Sean the Bob Posted May 20 Share Posted May 20 I was disappointed like many others that Accurascale decided not to proceed with the Class 73/9 project proposed by KMS Railtech and I thought that hope was lost after that project seemed to quietly disappear. After seeing the excellent work that @LMSfan72 had created with his parts kit for the class 73/9 however, he kindly sold a kit to me and I got to work. I had bought a Dapol Class 73 on sale from Rails of Sheffield, but Andy helpfully also supplied a spare body so I didn't only have one chance at butchering the lovely Dapol body! This is destined to become a Caledonian Sleeper unit, with decals provided by Railtec Transfers and Midnight Teal paint obtained from Rainbow Railways. It will probably be some time before I'm in a position to do the paint work, so in the meantime I carried on with the conversion. The ends of the Dapol body were cut off, and some matching up with the BR blue body finally got the length close enough to being correct. Unfortunately being a bit clumsy, I did manage to crack the new 3D printed shell. Silliness on my part as the 3D resin really is quite strong, the black that can be seen is VMS Flexy 5k CA glue which is an excellent gap filler and gives a strong bond. Any excess can be cleaned away with VMS super glue debonder. Next was the fitting of the holder for the existing PCB for the lighting, in this useful little jig. Plenty more to come, but enjoying my first conversion of a RTR model! 4 1 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean the Bob Posted May 21 Author Share Posted May 21 The 3D body moulding had warped slightly, I managed to reshape this with a bit of heat mostly but to prevent it sitting too far out from the chassis I've created a couple of locating tabs that should keep the body tighter to the frame, it's helpful that the Dapol body is secured by screws. Hard to get a picture of these but I've used a couple of the gaps in the otherwise solid metal chassis and put a plasticard tab in them, and created a corresponding one fixed to the body shell. It seems to be strong enough for now! Been busy removing details and filling holes on the nose sections as well. 4 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean the Bob Posted May 23 Author Share Posted May 23 Bit more progress, I unfortunately did a bit more damage due to more clumsiness! I was filing down some of the roof to get the existing Dapol cab to fit snugly, where I really should have been sanding down the cab itself! Anyway a small patch repair and it should look OK under some paint. I also added a couple of strips to the roof as these appear to be present on the prototype and have the added benefit of hiding most of the join between the cab and body. A bit more progress on the ends too, with the Wipac light units fitted and the small top light created out of a section of sprue that was drilled out. 4 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean the Bob Posted May 25 Author Share Posted May 25 Not a huge amount of progress to post today, but I do have some nice reference pictures of a 73/9 taken at Bo'ness diesel gala today. I have plenty more (including from above) so if anyone is interested, by all means shoot me a message! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean the Bob Posted May 30 Author Share Posted May 30 Made a bit of progress with the body shell, primed it to see what bits still need some tidying up. Some of the joins are still a bit rough, particularly at the cab doors, so some more work required here. Waiting on a few parts arriving before I continue so that will stall things for a few days. In the meantime, I started working on the lighting. I intended to have it working with directional marker/tail lights and on one end have the night running headlight. I've wired it all together as shown in the below monstrosity, however it doesn't seem to work when married up with the Dapol PCB. It does however work as intended when connected to a 3V battery, so I'm wondering if I've just been over ambitious with the number of lights I've connected to the one circuit and its drawing too much power. I may resort to the old school method of connecting directly to the pickups with a couple of resistors! 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean the Bob Posted June 1 Author Share Posted June 1 I haven't been having much luck with the lighting situation, so I've returned to working on the body shell. I received some brass mesh from Eduard which was to be used for above the roof fan. After looking at my photos of the real thing, I filled in some of the area around the fan and created a mesh with thin plastic surrounds to fix to the roof. Other than a little tweaking here and there, I think I'm happy enough with the body now to proceed to painting it properly (when I get the chance!). 3 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean the Bob Posted June 12 Author Share Posted June 12 Not having any luck with the lighting as it stands, I can get them to work via a 3V battery but when I connect them to the loco, it all goes horribly wrong. I'll probably shelf that for a while and go back to the modelling part. Not too much progress has been made, but I did paint the cabs a little to match the real thing's interior. I also ordered a pre painted driver who is really quite nice, just required a little repositioning of his right arm. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean the Bob Posted June 23 Author Share Posted June 23 A little more progress made, the final details before painting. There's a small shroud of some sort on one end of the loco roof, so I did my best to create this out of some sheet. brass. I added the radio pods above the cabs and primed everything ready to finally get some colour on it. 9 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean the Bob Posted July 5 Author Share Posted July 5 Some more progress on the painting now. I tested the Caley Sleeper Midnight Teal paint I had, however it looked far too blue to my eye. I instead opted for the Citadel paint Incubi Darkness as suggested in @LMSfan72's thread. This seemed to be a much closer match and the paint sprayed nicely through the airbrush with some Vallejo thinner. I did however notice I hadn't filled a couple of holes on the ends which were unecessary for the 73/9! Back to some sanding and repainting... 