Electric Locomotive E94 »German Crocodile« in 1/38 scale.

DanBKing

Dan the Man
Putting it all together....

I left the roof to dry overnight, to make sure that everything was stuck.
I was pleased with the result when I removed the 'glueing jig'.

The next step was to marry the center section and roof, to the chassis and two drivers cabs, respectively. I just glued up the top of the chassis members and the tabs at the top of the drivers cabs. It is not neccessary to glue the cabs to the center section as it is a nice snug fit anyway, without gaps.
One thing to note here, as I noticed during test fitting: The sides of the end walls of the center section, need to be coloured in at least 3mm inside the existing green printed colour, on both sides. This ensures that there is not a thin white band showing when all glued together.
In the picture, the bit I mean, is the darker strip between the windows...

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Everything was held together with rubber bands until dry. And here is the end result..

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I just HAD to see what everything I had built so far, looked like, put together (dry, no glue yet.) This was just a case of placing the two trucks ass to ass and dropping the cab section onto the mountings on the deck plates of the trucks.

And this is how things are looking so far......

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I then cut out and glued up all the fiddly bits for the steps under the 4 drivers doors.

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Next up, all the bits for the roof, including the isolators, the switch, the walking boards and mounts, and the mounts for the pantographs.

:wave:
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
The roof bits....

I started with the mounts for the pantographs.
The base plates for the mounts come in two parts. I first cut out the larger of the two and mounted these to the roof.
Next, I cut out the strip of upper base plates from the sheet. I did not cut them out individually at this stage, as I still had to cut out the slots for the mounts themselves. These slots are really thin, so I gently punched a hole, using a pin, at the end of each slot, keeping the hole within the lines of the slot. Then, very carefully, I cut out the sides of the slots with a scalpel.
The mounts themselves are thinner in profile at the top than the bottom, so I gently pushed these into the slots from underneath, but not all the way...

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Once I had them all partway pushed in, I carefully turned the whole strip over and glued up the bottoms of the mounts. I then turned the strip over again and laid it on some leftover plastic from the windows (to stop getting excess glue all over my work surface,), and then pushed gently down on the strip until the bottom edges of the mounts were sitting flush to the underneath of the base plates.

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Once everything was dry, I cut out the individual base plate and mount assemblies, and attached them to the roof.

I then cut out and mounted the mounting plates for the walkway boards, making sure they sat vertical.
I also cut out and mounted the base plate for the switch and two isolators.

Here's where we are now ....

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Then I started on the isolators. I punched out all the discs for the isolators and then using a pin punch, I punched out the center holes so they would slide snugly onto a toothpick. I punched the centers of the discs in sets of three, to keep the discs uniform up each toothpick...

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Once in position, I hardened up the discs with CA glue, and once dry, I coloured them up a bit better with a red marker.

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I then made up the switch assembly using 1.5mm card for each disc, and spacer between, and built them in a stack. The switch handle is made from a wooden kebab skewer, with two pieces of card wrapped around it. As with the isolators, I coloured it up with a red marker.

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Once all the isolators were finished, I punched out the mounting holes in the roof, for each isolator, by first drilling holes with successivley larger bits, and then reaming them gently with the same pin punch I used for the isolator discs, so as not to push in or collapse the roof strucutre. The switch was mounted next, followed by the walk boards ontop of thier mounts.

And, next up, the pantographs....... :wave:
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
Bringing power to it all.......

The pantographs went together really well suprisingly. I thought they were gonna be a nightmare to build, out of paper, 0.6mm gardening wire, CA glue and white glue........

Here's how I did it ......

Using past experience of making wiring looms, I cut out the paper templates for each piece of wire and glued it to a piece of wood. I then hammered fine panel pins into the bend points of each shape.
I then used these pinned templates, to shape each individual wire piece. Doing this, ensured that each of the pieces, in each set, was identical.
Once all were in shape, I burnt off the plastic coating of each piece, to expose the actual wire. WARNING!!!: Hold each piece with pliers, do not breath the fumes, and most importantly, watch out for the molten plastic that drops off, it will stick instantly to your skin and burn the **** out of you!!!! (I am sure there are safer methods to do this... I just didnt have the time left.... :eek:ops: )

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While these were cooling :rolleyes:, I carefully cut out all the paper pieces. Dont laminate the opposing pieces yet...

I built the first side frame by first CA gluing the wire ends, onto the ends of the frame arms. Make sure that the ends of the wires sit exactly in the middle of the frame arms...

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Next, The opposing side was glued on. First, only glue up the bottom section of the frame, up to where the dots are on the arms, align everything up and press it all down and let this dry a bit.... Then, gently prise up the unglued end and give it a good coating of high tack white glue. You want the paper to be a tiny bit soft, to mold it around the wire. This I did by pressing down firmly with my thumb. I had a nice 'canyon' along my thumb print, when I finished everything... ;)
The same methodology is used for constructing the support plate, at the top, of what is now, a diamond shape.

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Next, I made springs, by tightly twisting a length of 0,6mm wire around a 1.5mm wire. The holes in the frames were drilled out with a 0.5 drill. The ends of the springs were glued in place with a drop of CA glue and the wire ends cut flush.

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DanBKing

Dan the Man
All wired up ....

The support frame is made up and glued to the insides of the side frames. I then used a red dry-wipe marker, because the ink is quite translucent and soaks in well, to colour up the frame and hide any white showing. I just coloured everything!

