FLEETWELL – PART 13

Following on from Part 12, I’ve now fitted the PSX-1 circuit breaker to my layout and carried out a couple of tests to confirm that all works correctly. I’ve attached the unit to the rear of my pull-out shelf behind the Alpha Box as that’s where the DCC feed is attached. I took a couple of sheets of 2mm grey board for rigidity cut to size and fitted the PSX- to this using nylon pcb fittings. It’s now visible when I’m operating the locos as the shelf is extended and I can easily see the LED display indicating power to the breaker and power to the track confirming all is working okay. Power to the track bus is from the terminals on the left-hand side of the breaker and power to the accessory bus from the other terminals on the right-hand side.

 

 

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One of my Christmas ‘wish list’ presents from the ‘other half ‘ was the Kibri Container Crane Gantry (Product: 38530) for my dockside area. Upon opening the box and checking the list of parts I found two hadn’t been formed properly and one piece was broken, so I emailed the manufacturers and requested replacement parts as stated on the instruction sheet. I received a reply confirming the parts would be sent and about two weeks later the replacements arrived.

Using a craft knife I removed the burrs from where the parts were attached to the sprues and with a sanding pad smoothed the surfaces. Then tested the fitting of the relevant parts before adding the glue, using Deluxe Materials AD77 Plastic Magic.

I painted the handrails and access ladder on the gantry walkway, using Railmatch Acrylic Primer (RM2506) before finishing with Humbrol Acrylic Steel Grey (No 87). I applied the same paint detail to the rolling undercarriage frames.

A painted finish was also added to the crane operators cabin and access ladder.

It was a rather fiddly job and involved a lot of trial and error adding the wiring to the boom so that the containers can be raised and lowered.

The kit contains eight base pieces that include the rails for the crane to run along. These were too large for the location on my layout so I cut several of them to a more suitable size. I added some masking tape along the edges of the rail pits and gave then a coat of primer paint, then when dry gave them a coat of Humbrol Rail Colour Acrylic Dirty Black (RC401)

Next I added a coat of Revell Acrylic Rust (36183) to the rails and when dry removed the masking tape.

I now need to lay the concrete hardstanding and include these running rails in the docks area before adding the container crane to the layout.

 

More to follow…