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1/24 scale brass/iron C62-2


Martijn Meerts

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Martijn Meerts

I've had this massive kit (DeAgostini, came in 100 installments, each installment with a booklet and various parts of the train) for a few years (it took 2 years just to get all the parts) and last weekend I figured it was finally time to start building. One of the reasons is that the various installments are stored in about 7 boxes, which take up a lot of space ;)

 

Rather than follow the instructions exactly, I started with building the base, which consists of several bits of wood, speaker, battery holder, electronics for motor, lights and sound, and some ballasted track as well as 3 rollers so that the main drive wheels can freely rotate when the train is mounted on the base. Overall, it's real high quality stuff and the sleepers are real wood. Surprisingly though, the ballast are just pieces of plastic, and they don't fit well at all. Of course, this is easily solved by just getting some 1/24 scale ballast and glueing that on, but that's something I can do later on :)

 

 

I've decided to paint the locomotives rather than keep it just brass (either raw or polished, even though polished looks really good as well), which of course adds some complexity. I need to plan ahead to make sure I pre-paint all the parts that are hard or impossible to get to later on. I'm not going to weather it, but paint it as if it were a fully restored museum piece.

 

Looking at pictures though, there seem to have been multiple varieties of C62-2 paint schemes. In some pictures the drive rods are just metal, which in others they're partially painted red. Often it has the white stripe running the length of the train, but sometimes it doesn't. Also, the deflectors are sometimes trimmed with a copper colored strip, but that's not something I see in many pictures (even though it looks really good :)).

 

Some examples:

- http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ファイル:JRW-C622-SteamLoco.jpg has red drive rods, white stripe and copper deflector trims

- http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ファイル:JRN-C62-SteamLoco.jpg just has the white stripe

 

 

Does anyone have any idea if there's specific meanings to the various ways certain parts are painted? I'm leaning towards going with painted drive rods, white strip and copper trims, mainly because it breaks the black, and would definitely make such a large model look more interesting..

 

 

(As I'm at work right now, pictures will follow later ;))

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Martijn Meerts

Some pictures of the base and start of the boiler.

 

 

Image 0001:

Instructions page for the left side of the base.

 

Image 0002:

The parts of the left bit of the base. Includes some fairly large screws, and they've added tapped cylinders in the wooden bits, so the base is really sturdy once assembled.

 

Image 0003:

The left bit of the base assembled.

 

Image 0004:

Instructions page for the right side of the base.

 

Image 0005:

Parts for the right bit of the base.

 

Image 0006:

Detail shot of the right bit of the base, showing a very nicely cut slot which will hold the control panel later on.

 

Image 0007:

Another detail shot, showing the threaded metal bits mounted in the wood.

 

Image 0008:

The right bit of the base assembled.

c62_0001-base_left_instructions.jpg

c62_0002-base_left_parts.jpg

c62_0003-base_left_assembled.jpg

c62_0004-base_right_instructions.jpg

c62_0005-base_right_parts.jpg

c62_0006-base_right_detail.jpg

c62_0007-base_right_detail.jpg

c62_0008-base_right_assembled.jpg

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Martijn Meerts

Image 0009:

Instructions page for the middle section of the base.

 

Image 0010:

Parts for the middle section of the base.

 

Image 0011:

The frame of the base completely assembled. It just over 1 meter long.

 

Image 0012:

Instructions page for the top plates for the base.

 

Image 0013:

2 of the top plates. The one with multiple holes is for the speaker box, the one with the single hole is for various wires for lights and motor.

 

Image 0014:

The other 2 top plates.

 

Image 0015:

All top plates installed.

c62_0009-base_middle_instructions.jpg

c62_0010-base_middle_parts.jpg

c62_0011-base_frame_assembled.jpg

c62_0012-base_top_plates_instructions.jpg

c62_0013-base_top_plates.jpg

c62_0014-base_top_plates.jpg

c62_0015-base_top_plates_assembled.jpg

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Martijn Meerts

Image 0016:

Instructions page for the speaker box.

 

Image 0017:

Speaker box parts.

 

Image 0018:

Speaker box installed.

 

Image 0019:

Instructions page for the battery box and switches.

 

Image 0020:

Battery box, various (pre-wired) switches and the front control plate.

 

Image 0021:

The switches installed in the base.

c62_0016-speaker_instructions.jpg

c62_0017-speaker_parts.jpg

c62_0018-speaker_installed.jpg

c62_0019-switches_instructions.jpg

c62_0020-switches_parts.jpg

c62_0021-switches_installed.jpg

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Martijn Meerts

Image 0022:

Instructions for installing the main electronics box.

 

Image 0023:

Electronics box parts (well.. just the box and some screws really =))

 

Image 0024:

The box mounted on the bottom of the base.

