It is now a bit more noisy on the western front....Heljan Class 52 upddate

Several months ago I posted an update on the detailing of my class 52 Heljan Western.  The body shell and chassis had been largely painted and weathered, and I was waiting for a replacement set of Ultrascale wheel sets to arrive.  The project stalled at this point and has been sat in a box since.  However, with the delivery of the Ultrascale wheels, the project has seen some progress this week.

All the component parts ready to be put back together.

Fitting in the new wheels was a piece of cake and this has improved the running characteristics of the locomotive no end. The cabs and cab glazing have been re-attached to the body and handrails to the front of the cab.  When reassembling the locomotive I found out that I had misplaced the body side glazing pieces.  This was really annoying and try as I might I could not re-locate them.  However, this could be an advantage, as I now plan to make some replacement glazing and model the body side windows open.

Sound decoder and speaker in place.

The advantage of some open windows is because I have fitted a Howes ESU sound decoder to the locomotive.  Having some of windows open will allow the sound to escape the body shell.  I used a relatively small speaker which I glued to a piece of plasticard which has been glued to the body shell.  I have yet to check it all fits back together ok, but the plasticard has only been lightly glued into place, so there is some wiggle room here.  The smaller speaker reproduces the sound pretty well, but it is not too loud, which I think is a nice balance.  The Howes sound recordings are excellent and fitting the sound decoder was a simple job.  The only slightly tricky bit is fitting a new speaker, as the speaker the decoder is supplied with requires cutting off and being replaced with a new one.

Sounding good!

So now into the final jobs on the locomotive.  Colour the wheels, add the windscreen wipers, replace the glazing, put it all back together then blend the two halves back together with a final bit of weathering.  Hopefully one to be finished this week......