Today I wanted to do a little bit of modelling so I caught up with my 4 406Ra and 1 406R Tank cars from UMF. I did not do much. I begun a little bit the opposite and started to prepare the tanks. I drilled all the holes in all the tank (20 in each) using the template that is published in the website (
http://www.eaos.pl/files/2013/02/szablon-406R-H0.pdf ).
I printed the template (without scaling) onto 120 g/m2 paper so that it is a little bit stiffer and I find easier to work with. I opened the two holes for alignment an are prodruding from the tank on the casting.
You need to be a little bit careful and check if the axis of the tank and the axis of the template are in line so that your drilling are in a straight line. I did that by drawing the axis on the template and with my eyed I aligned it with the casting. I used some masking tape to fix it.
In the past few weeks I made some serious investments in equipemt needed for kitbuilding. A Proxxon drill with a drillstand and coordinate table to do some milling. A vice and a riveting tool from metalsmith and a cutting table with saw for wood, brass, ns and plasticard are adding to that. I only have these for 2 weeks and I have used all so far and are speeding up my work and more important more precice. I drilled to hole sizes. each tank has 2 1.5mm holes and 16 0.5mm. I know that the instructions state 0.6mm but measuring the etched parts I think 0,5mm will also do.
I took exactly 1 hr to prepare the template, the 5 tanks and drill the 100 holes. I am quite happy with the results.
The next step will be to prepare the tanks with weight (the instructions state 30gr but maybe I will put around 40gr), close them, smothen the seals with putty and then place all the details and primer them. It will take some weeks depending on the mood.
Cheers for now
Andreas