 

Image 0025:

Instructions page for installing the sleepers and ballast.

 

Image 0026:

The various bits of plastic ballast and real wood sleepers.

 

Image 0027:

2 sections of ballast and 2 sleepers. The sleepers look real nice, but I still don't like that the ballast is just plastic...

 

Image 0028:

And this is how it looks with sleepers and ballast installed. I haven't glued down any of the ballast or sleeper, mainly because I'll likely replace the ballast with real ballast at some point.

c62_0022-electronics_box_instructions.jpg

c62_0023-electronics_box_parts.jpg

c62_0024-electronics_box_installed.jpg

c62_0025-sleepers_ballast_instructions.jpg

c62_0026-sleepers_ballast_parts.jpg

c62_0027-sleepers_ballast_detail.jpg

c62_0028-sleepers_ballast_assembled.jpg

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Martijn Meerts

Image 0029:

Instructions page for adding the rails.

 

Image 0030:

Close up of an installed section of track.

 

Image 0031:

All the track installed.

 

Image 0032:

Instructions page for assembling the rollers.

 

Image 0033:

The various parts for the rollers. They have some pretty good quality ball bearings.

 

Image 0034:

The rollers installed. These are for the 3 main driving wheels, so that the locomotive can "run".

c62_0029-rail_instructions.jpg

c62_0030-rail_detail.jpg

c62_0031-rail_installed.jpg

c62_0032-rollers_instructions.jpg

c62_0033-rollers_parts.jpg

c62_0034-rollers_mounted.jpg

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Martijn Meerts

Last few for now ;)

 

Image 0035:

Instructions page for the boiler door.

 

Image 0036:

Boiler door parts (minus the actual door and the plate that says C62-2, because I already removed those and masked them to be painted :))

 

Image 0037:

The masked boiler door and loco number plate. I'll airbrush the sides and rear of the plate, because once mounted you can't really get to it anymore. I've also masked the area on the boiler door behind where the plate will go, because there's no access to that section after mounting the plate either. The masked area is small than the plate, so I won't get any unwanted visible lines in the paint when I do the rest of the boiler door.

 

I'm likely going for a mostly black paint, but I'll add in a few drops of white to get a really, REALLY dark grey. The real locomotives aren't really completely black either I believe, and the Gunze black I'll be using is just too black really ;)

c62_0035-boiler_door_instructions.jpg

c62_0036-boiler_door_parts.jpg

c62_0037-boiler_door_masked.jpg

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That looks like an excellent project. The only loco that was released in the UK was an O scale Flying Scotsman. Your model looks much more substantial and is "animated". I am slightly jealous.  :laugh:

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Martijn Meerts

I had the kit imported from Japan actually, it was never released outside of Japan. When I heard of the kit, I asked Heiko Stoll at JapanModelRailways in Germany if he could get it for me. He got one of his contacts in Japan to sign up for a subscription, so I ended up getting 6-7 installments of the kit every 2 months. Turned out to be quite an expensive little project, but the detail and quality of the kit is just amazing.

 

I'm definitely going to be really careful and take my time putting this thing together :)

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Martijn Meerts

Mark, me too ;) It's the most complicated and most expensive kit I've ever attempted. It's also near impossible to get replacement parts should I mess something up, so it'll probably be a while before it's finished  :grin

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Hello from the US
 
I worked for BAE many long hours and weeks in Japan Military Electronics for over 10 years (NEC and MELCO).  I started collecting C62 Kits but then BAE downsized in 2009 and I had to retire.  I am curious if there are still private sales of the 1/24 C62 to complete my collection?  I believe you may have a Japanese connection from one of your posts.
 
You have a picture of the completed kit?
 
Thank you
 
Reinhold Tanke (Formerly BAE Japan Engineering and Test Manager LInk 16)

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Martijn Meerts

I'm nowhere near finished with the kit to be honest. It's such a huge project, and I'm doing things really carefully. Also, because I want to paint the kit, I need to plan ahead to see which parts I need to paint before mounting them. A lot of parts are screwed in place, but certain other bits are glued, and you won't be able to easily reach those after the model is completed.

 

A quick search revealed this picture: http://www001.upp.so-net.ne.jp/kinkin/C62/DSC05151.jpg , which looks like it has all the extra's (like the info plate on the lower right of the base). I don't think the kit is available anymore unless you find someone that collected it and has it up for sale, either finished or unfinished.

 

I got mine through a store in Germany whose contact in Japan subscribed for this kit and got the monthly instalments. It took me close to 2 years to get the kit, but I didn't get all the extra's. For some I was just too late (like the info plate), and others I wasn't really interested in that much.

