A Danish Quickie

A slightly different approach from the previous post about modelling class 47s – revisiting the Heljan model.

The Heljan based 47212 with Shawplan grilles and Laserglaze windows and replacement handrails all round. The difference in appearance is quite noticeable.

It uses Alan Gibson wheels with new pick ups from 0,33mm handrail wire – the original pick up strips didn’t line up with the tyres so were cut back and the new pick up wires soldered to what remained. The result seems, at least I hope, to provide a reliable solution. It certainly moves rather nice up and down my test track! As it was a quick conversion the work one the underframe was kept to a minimum – ‘moulded gaps’ between the battery boxes were removed a couple of obvious pipe runs and fire extinguisher points were added to fill the gaps a bit. A very simple job which made quite a difference was adding a piece of 20 thou of packing behind the each bufferbeam which corrected the front end rather nice and ensured the valance stood slight proud of the cab front.

A side view of 47212 which shows the minimalist approach to the underframe. Selective removal of moulded areas where there should be gaps really enhances things for a minimum of effort and a couple of pipe runs here and there take it to a level well away from its original appearance.

The body is basically pure Heljan with just a few changes – the most obvious one is the replacement of the roof grilles with Shawplan Extreme Etchings version which are delightfully fine. A more subtle change was to replace the handrails on the cab fronts with my favoured 0,33mm nickel silver wire from Eileen’s along with a centre lamp iron folded up from a double thickness of 5 thou brass strip. It’s amazing the difference that new handrails make to the appearance of the whole model!

Repainting was confined to the roof and warning panels – Precision paint for the roof and Humbrol Trainer Yellow for the warning panels and transfers were reinstated as necessary using Fox products. The final job before weathering was to add glazing using a Laserglaze pack from Shawplan along with their wipers.

The Shawplan fan grilles can be seen in this view – they do look rather nice. The use of 2 thou stainless steel for the mesh means they look so delicate.

The final result, once it was weathered, certainly captures the look of the prototype despite the Heljan model being a tad over width.

I’ll leave it for you decide…

Read the full story in Model Railway Journal no. 258!