ARU Nine brass kits

[enoden]

I finished assembling two brass kits made by ARU Nine.  They kits are very nicely made, go together very easily, and are very reasonably priced.  I bought two kits from ModelTrainPlus in Japan.  A1005 is a kit for a double end work car and A1010 is a kit for a box cab locomotive. They can be assembled in about two hours and each car body drops onto a Kato 11-105 chassis/motorized truck unit.  It's a perfect fit with no adaptations necessary to mate the car body to the power unit.  ModelTrainPlus sells about a dozen different kits made by ARU Nine and also sell the detail parts for them.  I ordered headlights, taillights, and air tanks for my models.  Shipment was very fast.  The kits can be assembled without soldering or glue as they have an ingenious system of small tabs on some of the pieces that fit through slots on adjacent pieces.  When the tabs are bent over, the parts are secure.  I did use super glue to secure the front of the box cab to the roof and sides as the ends are white metal and are not set up for the tab and slot system.  For about $50 each (includes Kato power unit and detail parts), you can have a very nice model.

 

Photo 1: ARU Nine #A1010 box cab locomotive

Photo 2: ARU Nine #A1005 double end work car

Photo 3: left rear: Amagi brass snow plow, right rear: Kato 2 axle steeple cab, left front: ARU Nine work car, right front: ARU Nine locomotive

Photo 4: all four units on parade through the station on the small layout over my desk at home.

 

[cteno4]

enoden,

 

wow, nice job! i have to get started on my little mow unit! they do seem like a great sweet spot for building something easily and looking nice and not killing the piggy bank!

 

jeff

[ToniBabelony]

That looks really awesome! That reminds me that I have an Arunine Toshiba inspired steeplecab laying around somewhere that needs to be made...

[dabsan]

Hi Enoden, really nice models! How did you paint them? Which paints did you use and was the brass difficult to paint?

Hope to see some more photographs soon.

:icon_thumleft:

[Nick_Burman]

I have several Arumo kits, both in N and HOn30. Hayashi-san's products are for me some of the best examples of monozukuri (the art of doing things) in the Japanese model market - well-designed and engineered, different, yet simple to build and affordable. My Toshiba centercab diesel went up in 30min - without instructions, as the my mother made the favour of mislaying them! It has now been painted, although I haven't seen the results yet. The latest acquisition is a "1960's" boxcab electric, this time assembled, painted and ready-to-run which I found in the cabinet at the Tokyu Hands store at Shibuya. The loco must have been assembled by a pro (presumably by Hayashi-san himself) as the level of finish is superb, the loco has been done up as a Tobu-lookalike loco, dark brown with yellow handrails.

 

Cheers NB

[Mr Frosty]

Excellent. I have 2 of these in my "to do" box.

[enoden]

To finish the models, I soaked them for a couple of hours in a biodegradable degreaser (engine cleaner) that I purchased at a Pep Boys auto parts store.  Then, I washed them with liquid dish detergent and rinsed them well and allowed them to air dry for 24 hours.  Next, I spray painted them with Rustoleum brand "Painters Touch 2X" spray paint (Colonial Red color) purchased at the Home Depot store.  I gave the models three very fast, light coats of spray paint from about 6-8 inches away and allowed them to dry for 24 hours after each coat was applied.  The silver on the ladder and hand rails of the locomotive was applied with a very tiny brush using a craft paint purchased at Michaels craft store.  The ladder was painted before attaching it to the work car.  To attach it to the work car, I applied a couple of tiny dabs of super glue to the ladder with a toothpick and stuck it on to the work car with tweezers.  By the way, I fabricated a cover for the motor from a small piece of tin which I bent in my vice and dropped it into place between the cabs to hide the mechanism.  I also used the tiny brush to apply a tiny dab of silver paint on to the front face of the headlights. The truck side frames and air tanks under the floor of the Kato mechanism were brush painted with 2 coats of Polly Scale Rail Brown.  After everything was thoroughly dry, I dropped the painted models onto the Kato power mechanisms and placed them on the track.  They run flawlessly.

Edited June 4, 2014 by enoden

[dabsan]

Hi enoden, thanks for the great advice on painting these models. You did a great job and they look really good.

:icon_thumright:

[dabsan]

Hi, I had a lot of funny making this ARU Nine brass kit. :)

[cteno4]

Desban,

 

Wow that came out great! Kudos. I need to get on building mine!

