Sunday, January 01, 2012

Details, details.... DG 2376

DB says:

The penultimate step in the saga of creating a new loco is to add some details. But before this, I needed to do some emergency rhinoplasty with my model as I'd decided overnight that my beautifully shaped nose was a bit lopty and a bit wide. This was (surprisingly) easily fixed by throwing a dremel through the thing, pulling the two halves together and gluing the gap shut.

That's not a very flattering pic, in fact it looks like something out of one of those 'Saw' movies, but the nose now looks a little better overall even if its still a little lopty in symmetry although this is only really noticeable when you look from front-on up-close. Pretend I didn't just say that and continue to ooo and ahhh. Or ewww and awww if that's what you were doing.

After that excitement it was onto the details and finishing up the cab front windows.

I stuck on roof hatches above the diesel engine, electrical cabinet behind the cab, and the WHB compressor down the back (almost opposite the dynamic brake shutter cutout). I also added the hatch in the roof of the nose that it would seem was used for cleaning the front windows. These were all made from thin plasticard or paper.

Then I added the nose door, headlights (made from plastic rod popped into a drilled hole), tail lights and MU receptacles.

I'm not sure how I will do the front window glazing as I write this, but as you can see below, I have at least filled the hole that was there previously.

For connoisseurs of over-engineered British design practices, the cab front windows slope back from the vertical (more steeply raked than the nose front face), but the two little front windows also slant back when viewed from above ever so slightly. The cab roof also slopes down toward the front from above the rear of the cabside doors. This is where the side tapering begins too. Thank God for sandpaper and modeling putty.

The back end of the body does not slope down, but the sides do taper in. I'm sure that makes no sense. So I'm not even going to consider explaining the shape of the roof cover over the WHB compressor...

Up until now the pictures that have accompanied the journey have looked a bit daggy, but now all of a sudden, its starting to look almost like a DG:

I particularly like the MU connectors - they are a thinish (.5mm) sliver of the plastruct rod used for the headlights, which was then cut that into 4 sectors/segments/quarters and these are those, so to speak. I like they way they are curved a little like the real thing - at least from a distance!

I smell some paint approaching...

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