Building & installing The LX148-OO Equipment Box / Relay Equipment Platforms Kit

How To Guide: Assembly Of The LX148-OO Equipment Box / Relay Equipment Platforms Kit

In what will be an ongoing series where we take a look at how to assemble kits from Justin Noble’s Scale model scenery range, we take a look at the recently released LX148-OO Kit.

The Kit Contents

The kit contains a cover photo showing the completed kit, full instructions & a sheet of laser board containing the Laser Cut kit components.

What Tools Do You Need?

Tools you’ll need to build the kit are:

Cutting Mat
Craft knife
Spare knife blades
Small sanding file
Deluxe Roket Card Glue or similar
Old cloth for wiping excess glue
Pair of tweezers

Building the kit

Step one is to release the kit parts from fret by cutting the small retaining pieces holding the kit. Make sure that you use a sharp blade, change the blade for a fresh sharp one if blunt. A tip from Justin is to cut the part free cutting on the rear side of the sheet. Start by removing the big platform plate, the two long safety railing sides, one full end safety railing & one half end length safety railing.

Step two layout the component parts so you know what will go where as shown below.

Step three is to sand / smooth flat any retaining pips. I’m using a a nail file which seems to works well on these laser cut kits.

Step four is to the a dry run test fit to make sure all fits together. Once happy that all fits, take one of the long side railings & glue along the outside edge between the slots.

Step five fit the long side railing on to the edge you’ve just glued. Make sure you keep both parts square whilst the glue sets.

Step six is to glue & fit the longer end safety railing making sure it lines up square with long side railing.

Step seven is to glue & fit the other long side safety railing. Again make sure it goes square up against the shorter end safety railing.

Step eight is now to glue & fit the half end safety railing in place as shown.

Step nine is to leave the longer platform to one side for the glue to dry. So repeating above is to assemble the smaller platforms. Cut & release the parts for the small platform & as before sand smooth the retaining pips. Do a dry run test fit & once happy glue & fit as shown below.

Again make sure you keep the safety railing square to the platform base plate.

So as before glue & fit the end & side safety railings making sure each is square to each other.

Then glue & fit the end half safety railing as shown below. Put to one side for the glue to dry & set.

Step ten is to glue & assemble the smallest platform as per the same procedure as the previous two platforms.

And again making sure each safety railing is kept true & square during assembly.

The half length railing side on this smaller platform goes on the side rather than the end as shown in the photo below right. And as before once the safety railings are assembled, place to one side for the glue to dry & set.

Step eleven is the assembly of the platform steps. A tip from Justin is to use the two long slots in the kit fret to hold the stair uprights at the right distance apart during assembly. The step treads have laser engraved details on one side these face upwards.

Start with gluing & fitting the top & bottom steps. The wider part of the step goes towards the front as shown below.

Next glue & fit the rest of the steps again making sure to keep sides square & the front of the steps flush with sides fronts. Put the steps to one side for the glue to dry & set.

Step twelve is to glue & fit the legs. Each platform leg uses two laser cut uprights per corner so each platform takes eight uprights in total.

Glue two legs together as shown below in a two layer stack. Make sure the ends & sides are all square & flush.

Step thirteen is to glue the legs in place on each corner of the platforms. Take your time on this stage & it’s worth holding the legs in place as the glue sets to keep them straight & true. Place to one side whilst the glue dries & sets. Once glue has set glue & fix the steps in place.

Painting & installing on your layout

Once the glue has dried on the steps its time to paint. Give the steps a primer coat of paint, i’ve used a cheap grey aerosol primer spray paint from the likes of Motorsave & Halfords. Once primer has dried either brush paint (acrylic paints) or spray paint the colour of your choice. I’ve used a galvanised effect aerosol spray paint from Halfords. Having painted the platforms leave to dry. It’s also worth while adding a bit of weathering by either using weathering powders, weathering pastels or by painting etc.

Designed to go on railway embankments or cutting sides, cut the legs & steps to size to fit your chosen location on your layout. Or you can just fit on any level part of the layout. If fitting on the level simply glue into place, but if fitting on a slope drill or make a hole for the legs to fit into. Then just a case of adding a small drop of glue on the legs & fit platform into place.

All that’s left to do is to fit the equipment / relay boxes on to the platforms. (We’ll take a look at the relay boxes kit in a forth coming article).