Bergs Hobbies NSW x200 (20 year old kit)

Here is my 20 year old Bergs Hobbies X200 kit. Which I started 20 years ago and stopped after assembling the bottom half of the loco. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_South_Wales_X200_class_locomotive

Tonight I started on the engine hood. Struggled with the solder iron temps a bit (https://www.jaycar.com.au/60w-esd-safe-soldering-station-with-led-temperature-display/p/TS1640). Switching from the conical tip to https://www.jaycar.com.au/tip-ts1640-3-0mm-bevel/p/TS1644 made a big difference too. Much easier to flow solder now.

I am using Carrs 90c temp solder and found I have had to set my iron about 245c to get it to melt the solder and heat the piece up quick enough to run the solder nicely without nearly burning my fingers.

I started out at iron temp 90c and it melted the solder so slowly.. getting it to run on a test on the base piece was near impossible. So slowly stepped the temps up in 10'c increments. I can get the solder to go molten at say 130'c or there about; but it takes a long time to get it to run on the piece.

With the iron set at 245'c I feel as though I am close to the melting point of the white metal pieces.. some tests on unseen parts didn't result in any melting.. So I guess its ok-ish. What temps do other people solder mostly white metal kits at?

I possibly need to clean the pieces more. And had to keep reminding myself to flux more. Later in the evening things came together better and I was able to get some joins made without 5-7 attempts. The first piece for the engine compartment was a exercise in frustration and tweaks to the iron settings, how im holding things, how im securing things to my working timber and the lack of suitable tools to square up pieces (machinist/engineers set square in the mail..).

Here are some photos of the in progress model.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/z2ow...6945.JPG?rlkey=xjb8x0z142zxpm1nub2k7lngx&dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/cz7h...4113.JPG?rlkey=m7icl3wubdhp4oirwcazsfmmq&dl=0

Overall learnt lots, didn't melt anything (just excess solder I had to file off and try again). And had fun.

First time soldering anything in 20 years too. All of the base plate was soldered with a oxy/lpg torch and picks to place the solder, I redid some joins this evening as practice. I stopped working on the kit before I got onto the finer parts back in the day because I didn't have a soldering iron.

 

Hi Gary, the original instructions don't tell me what I should be using or what would work.

But I bought a "Tenshodo / Hanazono 26mm Wheelbase with 10.5mm Disc Wheels, 12volt DC Motor Power Bogie Drive Unit (SPUD)." from Casula hobbies. Its the same spud as what is used in the Bergs 73 class kit (two of them there). I'm not sure if its entirely accurate but I just wanted something that will power/drive the model.

I have a 73 class kit with the same SPUDs & I figured I needed something to test the DCC conversion on. So getting the same SPUD made sense to me at least.

 

Checking the clearance of the SPUD / body. Glad I have a N scale DCC decoder for this, looks like I will need to be careful how I route the wiring.

Test dry fit of the body & cab / test fit of the SPUD.

Side shot.. (SPUD is sitting a bit higher inside the chassis than it will when complete).

Overall progress has been ok. Getting some small engineer set square definitely helped.
Cleaning up the joins a little more helped maybe a bit.

Still struggling a little on making the joints super clean and crisp. I will need to fill out a bit of solder here or there and shape some of the cab to suit the slight mis-alignment. But I don't think ill go overboard with that either. I'll try to use some putty stuff I saw at the hobby shop to fill some of the little gaps just before paint (if that sort of works/will do some research).

I'm figuring as long as things are mostly square and align up ok. When viewed on the layout as usual distances some of these imperfections will be hard to see. If not, it probably doesn't matter as it will live in the shunting yard anyway. If its super bad it can hang out half in/out of the engine shed on the club layout

 

Thanks Gary! Those are good tips.

The cables for the DCC decoder need to come up either side of the mounting plate there (the bit between the two green lines you drew). Once the front & rear parts of the cab/body are on the chassis I wont be able to really remove the bogie unless I can fine some super small twin cable socket plugs to use. I might see if I can find something at jaycar or in a arduino kit of some description.

 

Thanks Gary! Those are like what I was looking for.

Bit of a progress update.
I have tinned some brass bits and soldered those on. The body pieces are also attached to each other (not yet to the chassis though).
Overall I can see where I made mistakes earlier in the assembly and parts are not lining up as nice as I would like (but I also want to finish it and not aim for perfection).

Once I am along a bit further I will bend those brake hoses into a better position more like the prototype. I bent them up and out a bit like that so I can rest the chassis on my bit of timber for soldering & test fitting.

I suspect progress is slowing down a little as I have gone down a rabbit hole of learning about CMRI, DCC++ and ardunio things.

 

Been working at getting most of the brass attached through either solder or light application of CA glue.
The horizontal bar is bent up and not quite to prototype. But its a bit of practice and working with this type of wire.

I only have the hand rails to do now (which I will do them after I use araldite / two part epoxy) to attach the cab to the chassis.

I am now starting to think about undercoats. I am wondering if I should undercoat the chassis black and undercoat the cab light grey. Then attach them together. Or just undercoat it all light grey after joining it all together.

 

Bit of visible progress tonight. Have spent the last few sessions cleaning up handrails from their casting sprues.

Drilled in and through the floor for the 3 front posts in 0.7mm. Solder applied from the underside. Posts were then heated up a bit too to draw in the solder some more. Seems to have worked out ok.
The two outside posts I thought I was going to glue on, so I didn't tin them first. That was a mistake. I soldered them on in the end without tinning first. Sort of worked ok, took a bit more heat to make it work and solder is a bit messier there. So will have to clean that up a little. But at least I know what to do the other end.

Rails were bent up on some round hobby timber from bunnings (hardware store, or as I call it Church - because I am there every week). While on the model, not prior. Letting me line up the end post a bit easier. One I over bent, so used my half round pliers to straighten out a little.

