Greg Davis

Found a better way to use the keel holder. I inverted the false keel / bulkheads in the jig. I then 'packed' the space evenly between each bulkhead and the jig. Now each bulkhead from 2 to 11 is square to the false keel in all three dimensions - not just the two as before - and the twist is removed from all the bulkheads! Bulkheads 12 and 13 are not added now because I had not made slots for them when I envisioned having the hull right-side up. The false deck should be quite flat / stable along the greater part of the hull and then will be able to align the last two bulkheads. I'll do another check on the alignment and then start attaching the bulkheads permanently. I expect that I can add a good portion of the between bulkhead filler while it is stabilized upside down in the jig.

I've more or less sorted all the parts from the kit and placed them into different containers until needed. I've noticed a couple of differences between the two kits I've obtained. The new kit came with sails (the first did not) and this one has slightly different steering wheels. I like the new ones better; unfortunately one was damaged as it bounced around the box. The fit of the bulkheads in the false keel is a bit looser than the original kit. The false keel and false deck have a small amount of warpage, but I'm attuned to the issue and will work it out. To help me keep everything lined up / straight I've begun to build a keel holder for the model. Here's the false deck being fitted along with the bulkheads - nothing glued to this point. I see a little twist currently that needs to be fixed, but nothing like I did in try #1.

Hopefully the fight is fair and the builder prevails! Mixed parts is a wonderful sorting opportunity - I've read this is good for your health.

This is the 4th Occre kit I've purchased - everytime I've experienced the broken parts box; but this one was the worse. The exterior boxing for shipment was nicely done, but it seems any pressure on the parts box results in cracks / loose parts. I know there is at least one block that jumped onto the floor; maybe I'll find it someday!

A new box has been received and the crew is being called back! Very glad Occre shrink wraps their kits as the plastic box of fittings didn't hold up in transit. Looks like a good proportion of the fittings have escaped into the box via a large hole in the lower left of the plastic box. This will be a 'fun' search and recovery given the way their cardboard boxes are made.

A few more additions to the boiler - rails on the front, steps up front, headlight, ... . Also cleaned up the wheels and tires and did a test fit to see the locomotive 'off the ground'. Two things of note here. First, the instructions have the builder attaching the wheels / tires to the chassis before the cylinder assembly is added. I have already added this assembly because I wanted to paint it with the chassis as a complete unit - almost a very bad idea! Its hard to see in the above picture, but there are pieces that extend to the back of the cylinders and are part of the running gear. Turns out that with that in place, there is not enough space to slide in the first wheel / tire as one. Fortunately, if the tire is removed, the wheel just makes it into place and then the tire can follow! Second thing of note is an unexpected aid in how the wheels have been molded. There are three types of wheels for each side; the instructions label them as 1L (2), 2L, and 3L (similar for the right). While you can tell the difference by carefully looking at the counterweights, the model creator's molded the designations into the back of each wheel - a very nice touch. Generally, I like the look of the drivers on all locomotives, but even more so the spokeless drivers like those on this machine. It continues to amaze me how precise the wheels and tires needed to be machined so that the tires could be heated and slipped onto the wheels prior to cooling.

Today I learned that the rail gauge for this locomotive (common in Japan) is Cape Gauge 3' 6". Wider than U.S. narrow gauge of 3', but not as wide as our standard gauge of 4' 8.5". I did a little 'research' since the included display track just didn't look much like O - gauge track as I was expecting since the model is 1/50th scale and thus close to the 1/48th scale.

I fixed / added to the boiler rail by modifying an un-needed kit part. It seems that the base kit is for a later D-51 and the D-51 Slug makes use of common parts plus those needed to change the boiler appearance. So I was able to take a boiler linkage that had the same diameter as the rail and do some cutting and filing to get something that worked. I also did some further work on the front of the boiler unit; the strangest being a railing (?) above the front coupler - for some reason, this is made from a piece of brass wire unlike all the other railing. There is an identical part for the tender that needs to be made. They came partially shaped. Getting the four plastic stations lined up is proving to be dicey process. I actually would have appreciated the unit (wire and stations) to have been molded as a single piece (which would be consistent with the rest of the kit).

Most of the fireman's side details were added today. This is work from steps 32 and 33 in the instruction booklet. There are a number of parts that fit below the cab on this side - mostly associated with future connections to the tender - that have not been added currently. These three pieces wrap around / under the chassis and will be added once the boiler and chassis have been attached to one another. As with the engineer's side, several parts needed work to fit as needed. The biggest issue on this side is the long boiler rail; it was not complete at the fore end - the last station and bit of rail will need to be (re)modeled and added. Fortunately the problem is at an end and even better that it will be mostly hidden behind a fairing!