 

I'm not sure when I'll finish mine, I have a ton of projects going on ;)

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Martijn Meerts

The post about the DeAgostini D51 kit made me want to pick up my C62 kit again, plus all the boxes of the kit are taking up a ton of space on the attic which is better used for a layout :)

 

Rather then try to figure out which parts need to be painted before assembling everything, I've decided to just go ahead and assemble the whole kit. Once done I'll see how doable it is to take things apart again to paint everything. Considering a large amount of bits and pieces is glued on, it should be quite doable.

 

Some pictures:

 

 

Image 0038:

The boiler, with some tape to keep the boiler door shut ;)

 

Image 0039:

Front detail. This bit alone is something like 24 parts and a bunch of screws to keep things together. Pretty much all the brass plates are glued using transparent epoxy though. It works well enough, but you do waste quite a bit of it considering you always mix up more than you need, and the stuff is only usable for about 5 minutes once you start mixing it. Still, there's not really any other options .. 

 

Image 0040:

Other side of the front which show a tank of sorts with various detail bits. There's another valve at the rear of the tank, which you'll never actually be able to see once the locomotive is finished ;)

 

Image 0041:

Parts of the whole drive system/drive rods

 

Image 0042:

The first set of big wheels ;)

 

Image 0043:

Test placement of the boiler, including an N-scale bus to get an idea of the size of the kit.

 

Image 0044:

Some interior boiler detail, not sure what it is actually, possibly a spark arrestor? The manual actually mentions what it is, and detailed explanations of how it works. Unfortunately, it's in Japanese ;)

 

 

c62_0038-boiler.jpg

c62_0039-front.jpg

c62_0040-front_detail.jpg

c62_0041-drive_gear_parts.jpg

c62_0042-wheels.jpg

c62_0043-front_with_boiler.jpg

c62_0044-boiler_interior.jpg

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Martijn Meerts

Image 0045:

Front right cylinder. Spent like half an hour getting rid of all the casting burrs ...

 

Image 0046:

... Only to have the entire cylinder hidden by brass sheets ;)

 

Image 0047:

Added some detail bits to the cylinder.

 

Image 0048:

Added the 2 leading wheels, and another boiler fitting test.

 

Image 0049:

Added mounting brackets for the suspension system.

 

Image 0050:

Added the leaf springs for the suspension system (again, most of this will be hidden once the kit is complete ...)

 

Image 0051:

I guess the train can move, I just need to build a 1/24 scale DD51 or something so I can build a diorama where a half completed steam engine is being hauled to a different part of a factory .. Or maybe not ;)

 

Image 0052:

Closeup of the wheel.

 

c62_0045-cylinder.jpg

c62_0046-covered_cylinder.jpg

c62_0047-cylinder_detail.jpg

c62_0048-boiler_placement_test.jpg

c62_0049-suspension_mounts.jpg

c62_0050-leaf_springs.jpg

c62_0051-wheels_in_place.jpg

c62_0052-wheels_closeup.jpg

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Martijn Meerts

The idea is to eventually paint it. Even if I'm going to leave it brass, I still need to completely clean it and clear coat the whole thing, so it's a ton of work either way ;)

 

Right now I'm working on the drive rods assembly, and even on that large scale the things are impossible to get right. Of course, not being able to read the manual doesn't help.. I'll need to scan bits of the manual and run it though my OCR software and then paste the selectable kanji into google translate or something. Not the greatest translation, but it usually gets you the general idea.

 

The worst thing is that I'm still only at part 30 out of 100 in total :D

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Martijn Meerts

A little bit more progress. Been busy at work again recently, but I try to glue on a few bits and pieces when I can, and during the weekends I try to spend a little more time on it.

 

 

Image 0053:

Drive rods in place. You'd think this would be easy on a model this size, but nope ;) They're still not quite right as they are now, they don't turn quite as smooth as I'd want yet.

 

Image 0054:

Added hand rails and the headlight, as well as some detail on the door. The fun thing about the door is that the mechanism to open it is exactly the same as in the prototype. I also figured out that this is the smoke box, not the boiler ;)

 

Image 0055:

Interior of the smoke box, showing the spark arrestor. Not visible on this picture, but somehow the spark arrestor got rotated quite a bit when I glued it in. It's not much of a problem really, the only thing is that you can see a brass strip where the mesh is glued together. The door won't be open often, and it's quite impossible to fix now anyway ;)

 

Image 0056:

Lower half of the boiler. The openings are right above the wheels. Glueing in the cast metal parts (on the right) was a pain, considering you had to hold the part in place until the glue had dried quite a bit, which takes around 10 minutes. After that you need to let it rest a little longer before you can safely glue on the next one. Of course, for every part you need to mix another small batch of epoxy considering the stuff becomes unusable after about 5 minutes.

