NDM6 Parts for "scratch" aid kit 7mm scale by Paul60

Last crawled date: 3 years, 1 month ago

These parts are intended to fit the Worsley Works “scratch aid” kit for the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway NDM6 Diesel Locomotive in 7mm scale. Worsley Works produce basic sets of just the etched brass parts for various railway items in a selection of scales. Other parts that would normally be supplied as castings are not included, hence these files.
I don’t have a drawing of this engine, but there are some very good photos on an internet search including at least one “Alamy” one which is a good central side on picture. Dimensions where calculated from these and to fit the model.
The main parts are the chassis detail as a complete unit, both left and right (mirrored). The fuel tanks and sand boxes are included in the kit, but I felt it was easier to print them rather than tidy up the etched parts. You will still need to add sand pipes and other plumbing. I think there are other small details, but I can’t resolve them well enough to try modelling them and they are fairly well hidden anyway. The brake actuators are a bit “solid” but I wanted them to have a reasonable amount of strength. I soldered 2 plain rectangles into the kit and glued the overlays to these. Make sure everything is straight before and during the gluing, it’s a real pain to separate part of the resin from the brass afterwards to straighten one out, a fair length of these rectangles is unsupported by the bodywork.
2 pictures of a cab interior were found, I assume they are NDM6, but they fill the space in with something.
The side lamps are just boxes, it might be possible to fit red SMT LEDs and a clear lens? I didn’t bother. The centre lamp is similar and uses the same lens. I’m sure I once found a picture of one of the engines with 6 of the square lamps instead, but I can’t find it again. Also, another picture with the centre lamp missing, just an empty bracket.
It seems that there are 2 types of headlamp, the original plain single bulb ones and the twin ones fitted by the Darjeeling railway. I used solid lamps, but there are files for hollow ones if you want to try printing them in clear resin, but beyond that you are on your own! I made an allowance for a 0.25mm back to be added to these.
The coupling/buffer should be fairly obvious.
I got most of the way through this and was sticking the louver overlays on when I realised that either I had lost a bit of the fret with some on or there weren’t enough of one size. The quick answer at the end of a lunch break was to model it quick and try to print one, surprisingly it worked so I printed 5 more!
There are of course other details like hinges, handrails and the fuel and sand fillers to add but I didn’t think printing was appropriate for these.