Next, the two ends of the rounded-cornered rectangle pieces were overlapped slightly and bonded together with CA glue. The ends were then bent to the correct profile and glued across the top of the mounting plates.

I noticed from the pictures included with the model, as the one in the beginning of the thread, that the cross support pieces are different in the instructions. In the photos, they are diagonal. The instructions show a straight bar. I opted to go for the format in the photos. The ease of construction of this method, far out-weighs the other. It was just a case of calculating the length of the bar and hook the ends, and glue it in place.
It's satisfying to feel the whole floppy frame construction firm up as these are put in place.

Now, with no further ado, here they are ...

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I did not glue the pantographs to the model, as I had to seperatly box them for transport, so in the next photos, they are just placed into a close positioning.

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And that, ladies and gentlemen, is it. Done, Finito, Klaar!:mrgreen::thumb::mrgreen:

Next post, photos of the completed model!!
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
Ta Daaa!!!!!!

Once again my thanks, admiration, and respect go to the designer of this beautiful model: Mr Albrecht Pirling. I will look forward to one day building another model from Mr Pirling.
The model went together perfectly. The accuracy and precision of the model are superb. As I have mentioned many times, there is a lot of laminating of parts. But it was a problem free, satisfying, stressless, seamless and relaxing build.

The satisfaction of seeing the expression on my friends face, when I presented the model to him at his 50th birthday party, was worth every millisecond I spent on this model.

My friend is busy getting a nice wooden based display case manufactured, and I am building a paper railway track to attach to the base and attach the model to. (I might do a seperate short thread on that build.)

I will take some pictures of the completed display and post them here when all is done.

But, in the meantime: May I present: Mr A Pirlings' E-94 Krokodil .....

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(In the last photo, the two trucks are not pushed together enough, and you can see a gap between the cab and nose.
But this was just 'thrown together' for the photos, before it was packed up and rushed off to the party and a well deserved beer or three!!aussie )

Take care for now. See you around in a busier section of the forum! :rolleyes:

:wave::wave:
 

Chris74

New Member
Excellent build, congratulations! Very clean, I don't think I could make it without unwanted "weathering" :mrgreen:
PS - A little curiosity: if you would make a track for the lok, will you make the catenary, too ?
:steamtrain::thumb:
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
Excellent build, congratulations! Very clean, I don't think I could make it without unwanted "weathering" :mrgreen:
PS - A little curiosity: if you would make a track for the lok, will you make the catenary, too ?
:steamtrain::thumb:


Thank you very much. :mrgreen:

A catenary...... Now that is a good idea.......... Is there a paper model of one at that scale, that you know of ????
 

Chris74

New Member
I never seen such item on paper kits, but I think it's not so complicated to make it yourself... Some cardboard and some wire would be enough... Anyway, I am going to search such electric poles from the 2nd era of railway, I guess it would fit great (and also would be easier to build, I think).
 

Chris74

New Member
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Huh, I thought I won't find it ... Here it is, the old german type of catenary pole... But iit's not a good picture to inspire from... I will search a better one... damn hiding oberleitung... :D
 

Chris74

New Member
Yep, it would be ok with that. At least, this old E94 lived to see a lot of poles, older and more modern as well. :)

PS - Don't forget to check the height of the loco's pantographs, this way you may have a guide for the height of catenary.
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
Yep, it would be ok with that. At least, this old E94 lived to see a lot of poles, older and more modern as well. :)

Looking at your pic, I like that!!!!!!

That would be simpler to construct almost completely out of paper.:thumb:
 
Hi fokawe,

I know I am a little late on this one, but getting to check out the building process and how you constructed this beauty was excellent. Being an "N" scale railroad enthusiast cultivated my interest in checking it out and I am glad that I did.

Gets my fingers all itchy to try my hand as some "giant" card model rail road equipment:thumb:
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
Hi fokawe,

I know I am a little late on this one, but getting to check out the building process and how you constructed this beauty was excellent. Being an "N" scale railroad enthusiast cultivated my interest in checking it out and I am glad that I did.

Gets my fingers all itchy to try my hand as some "giant" card model rail road equipment:thumb:

Aha!! There is life in this section of the forum...! :mrgreen::rolleyes:

Thank you for the compliment.
If my work inspires but one person, then that is satisfaction enough for me :mrgreen:
If you do ever build one, please post your build :cool:
:wave:
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
The twain shall meet.

Finally got to marry the loco and the track today.

Looks good to me !!! What do you think??
Now it also takes pride and place in the display case...

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Next, to finish the project, is the design and build of the catenary.

See you soon!

:wave:
 
Z

Zathros

That looks great! To be honest, I think that has to be one of the nicest displays of a train I have seen. I think it is the track and bed, the way you tied your excellent build of the train and gave it a scene to relate it too. It is superb! I may have to build one of these, it would be the ultimate gift! You should be very proud of yourself:)
 

DanBKing

Dan the Man
That looks great! To be honest, I think that has to be one of the nicest displays of a train I have seen. I think it is the track and bed, the way you tied your excellent build of the train and gave it a scene to relate it too. It is superb! I may have to build one of these, it would be the ultimate gift! You should be very proud of yourself:)

Thanks Zathros. I am well happy with the outcome of this project so far...
It is not yet complete, as I am going to design the catenary for it, as there is no avalailable model out there, so this will be a oneoff....

Once that is produced and assembled, I want to put a bit more realism to the display by adding weeds, bushes and such, around the bed.. (A bit of green is always welcome....;) )

The catenary buid will be another thread.........

So, for the few of you out there, stay tuned!

:wave:
 
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