 

Image 0057:

Smoke box and boiler temporarily in place on the frame. It's starting to look like a locomotive now ;)

 

Image 0058:

Smoke box and boiler are connected with a couple of screws. Also started adding the bits that lead up to the firebox (the bit which slopes up slightly.)

 

Image 0059:

Added some rings around the boiler, and temporarily placed some more detail parts. I believe this is where water and/or sand can be added.

 

Image 0060:

There's a slight problem. A small gap between the smoke box and boiler.  It would be easy to fix by glueing the pieces together, but I believe the idea is that it should be possible to take the smoke box and boiler apart after everything is done, in case the headlight needs to be replaced. I'm not too sure though, and I don't think it says anything in the manual about it either. I'll leave it as as for now, it's easy enough to add glue later on anyway.

 

 

c62_0053-drive_rods.jpg

c62_0054-boiler_front_detail.jpg

c62_0055-boiler_interior_detail.jpg

c62_0056-boiler_lower_half.jpg

c62_0057-boiler_test.jpg

c62_0058-progress.jpg

c62_0059-boiler_detail.jpg

c62_0060-gap.jpg

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Martijn Meerts

Well, after some investigation I figured out the gap issue. The smoke box has a slight groove all around where the boiler is supposed to slot into. The problem is, it's such a slight groove that I hadn't even noticed it, and it's such a tight fit that I can't get the boiler to fit in there while it's in 1 piece. What that basically means is that I need to backtrack a bit, and disassemble the entire boiler so I can fit it into the grooves 1 half at a time.

 

Before I figured that out though, I did go ahead and add some more bits and pieces..

 

 

Image 0061:

Added most of the detail parts to the sandbox and fixed it in place. It's screwed in place using 2 bigger screws which are hidden behind the 2 small doors.

 

Image 062:

Started on the firebox, it's really just a matter of putting things in place and keeping them in place with some screws. It sort of seems like the further I get with the kit, the more they started using screws. Probably got complaints from people who were wasting too much epoxy =)

 

Image 0063:

The first step of the cab details and instruments. This is just 1 large piece of metal, all the detail bits are coming up, and there are a LOT of them.

 

Image 0064:

Quick test with the firebox in place. Right now it's about 51cm long, and the entire cab still needs to be added as well as the tender. It's also starting to get really heavy by now.

c62_0061-sandbox_details.jpg

c62_0062-firebox.jpg

c62_0063-cab_interior.jpg

c62_0064-firebox_placement_test.jpg

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Martijn Meerts

It does.. I just wish they had made it a little more clear in the instructions. It's really hard to notice the groove, and the only reason I ended up noticing it was that quite a bit of dust had collected in it, which made it more visible (I built the base smoke box several years ago, and it's been sitting on a shelf collecting dust ever since ;))

 

Probably have to spend about an hour disassembling everything to get to the point where I can separate the 2 boiler halves again. Good thing there's a weekend coming up soon :D

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oh well live and learn! it will fit nicely now and you will be happy once back together! since it didnt force in i expect its the perfect fit to give a strong joint.

 

amazing how a subtle little thing with joints like that can make all the difference in a strong joint! so easy to overlook or not show up in instructions clearly.

 

jeff

Edited by cteno4
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Martijn Meerts

So, disassembled a good part of the train again to fix the gap. it's still not perfect because the groove is just too small, and the boiler wouldn't fit well at all. Considering they went for a completely different (and much better) system for their D51 kit, I'm fairly certain this part has been a source of multiple complaints from other builders.

 

Anyway, after having fixed the gap I added a bunch more detail bits and started working my way towards the cab. It's really slow going since a lot of parts need to be glued on. I'm also going to put the kit on hold for a little while considering I have to work on installing a sound decoder in a Kato H0 E5 shinkansen ;)

 

 

Image 0065:

Sort of looks like I pressed rewind ;)

 

Image 0066:

Added 1 of the walkways. The strip that's in front of the locomotive, lying on the desk still needs to be glued on. I actually had it glued on but had to remove it again because things didn't fit. The instructions are a bit unclear about the spacing of these things.

 

Image 0067:

Added some detail to the firebox and test fitted it to the boiler.

 

Image 0068:

Added the detail bits to the sand box.

 

Image 0069:

Added the rest of the walkway on 1 side.

 

Image 0070:

Started adding the cab. There are a ton of controls inside the cab, and most of the little wheels and levers need to be glued in place. And there's a ton of little bits and pieces, so it's going to take a while ;)

 

c62_0065-try_again.jpg

c62_0066-walkway_test.jpg

c62_0067-firebox_progress.jpg

c62_0068-sandbox_detail.jpg

c62_0069-overview.jpg

c62_0070-cab_start.jpg

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