Phase 7 - Maintenance hatch

Rump steak, hash browns and gravy - a man's lunch



With phase 7 we get the maintenance hatch, lamp hooks, hatch front cover and upper plate. These 5 parts weigh in at 20 grams, bringing the totals to 33 parts, 20 fasteners and 618 grams.

Be careful when handling the maintenance hatch. It easily bends which happened to me while degreasing it and I had to spend some time getting it back into form.



Also: I hate the word "maintenance". It always looks wrong.

Very nice work. Hoping some more builds start on this great model soon.

Stage 7 - Learning Humidility

Grilled Chicken Sandwich and Steakhouse Fries

So I learned a new lesson:

If it is as hot and humid as it is these last few days, then instant glue will cure instantly indeed. And I don't mean "You have 1 or 2 seconds to correct the position of this part" instantly, I mean "Oh, hey, see how you pressed this part against another one 10 milliseconds ago and it's like half a millimeter higher on the left than on the right? See that? Tough to be you, I guess." So, yeah, take extra care to place parts correctly on the first try in this weather. Also, Acetone is a godsend, again.



And this concludes stage 7.

Thank you Steve. That's one of the reasons why I'm so focused on writing about my beginners mistakes: so that other new builders may be aware of them, maybe even be able to avoid them.

Are you going to write a build log yourself? I do hope so.

One thing I noticed is however that the front deck isn't done quite right, or rather it belongs to a different train.

Here's D51 200s front deck



Here's ours, supposedly D51 200



Notice the missing hinge in the middle of the maintenance hatch and how the locking mechanism looks totally different?

Here's D51 793



Now this one looks exactly like ours with the 2 hinges and locking clasp.

I wonder why they did that?

If you need the official instructions in English then send me a PM and I will happily email them to you.

Just be aware that you need to move one of the boiler band screws when you attach the body to the running gear later on.The reason for this is if you don't move the screw it will interfere with the motor. I spent 4 hours figuring this out and then re-read the instructions and it did tell me to do that, but it was not mentioned in the official build.

Carl

Aaand we're back after a short hiatus due to delivery issues.

Phase 9 - Completing the front deck

A bowl of meat and veggies - no literally a bowl full of all the animals you can think of and most of the veggies as well, it was surprisingly tasty



With this phase we receive the last parts to complete the front deck. Inspection hatches, steps and an air hose, most of which are just fixed by ca gluing them to the existing deck assembly.

Despite how massive they look the side steps do indeed bend, which is a godsend, because when mine arrived they flared out to the sides by about 2-3 degrees, which made the whole front desk look like an unhappy baby bird trying to flap his wings. With a small application of force they were bent right into being at right angle.
Also be careful to not accidentally pry lose other parts when screwing the side steps to the front beam.



Parts counter: 50 parts, 26 fasteners (also turns out my scale was a random number generator in a former career, so we can't trust the whole weight thing anymore)

Next week, the train finally receives hips.

It does though, doesn't it.

I'm so happy I found this one. I don't think I would've started doing partworks without stumbling on this flashy guy and now partworks take up most of my free time. It's extremely rewarding to have parts with this materiality - for lack of a better word - like metal and wood. It's just a whole other thing than plastic.

Looking good and you will soon have the joy of lots and lots of tiny rivets to attach to those frames