Frame and various small parts

April 22, 2006

I have hardly been able to find time to work on this kit during the last week. I did spend some on it though, mainly thinking about a way to (re)construct the eccentrics. I think I have figured it out. The solution is not exactly a beauty but simple and effective. Later more on that.

Today I could finally sit down and relax, having several things at hand. The leaflets in the kit prescribe pretty exactly in which order to assemble the kit. But nothing will stop you from working on various parts of the kit at the same time. Actually it is a good idea to do that. If you can't work on one part, e.g. because you allow drying time for glue or paint, you can still make progress while working on another part of the kit. This works well as long as you keep an eye on the logic of the main assembly.

First I set out to complete the frame to a state in which I could airbrush it. In my previous project (MDC Roundhouse Shay) I first built the entire kit, then disassembled the kit for painting and only then made the final assembly. The Glaskasten kit hardly allows this method because you have to do some irreversible actions during assembly. So the idea is to paint at various stages during assembly. This is time consuming but I see no other options.

I spent quite some time on getting the valve gear supports right. They had a lot of casting marks and they didn't sit straight when fitted to the frame.

The assembled frame ready for painting. I filled the the hole in the bottom of the air tank (the black thingy at he far left) with putty.

On the jackshaft there was a conspicuous hole. I filled it with Tamiya putty.

	The wheels needed to be taped prior to airbrushing
	The parts I had prepared until now, need to be sanded first, then degreased and painted with a base coat. But first the putty had to harden for 24 hours. So meanwhile I started working on various small parts that had bad casting holes. I filled them with Tamiya putty. This is a tedious job. But you will always regret it if you don't do it.