7 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean the Bob Posted July 7 Author Share Posted July 7 Nearly there with the colours, after a disaster where masking tape lifted a big section of blue off the side! After much sanding and respraying, it doesn't seem to be noticeable on the side anymore. The various vents were painted in Mig Ammo matt aluminium and the fibreglass panels were painted Vallejo stone grey. Just some touch ups to do, details on the end and it'll be ready for decals. 6 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean the Bob Posted July 13 Author Share Posted July 13 Another small update, decals have been applied and it's getting close to the finish line cosmetically. I did have a disaster with one of the main CS decals when I hit it with a little too heavy spray of varnish and it wrinkled up underneath, - cue a lot of swearing, sanding and repainting! Fortunately @railtec-models provide a spare for each decal, the quality of which I was very impressed with and had no issues with silvering or breaking whilst applying any of them. 4 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium LMSfan72 Posted July 13 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 13 Great work. They really do turn out well, don't they! Are you persevering with the lights? I have wired different ones a few ways. I don't think it should be the number of LEDs. It might be that you just haven't got the board aligned to the pins? Have you tried it without it in the body to prove contact and continuity? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean the Bob Posted July 13 Author Share Posted July 13 16 minutes ago, LMSfan72 said: Great work. They really do turn out well, don't they! Are you persevering with the lights? I have wired different ones a few ways. I don't think it should be the number of LEDs. It might be that you just haven't got the board aligned to the pins? Have you tried it without it in the body to prove contact and continuity? So I think it transpires that I was being daft and assumed there were resistors in the circuit board before the small board fitted to the loco roof... I had it all working nicely off a 3V battery but when I put it in the loco it all went wrong. After a bit of testing and realising the full track voltage was being transferred through the plunger contacts, I think I just need to remake my lighting circuits and include the resistors. I'll probably test it all with a 9V battery before I fit it all to the loco though! Have you ever considered creating any of the changes that were made to the various bits of equipment on the bottom of the chassis? I have some good ref pics so I'm going to attempt to recreate some of these to the best of my ability. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium LMSfan72 Posted July 13 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 13 you know, I was going to suggests it was resistors - I played around with different values on the different LEDs to bring down the marker brightness evenly. I confess to not noticing the differences on the chassis. If you'd care to share the photos I'll have a look! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean the Bob Posted July 21 Author Share Posted July 21 There's been quite a bit of progress on the 73/9 now, the finish line is definitely in sight. I've been focusing on the cosmetics of the model and what needs to be added/changed, I notice that the Dapol model has this little cable fixed to the bearing cover (not sure what it's for!). My photos of 73970 don't seem to show this on any of the bogies, so I removed these. To accommodate the piece, the bearing cover is raised and has a hole in the middle - cue some filing and filling. With a bit of work and yellow paint on all the bearing covers (and red on the springs), I'm happy with how the bogies look. I've also worked on the ends, fitting the ploughs and one of the Accurascale magnetic Dellner couplings (painted black as per the prototype). Windows and cabs have been refitted, the wipers installed and I installed an extra set on the centre window as this seems to have been addition on the 73/9s. Light lenses were also created using Micro Krystal Klear. Speaking of lights, I've finally got them working, albeit they're a bit dim and don't kick in until about 25% power, but the concept works and I may go in and take away one of thr resistors (2 were installed in series as I seemed to keep blowing the red LEDs). I've ordered a couple more warning labels just for some of the side panels from Railtec, and very conveniently they've just released the 3D nameplates for 73970 named W S Sellar, so hopefully these should arrive soon. 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean the Bob Posted July 23 Author Share Posted July 23 The 3D decal nameplates arrived from @railtec-models and they really are excellent, very fine and the colours are great with a nice shine. They look great down on the loco, along with a couple more warning labels from a generic sheet also from Railtec. Also, some work has been done on the driver end of the loco adding some pipes and the folded down Dellner couplings. The finish line is close now! 11 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrel Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 Looking very good. I need to get back to doing more work on mine. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium LMSfan72 Posted July 24 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 24 Between us we will have to do a roll call of the fleet - I’m currently doing W S Sellar too, but will probably call it a day at 4 of them!! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean the Bob Posted July 27 Author Share Posted July 27 On 24/07/2024 at 15:15, LMSfan72 said: Between us we will have to do a roll call of the fleet - I’m currently doing W S Sellar too, but will probably call it a day at 4 of them!! 4 is a good fleet, hope you have plenty of Mk5s for them to pull! I'm now just waiting for the inevitable announcement of an RTR version now that I've put all that effort in... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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