EDIT: As the deadline has been extended, I'm entering this build diary into the Build of the Year 2015 contest. I'm offering free hugs for everyone that votes for me.

This will be a straight out of box bare metal build featuring only Roys decals and the display case as enhancements.

Why Underexperienced?

I have no experience with building metal models at all, apart from thoroughly screwing up some Metal Earth Star Wars models. Yup, those. The ones for kids. I've also (badly) built a few plastic model cars. I know nothing about CA glue, epoxy, files, screws or anything else we'll be encountering along this ride. So this will be a learning experience.

Everything is working out better than expected.

Why Lunch Break?

The D51 is intended to take its place on my rather large office window sill. Seeing as how my lunch break is way too long, I have decided to build the train in situ in 10 to 15 minute sessions during my lunch break, transporting tools as needed per building stage into and out of the office.

Why Slightly OCD?

The build report is intended to feature a running tally of parts & screws count and weight per building stage. Yeah.... we'll see how that goes.

Turns out it's hard to weigh things if your scale flakes out on you.

Phase 1: Sunday 07 June 2015

Returning thorougly sleep deprived after a three day vacation to the Africa Festival in Würzburg, Germany (yeah, I "wait, what?"ed too first I heard of this) I stumble over a cute little package helpfully dumped in front of my apartment door by the neighbors.

Instantly recognizing it as my first eagerly awaited D51 delivery I immediately rip into the carton while simultaneously trying to somehow open my door and shoving my luggage inside.

Inside the package I find the first four deliveries including building instructions beautifully packaged in blister packs.



Still in traveling clothes and shoes I tear open package 1 and pop the accompanying DVD into the Playstation. I open-mouth stare at the TV displaying beautiful scenes of the D51 traversing Japan while a Japanese man excitedly shouts Japanese things in Japanese. Yeah, this could use an .srt-file, but it's pretty nonetheless.

The rest of the day is spent packing tools, cleaning up and bringing to a sheen each individual piece with isopropyl alcohol first and a thinned vinegaric acid solution second.

Mondays lunch break is going to be awesome.

With Pack 1 we get
- a boiler ring
- a smoke box front plate
- the smoke box door
- 2 hinges
- a number plate
- a length of brass wire
- a distance holder for the number plate
- and a DVD about D51

The parts weigh in at 95 grams, featuring 10 parts, no screws, no extra screws. (this omits the distance holder and DVD, the brass wire is counted as four parts)

Phase 1: Tuesday 09 June 2015 - Mounting the number plate

Chili con carne today. I need the strength, I'm lugging locomotive doors around.



Pictured: todays tools and parts. Also note the speck of dried CA glue left over from when I was too eagerly test fitting yesterday when the glue was still wet. This of course led me to almost order package 1 again, because clearly I utterly and totally screwed up the whole build with that. Then I noticed it's hidden under the plate and no one will ever see it unless he knows. And now that I mentioned it here on these internets, no one will ever know.

Fitting the plate to the door while trying to place the distance holder proved to be quite fiddly especially as the clamp turned out to not only not really help, but instead push out the distance holder from the place it should be.



Nonetheless eventually the center held and things stopped falling apart.

In case you're wondering why this side of the door looks like this instead of being spotted with white gray gunk: vinegar and toothbrushes are a godsend.

After the CA glue has thoroughly dried, the excess wire was snipped and I'm done for the day.

This is a great looking model, so much so that even though I am not into train models it is still on my want list.

Looks like you are doing well with this, look forword to following

Phase 1: Wednesday 10 June 2015 - Assembling the smoke box front

This day features Nürnberg sausage with gravy, mashed potato and cold strawberry soup.

Also metal rings and weird glue.



Spending some time the last days to read up on epoxy glues, I knew I would be in for something interesting today.

Sure enough I follow the instructions to the letter and promptly screw up the first batch. The instructions advice me two mix up the two chemicals for about 3 minutes which would leave 5 further minutes to apply the glue and set the parts correctly.
Which is exactly as I do until about 2 minutes into the mixing process the glue suddenly solidifies into a semi-hard glop which I desperately pry from the mixing plate. By the time i'm done prying the whole thing is hard as a brick. This went well.

Second time I'm smarter: I mix for a minute, slap on the goo, put the smoke box front on the boiler ring, adjust the fit with some toothpicks through the holes and let it harden. Perfect.



Two small concerns however.

Even though all the holes are perfectly aligned thanks to the toothpicks, there is some very slight displacement at the gap at the very top of the rings. I have seen similar displacements in some other build reports so I hope this will not bite me in the buttocks in the long run.



Also there's a small gap between both rings of about a third to half a millimeter, which I'll attribute to the epoxy. I've not been able to picture it all that good.
Hopefully this will not lead to the front ring protruding when I install the rest of the smoke box, otherwise I'll be forced to rip this apart and sand it down again, which I really don't fancy.



Or maybe I'm just paranoid.

Yeah, I had three of those around the ring while the glue was setting, which was why the small gap surprised me so much. On the other hand I really only have experience with glues for plastic modeling so the different behaviour of epoxy is something I'll have to keep in mind.

I'd REALLY like that because it would fit the theme so much. Unfortunately there's in actuality a ban on taking photographs on company grounds, so snapping away taking pictures in the lunch hall wouldn't end very well. I only get away with the build photos because I have a one person office. Let's hope they don't have any bright ideas about moving staff or open spaces or anything like that in the next two years.

Thanks Pilgrim. I already have a bottle of isopropyl alcohol standing by to give it a quick wipe now and again.

On to the meat. Or turkey in sweet-sour sauce with rice and some strawberries for dessert.

Phase One: Thursday 11 June 2015 - Mounting the smokebox door



Today sees us installing the door hinges, an operation which 'hinges' upon my ability to somehow deal with the way too fast epoxy and its extremely short setting time while I try to maneuver two very wibbly-wobbly tiny-wimey parts into place on the door and door frame.

It all works out for a while by mixing up a batch of glue per hinge and placing the parts quickly but carefully.



Ten minutes later I manage to pop both hinges out of the door frame while cleaning up some minute excess glue with a toothpick (or fiddlestick as I have begun to call them).

A first inspection shows the glue hasn't taken to the frame side hinge parts at all. So tomorrow will see me giving them another alcohol clean and me sandpapering the grit out of these.

Yeah, I'm going to go to the hobby & crafts shop in the area on Saturday to buy a range of different epoxies. I couldn't imagine trying to go through the smoke box install with the one I currently have.

Thats a great idea. Thank you.