Pola engine servicing...

I've finished assembling the Pola kits for the engine servicing area including water crane, wheel chock and end of train board stand and ash pan cleaning tool stand. They're all in unfinished plastic so need some painting before going into service at Alisendorf at the weekend!

Christmas water tower...

I received the Pola water crane and accessory kit for Christmas, so have made a start on the remarkably clean mouldings for a kit with an embossed date on the base of 1984, over 25 years of serving European outline garden railways.

Season's greetings...

Kof chassis sketching...

Well not just sketching but mainly...

I raided my daughters old pen box and found a dead one to use as the air brake reservoir. It looks about the right size but when offered up needs so much cut out from the back that it just doesn't look rights. I sketched out this and other details including the footboards, bonnet hinges and bufferbeam hooks. Add to that the fact that the Zillertal engine doesn't have train brakes fitted anyway, and I think I'm going to leave them off.

I made use of the time today to also cut off the corners of the buffer beams, file the smooth and remove the screws. These are now ready for filling.

Kof still smoothing...

I had hoped the second application of Milliput on the body of my Liliput Kof bash would be enough, and although it's looking pretty good there are still a few blemishes on the cab back to address. So more photos, more progress but not much more to see!

However thoughts will now turn to work on the chassis, as this also needs some smoothing. First up will be to strip out the drive unit to keep it free from contamination. Then I'll cut the corners to the buffer beans and remove the screws. I'll then fabricate the brake cylinders and use the excess Milliput to smooth the buffer beams and the can rear. Once these are smoothed I can add the shunters platforms to the step and the buffer beam cable hooks. I then want to add the bonnet doors, vents and hinges, before adding the lighting and finishing with handrails. Then just prior to painting I'll fabricate a coupling bar to sit on the foot plate.

Painting seems a long way away but it's probably only a few hours of modelling in reality. More soon...

Kof bonnet smoothing again...

Well the Milliput had set nicely so this evening out came some 320 grit sandpaper and I worked it smooth using my workbench with the paper held down against this to get a flat surface finish. I also rounded the edges of the bonnet with the sane technique.

As I guessed there were a few low spots on the surface so I needed a second going over with Milliput.

Therefore to avoid doing a third batch at this stage I finished off work on the cab and exhaust stack. This involved filling the gaps on the front of the cab, and adding some plasticard to the base of the exhaust stack to get the height right. Once ready Milliput was used again to fill the holes in the cab and to smooth the low points in the bonnet.

Kof bonnet smoothing...

It's been a few weeks since I've updated the blog, and progress has been a little slow. However, that's just life and the time of year, so on to the matter in hand...

To get the bonnet looking right it needs a rounded top and smoothed edges. From a technique I learnt in the construction of the Faur Lxd2 kit I decided to layer plasticard and then complete with Milliput. Once it's hardened I can sand it smooth. I expect it will need a second going over, but that's fine because the cab still needs most of it's holes filling.