The last couple of days I've been adding the exterior detail parts to the boiler. I am mostly done with one side of the boiler now, but it has been a challenge with several pieces not fitting as expected. Here's where the engineer's side currently looks like: A couple of the issue I have run into (there are more) include, from left to right, no front hole for the walkway rail - easily corrected; tubing missing 90 degree bend / extension to meet front end of under walkway tank - still to be fixed; gap / misalignment of connection - has been fixed. The connection fix involved shortening the downward section and then lengthening the horizontal section. Several other parts also needed to be modified a bit to achieve a reasonable fit. This side of the boiler won't change much prior to priming and painting.

Yesterday and today I added rungs mid-boiler. This is a place that a more dedicated modeler could make quite and improvement as these pieces seem to be a bit 'heavy' and protrude outward more than expected. I did some checking online and there does not seem to be any photo-etch upgrade packages made for the Arii locomotive kits; so any upgrades would need to be of the scratch nature. The boiler walkways were actually added before the rungs. This is one piece and it had a pretty good warp to it. Fortunately the plastic is flexible and there is a boiler length ridge / protrusion that this piece attaches to. So I started gluing by the cab and inch by inch one side to the other I made my way to the front. In the above picture, you can see a tank under the walk. There is one on each side and each had depressions that needed to be filled and smoothed - I used Green Putty for the job. The tanks have two very small diameter / short locator pins. They do not keep the piece in place very well, so I needed to keep the tanks propped in position as the cement took hold. Actually, before all this took place I did some work on the cab and joined the assembly to the boiler: A little more Green Putty! So that's it for now.

Today's progress was mostly in the removal of the chrome on one of the sprues. I cut the sprue into two parts and bathed them in an industrial purple degreaser - the one called Zep is available where I live and worked well. It took just under 30 minutes to remove the chrome plating and revealing a nice clean white set of parts. I also started to assemble some parts on the tender (but it is hard to see anything has been added) and attached the smoke stack / boiler fairing. Then I set the tender next to the boiler / cab to get a feel for the size of the final model. The box indicates the overall length to be 395mm; that does seem plausible.

Its a little difficult for me to interpret Scalemates timeline on this kit. It seems that the kit was first produced by Otaki in 1969 and updated a couple of times, most recently in 1984 which is the last year or two that the model was marketed by Otaki. Arii took over in 1986 and changed the box a few time - this kit is from their 4th 'new box' released in the 90's. Now Micro Ace has the molds and a new box but still no kit updates since 1984. So yes, this is pretty old - there must have been quite a few stowed away that these are still be sold on Amazon and the box / kit looks like it just came from the manufacture. I do wish that there were more static steam locomotive kits available, but given the limited choices I am glad these Arii kits can still be obtained. Once this model is done, two more of their kits, the C53 and the C62, are on a shelf ready to be built.

Today I started assembling the kit. The plastic feels less rigid than I have felt in other model kits. There is a bit more flash on the parts than the Hobby Boss BR86 kits had, but nothing that is overwhelming so far. I started with the chassis as directed by the instruction booklet. Clean up took the most time as it is mostly in one-piece with a few details / parts to be added - two bulkheads and part of the brake system. Here is the assembly from above and below: The cylinder assembly was put together and attached to the chassis next. It would have been nice if the structures D 6 & 9 and D 7 & 8 had alignment pins between one another, but they didn't and you need to pair them by sight / feel although they are indexed to the cylinder body. Since that didn't take much time, I jumped ahead to start on the boiler. The two halves looked fine to me after I cleaned up the flash. The challenge for me was getting these together with just 2 alignment pins! Fortunately the two halves mate well in terms of details such as the bands encircling the boiler. I ended up using the smoke box door as an aid to putting these parts together along with several clamps and some tape. [Aside, the kit came with two different steam box doors - I wonder if some parts of this kit are used in another.] Below is what the boiler looks like sitting on the chassis and having the cover sitting on top of the boiler. The cover still has some flash, but I can see that it will mate nicely with the boiler (which I think is impressive). Already thinking about a possible color scheme. In service, most were black; however, a few were painted more brightly. Today, I like this scheme (less the blue tires): This particular locomotive has been repainted and is currently black.

Around the new year I had gotten the bug to build a couple of plastic BR 86 German locomotives. While making them, I searched for other static locomotive kits and came across several 1/50 scale kits of Japanese steam locomotives made by the company Arii (which was apparently taken over by Micro Ace). I now have three of the kits. I chose to start with the D-51 kit first. D51's were produced starting in the 30's and were made in several variants. This kit represents the early model of the D51 and is identifiable by the long covering that extends from the sand box to the chimney - 95 of this type were made. Later models had shorter covers to facilitate maintenance of the locomotives. Due to the appearance of the long covering, the early D51's were given the nickname 'Namekuji' or Slug. Based on what I have read online, I believe the kit labeling / translation of D-51 Slag Type may be a typo. Here is what the kit looks like / includes: