and they are currently being printed - license plates and all. It'll probably be a while before I get to paint the lorry as I'm off on summer vacation. While I like to model while in the summer cottage, I only paint models at home.

My Bedford O tipper ready for primer. Cab, bonnet and body will be 'Verde Oliva' while wheels, grill and mudguards will be black. The company name will feature on tailboard and cab doors.

Canadian Speeder (1/35)

I thought that Nystrup Gravel was the only 1:35 model railway to have a 'garden shed-type' speeder. But I have learned that Pete Mesheau in Canada over the last few weeks has built a speeder with pretty much the same general characteristics as Nystrup's speeder No. 7. Pete has allowed me to show a few images of his nice model. I'm proud that the first model built by a friend to feature on my blog is such a nice piece of scratch building.

Speeder no. 8 scratch built by Pete Mesheau in 1:35 scale. I never dreamt of seeing a little family of speeders in 1:35 - even numbered i cronological sequence. Photo: P. Mesheau.

Although it looks as if Pete's speeder is fitted with a more powerful engine than mine, both speeders are actually built on Black Beetles. Pulling three wagons was beoynd Nystrup's speeder's capability. Photo: P. Mesheau.

It is a great honour for me to have a model of my somewhat weird design being remodelled on the other side of the Atlantic. Pete wrote "When I saw your speeder, it 'spoke' to me, so I had to build one. Over the years, I've built similar models for western US logging roads. They are not overly pretty, but very charming". Pete called his model a 'Nielsen rip-off', but I don't see it that way. I haven't been ripped of anything - having gained much pleasure from seeing Pete's speeder. I believe that the motto 'if you don't share, you don't receive' applies to modelling as well as most other aspects of life.

Of particular interest is the features for crew safety Pete has built into his model. The exhaust pipe is routed above the roof to minimize ingress of dangerous gases and the fuel tank fills from outside the speeder to avoid fuel spills in the cabin. I’m sure Nystrup employees would applaud solutions like that.



Pete is very productive and has just finished this Fordson Thames lorry. It is built on the basis of a resin kit (Wespe Models) with a scratch built tipping body. The driver is a figure from James Coldicott.  Photo: P. Mesheau.

1950's Loco Advertising

The old Nystrup Gravel binder I recently found contained some advertising material from Danish loco manufacturer Nagboel. The Nagboel company obviously made several offers to Nystrup Gravel, although it is highly doubtful if the efforts ever paid off.

The 1950's advertising for a small Danish company like Nagboel surely can't be said to be advanced. No flashy fonts or advanced photography. Just a simple drawing of a loco working at a construction site. In the foreground two heroes of progress - civil engineers in practical dress - are overseeing the work. Even if a small company Nagboel made their material in English and managed to sell a rather sizable part of their production overseas, mainly through agents. Today Nagboel's international outlook hasn't diminished as the company in 1973 was taken over by British GKN Wheels - today GKN Landsystems.

Nystrup Gravel didn't seem to be tempted to buy. By the beginning of the 50's the company had several locos in decent working order and didn't need more. Chief mechanic Petersen even had a few old relics parked on a siding in the woods that could be used if everything else failed. If only for a few days until repairs were made on the more modern locos. If nothing else the Nagboel company made an impression on at least one of Nystrup's employees. Someone glued a small poster from Nagboel on the wall in the loco shed. The poster can be seen in several images from the shed.

From Chelyabinsk to Nystrup

Not just two French locomotives ended up at Nystrup Gravel because of the world war. A year ago a friend sent me a few photos. He had explored into one of the birch forest covering what was once the northernmost gravel pit of Nystrup Gravel. His photos showed a huge tracked tractor with cyrillic letters on the broken off radiator and faded white letters 'FluPlaKo' on the rear plate.

Two images of the rusting remains of a Soviet S-65 in one of the old gravel pits around Nystrup. Today a wilderness of birch forest difficult to navigate. Thanks to friend, explorer and railway enthusiast J. Jensen for his images.

Now I have determined that two Soviet tracked tractors found their way to Nystrup Gravel. The tractors were used by the Germans to pull aircraft at the air field at Mellemåen (Middle Stream) not far from Nystrup. Again a case where the German military utilized captured enemy equipment as best they could. According to British documents found in the Skovby Local Historical Archive 'FluPlaKo' is an acrynom for 'Flug-Platz Kommando'.

The S-65 tractors were Soviet copies of the American Caterpillar 60. The Soviet version was built at the Chelyabinsk Tractor Factory in the Urals in large numbers for both agricultural and military use. In the Soviet army they were primarily used to pull medium and heavy artillery. Large numbers were captured by the German army in the opening stages of the attack on the Soviet Union. A brief history of the S-65. Somehow two of them found their way to Denmark. The huge Chelyabinsk factory still exists today, continuing to produce tracked tractors.

Nystrup Gravel used one of the tractors to haul cut down trees away from areas to be quarried. The other was used for spares. Not much of a chance for delivery of spare parts from Chelyabinsk to the Danish countryside!

I went straight to my local hobbyshop in Copenhagen - Stoppel Hobby - to shop for Trumpeter's kit of the S-65 (kit no 05538).  My 1:35 version of Nystrup Gravel also has to have an S-65.