Building The LX231-OO Cable Drums kit (OO 1:76 Scale)

Let us get started…

Tools required

What tools do I need? 

• A cutting mat
• Tweezers
• Roket Card Glue or super phatic glue
• Sanding stick
• Craft knife with a fresh sharp blade
• Rubber band

The build

First look at kit sheet of parts & familarise yourself with each piece.

Take sheet three which contains the cable drum cores. Carefully release the cores from the parts sheet.

Using the sanding stick or similar, lightly sand back any pips from the part sides.

After sanding flush any pips on the part sides place the cores to one side.

Sheet one contains the drum outer & inner sides. To release these from the parts sheet, turn the sheet over so it’s face down & cut the pips that hold the parts to the sheet using a sharp craft knife.

Sheet two also contains drum outer & inner sides. Again to release these from the parts sheet, turn the sheet over so it’s face down & cut the pips that hold the parts to the sheet using a sharp craft knife.

Lightly sand flush any pips from the edges of the part sides. You’ll notice that some parts have a name & phone number laser engraved on them. These are the outer sides. The ones without the laser engraved phone number & name are inner sides.

Now cut & remove both the outer & the inner slat strips as shown on the right. Carefully sand flush any pips on the parts edges.

We’ll start with the assembly of the open cable drums. Take three smaller central cores, one of the smaller slat strips & one pair of inner & oute drum sides.

Apply a bead of Roket Card Glue to one side on one of the cores.

Place the glued side down centrally on to one of the inner drum sides as shown right. (Remember the drum side without the laser engraved telephone number is the inner side).

Apply a bead of Roket Card Glue on to the core piece as shown right & carefully place the next core onto the glued core. Make sure both core pieces are sqaure & all sides are flush.

Now repeat with the third core, so that you have a glued stack of three cores, as shown on the right.

Next turn the stack over so that the drum side is at the top. Apply a bead of glue on the drum side as shown in the photo right.

Then carefully place one of the outer drum sides on to the glued side. Make sure all the holes line up & that the sides are flush.

You should be able to see through the holes in the drum sides as shown on the right.

Now take one of the shorter slat strips for this next bit.

Using a round bar (or in our case the round handle of the craft knife), fold the slat strip around the bar to pre-roll it.

Apply glue all around the core stack as shown on the right.

Then carefully place the slat strip onto the glued core as shown on the right. You may need to work the slat strip around the core. Hold the slat strip in place if the glue you are using is fast setting, otherwise use some rubber bands to hold the slats in place whilst the glue sets.

Now apply glue to the other end of the core stack as shown right.

Take one of the inner side pieces (the one without the laser engraved phone number) & place the laser engraved planking side face down on to the glued area. Make sure it’s placed centrally on to the glued core stack.

Take one of the outer side pieces (the one with the laser engraved phone number) & place the laser engraved planking side face up with non laser engraved side going on to the glued area. Make sure it’s placed centrally on to the other side & that all the holes line up.

Repeat the build with the other open cable drum.

Next apply a bead of glue on the inside of the drum as shown right. 

Cut the supplied wire to length & place onto the glue, then proceed to wind the wire around the cable drum. Keep the wire taught as you wind it on to the drum. Once the wire is on, apply a small blob of glue to hold the end of the wire in place.

The enclosed cable drums.

We now move on to the enclosed cable drums. Take one outer drum sides & one of the larger central cores glue them together. 

Make sure that the core is flush with the edges of the drum side section as shown right.

Next glue the third large central core on to the stack of two cores as shown right.

Now glue the second large core section onto the first large core as shown on the right.

Now we take the other outer drum side, apply glue to the non laser engraved side & place onto the stack core as shown on the right. Make sure the sides are flush.

Cut & remove the larger slat strips from the parts sheet. Sand flush any pips on the parts side.

As before, work the strip around a round bar, tube, or craft knife handle. Then apply glue to one end of the non laser engraved side of the slats section as shown right.

Place the glued end on to the drum & hold whilst the glue sets. Then apply glue to the reast of the rear side of the slats strip & carefully place down on to & around the drum. The end result should be as shown on the right here.

Next cut out the four curved base/cock sections. Glue them into two pairs of two as shown on the right. You can either just glue these to the cable drums & then place on to a tariler/wagon & use chains to secured them down as a wagon load. Or you can use them on the cradles as you see shortly.

Next cut out the cradle bases & the small block sections as highlighted on the right.

On the cradle base there are four laser engraved rectangle markers, these show where the small blocks are to go. Apply a small amount of glue to each marker & place one block on to each marker.

The orange markers show where the blocks go.

Next cut and remove the side cradle frames and cross beams of the parts sheet.

Take two of the cross beams & glue them into place as shown on the right.

Glue & place the enclosed cable drum on to the cradle as shown on the right.

We’ll now fit the the cradle side pieces.

Apply glue to the three areas highlighted in the two photos right.

Place cradle side pice as shown on the right to the cradle base & cable drum.

Repeat with the other cradle side piece. This completes the cradle drum carrier.

Chocks option

Apply glue to the flat side of the chocks & place on to the cradle base as shown.

Apply glue to the curved sections on the chocks as shown on the right. Then place the enclosed drum on to the chocks & as before fit the cradle side pieces. 

This completes the kit build.

Happy modelling.