In other news I just got a delivery of 3 steam engine white metal / brass kits from Ezi Kits, got a DJH one from ebay for a few hundred in 00 (not my scale but my partner wants a harry potter train.. so that will do).




Looking at the pictures I think I have put the hand rail on too high up and should have lowered it a fair bit. Oh well.. Keen to see this chapter closed out and I am accepting the flaw to start a new project soon I think.

 

Thanks for the continued support and encouragement all.

I continue to be in strife for having this model, tools and other bits on the work bench, sorry kitchen bench this whole time.

But the partner has been instrumental in helping me get the train room sorted out. I have a table top work bench from AJS sitting on a desk in there. Storage things from ikea with all the paints and unused tools sorted out. Models and kits organised in containers. Solvents, glues etc all sorted out and grouped together. Its looking like a professional setup in there. I just need to start using that room.


In the image I have highlighted some bits on the right hand side handrail that gave me grief.



So the smaller hand rail on the right here gave me lots of grief. I didn't do much in the way of drilling & pinning into the body here to get that short rail on.
That was a mistake. As the joint was weak when working the model to clean up the joints on other rails this one would break off. I ended up soldering it on about 5 times & cleaning it up etc.

I am not touching it again now that this join is solid.. albeit ugly and misaligned, the defect will live forever as a lesson in preparation & soldering technique lessons for myself.

The larger rail on the left for the center vertical bar, I drilled in a few MM into the chassis and let that give the rail extra strength. The two horizontals into the body I drilled little holes (about 1mm) to give a recess for some solder / wire to poke into. The ends for the larger rail were all pre-tinned properly too.

They were not for the smaller hand rail that gave me lots of grief. I also made sure to clean the surface of the whitemetal better too. Flux wasn't an issue as it was used all the time. But if the surface is tarnished the flux still doesn't work so well.

I also had a buffer fall off and I had to cleanup and re-attach that. The original soldering from the rear didn't flow enough solder in. So this one got a little from the front and is solid now.




Top down view showing some of the bends I did first not being as good as I would have hope. But my later ones were. You can see a bit of bronze wire there that I am considering soldering into high front (right hand side in the picture below) rail as another horizontal bar to be more prototype accurate and cutting off the railing that is too high.
Still not sure I want to risk this soldering effort (will need to use 340ish-400'c to do it.. if I am quick it should be fine..).


In the picture below you can see (well it at least seems like it to me) that my soldering & fitting skills improved drastically from the earlier hand rails.
So modelling success I guess.



Tomorrow if I get time I will make the decision if I do the hand rail or not and hopefully break out the milliput and fix up some little crevices here and there. Clean up and hopefully undercoat the model. That would be pretty nice to achieve that but it seems unlikely with fathers day events on.

 

Thank Gary! I would recommend giving it a go. I think you're in NSW/Sydney near me (pretty sure I recognise you from a visit to Australian Modeler in Seven Hills). So happy to share what I have learnt so far with you sometime if you want.

Only a little progress on the model today & Sunday. Did a little bit of filing of solder / clean up in prep for paint by removing high spots and found one of the side rails on the end popped off (terrible solder join I guess). This is one of the end I didn't tin.. so thin CA applied with a bit of wire here to the rescue (I hope).

I doubt soldering this again will work well as the brass isn't tinned effectively on that join. I could possibly bend the wire away from the white metal and tin it again. Then bend it back... I will try the CA glue first. Overall the rest of the railing is soldered in strong (I could strum the railing like a guitar string with that solder joint broken so its clearly on tightly).

In other news, project "train room workshop" is underway and progressing reasonably well. Also a few kits have arrived from various sources... the big one being the DJH AD 60 kit.

I think the build order will be the well wagon, Z24, D53, Z13 and finally the Garratt.. I might push a few other kits in front (I have some tender kits from Andian & AR kits) of the Garratt before I attempt that.

I also have a DJH K30 peppercorn kit in HO to build for the partner (will be finished as the harry potter train for her to use at train club, so something like the Jacobite train in real life I guess). The K30 was already started by someone bent the tender top lip the wrong way and appears to have stopped (cheapish ebay kit). I have wheels from DJH on their way & a highlevel ktis gearbox & motor from the UK on their way.

If anyone is considering ordering a garratt kit to Australia... offft the fees on customs, duty & AQIS charges were not expected (+$250ish AUD). Overall its one expensive loco (more invested into it than a eureka ready to run one... but I will never buy a eureka product again, at least not directly from Eureka).

 

Moving in on completion here. Keen to wrap this up and work on another loco kit of a well wagon kit from andian.

On the first hit of undercoat I could see some scratches from filling I had missed. So I used tamiya putty to fill those gaps but that stuff sets up so quick I ended up over filling. I had a lump/line on the cab that I had to file down to metal to clean up.. will give it another undercoat tomorrow (hopefully with one of the wagons im working on now).

Cut out and bent up the roof too. Fits ok (but bit of adjustment needed, the mistake was bending and shaping off the plans not the model in front of me).. just need to solder up some pieces inside to help secure it against the cab with a bit of a press fit. Should be pretty quick.
Then off to paint for that too.

In other news, have mostly moved into the new workshop area much to my partners delight.

I have just started work on some rolling stock in the form of ARKits HLX wagons (working on 1 of 4 tonight). Will hopefully production line that up tomorrow to push through those.

Had a quick sneaky trip to Australian Modeler today.. partner got the 4 car extra set for the southern aurora, so she now has the full 14 car set. And I got the DCC sound decoder for my 2nd 44 class as well one box of Casula Hobbies E flat wagons (to go with the andian well wagon I plan to build real soon now).