 

Jeff

[Nick_Burman]

While Psy likes his things Gangnam style, I like mine Gakunan style...

 

 

This is the loco that I picked up assembled at Tokyu Hands Shibuya.

 

 

Cheers NB

[Densha]

It needs WAMU, not KOKI.

[ToniBabelony]

Gah! I need to build mine soon! All that peer pressure. They're looking great!

[Nick_Burman]

It needs WAMU, not KOKI.

 

Not quite:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM8RXvCBR5k

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw4MoT7pRqU

 

 

Cheers NB

Edited June 28, 2014 by Nick_Burman

[Nick_Burman]

Here is another one to torment Tony... my Toshiba center-cab diesel, finished as Etchu Rinkai* DD35 1. The paint scheme came out very nice (very rinkai tetsudo looking), but the handrails didn't, they came all crooked. I'm going to order a new kit sometime and start again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*= My rinkai tetsudo, which connects Shin-Toyama-ko to the Hokuriku Main Line near Takaoka. Soon to take over passenger services on JR's Johanna and Himi lines... :grin

 

 

Cheers NB

[dabsan]

Nick that looks great!!! I like the paint scheme.

Jeff, yeah hope you get building soon and I look forward to seeing some pictures.

I feel there is so much satisfaction when building and then running trains. :)

[ToniBabelony]

Oh, time to ask a quick question. How did you paint your models? Just wash the brass well and spray paint it? I'm planning to spray a layer of primer over it first before painting brass. Will that work better than directly applying spray paint or is it just overdoing things? I'm seeing it as a kind of practice before starting on working on my Hokusō Kaihatsu 2000/9000 type brass kit (all done with super and 2-component glue).

[Nick_Burman]

Oh, time to ask a quick question. How did you paint your models? Just wash the brass well and spray paint it? I'm planning to spray a layer of primer over it first before painting brass. Will that work better than directly applying spray paint or is it just overdoing things? I'm seeing it as a kind of practice before starting on working on my Hokusō Kaihatsu 2000/9000 type brass kit (all done with super and 2-component glue).

 

Er...the centercab was done by a custom painter. He works well, but he got the handrails all wrong - that is why I intend to order a new kit and try again... Sometime I must learn how to airbrush models myself - and also buy an airbrush.

 

 

Cheers NB

[dabsan]

Hi Toni, I just cleaned the brass with a cloth and spray painted it with Humbrol Acrylic, and then sprayed with Dull Coat.

Maybe there are better ways to do it? I'm not sure what other people have done. :)

[Ken Ford]

Badger makes an inexpensive grit blaster gun - a friend uses one to clean up his brass with baking soda just before priming. It seems to work better than other methods of cleaning completed brass models I've tried.

[Nick_Burman]

Badger makes an inexpensive grit blaster gun - a friend uses one to clean up his brass with baking soda just before priming. It seems to work better than other methods of cleaning completed brass models I've tried.

 

Also, Tony, if you decide to add handrails to your loco, drill the holes before bending the loco into shape...

 

Cheers NB

[beakaboy]

I've also got one of the double cab diesels to build that I got from Model Train plus .

My mate who has built heaps of white metal and brass kits using solder always lightly sands the brass sheets before bending with very fine sandpaper. Makes the solder stick better and helps paint to adhere. He always uses an etch  primer  and after top coats he always applies dullcote .Some of his models still look great after many years of use and handling.

[ToniBabelony]

Thank you for the tips. Since I'm in Japan, some priducts you have mentioned are hard to come by, so I'll probably go for dishwash soap and a Tamiya primer coating to prepare for colouring.

[Nick_Burman]

New from Arumodel:

 

 

Cheers NB

[cteno4]

Badger makes an inexpensive grit blaster gun - a friend uses one to clean up his brass with baking soda just before priming. It seems to work better than other methods of cleaning completed brass models I've tried.

Ohh glint to have to try that! I have a little grit blaster from harbor freight which is good to clean stubborn paint off small metal parts, but did not think of using soda! Seen that used to clean lots of surfaces in big boasters, Doh!

 

Might even do some interesting things on plastic. I have made a nice matte/fine sand paper surface on stryene with 800 grit silica.

 

Jeff