D-51 Slug Type Locomotive by Greg Davis - Arii / Micro Ace - 1/50

[Greg Davis]

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:

Edited Saturday at 02:50 AM by Greg Davis

[Greg Davis]

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.

[Javlin]

I have built some ARii kits they always tended to be older in production but built up pretty well as I remember.So,what about this kit is it from the 70/80's?It looks to be of decent moldings from the sprue shots.

[Greg Davis]

13 minutes ago, Javlin said:

I have built some ARii kits they always tended to be older in production but built up pretty well as I remember. So,what about this kit is it from the 70/80's?It looks to be of decent moldings from the sprue shots.

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.

[Greg Davis]

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.

 

[Javlin]

I have built some Otaki also but could not remember the direction Otaki> ARii or vice versa.The Otaki P-40 1/48 is one to stay away from the fuse is a snake.

[yvesvidal]

I have this kit in my stash and will watch your progress with interest.

 

Yves

[Greg Davis]

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.