Wittenberg Schafer Loco

This little box cab locomotive is a nicely detailed kit from the Houston Gate Locomotives Works and is one of their usual laser cut wood kits. It features some nice extra detail and a neat 4 wheel drive chassis.

Kit contents

The kit also includes some vac formed windows which will make the glazing much easier.

I started by making the chassis which has extra detail for the drive shaft access panels and some nice axle boxes plus some nice chassis framing that is added to the sides and could be painted and added after the rest of the chassis is painted if you wanted to make them a different colour.

The chassis under construction

Once the frame is dry the axles boxes, wheels and motor are then added.

The buffer beams are completed with overlays which have rivet detail etched in although I decided to add some plastic rivet heads to them and some bolt heads to the drive shaft covers.

The chassis nearing completion

Once this had all dried I added the buffer beams and then I could get on with the body

The body under construction

This is a simple box structure with an engine compartment at the front which has a removable lid which has an air filter and control panel on it.

The engine bay is reasonably large and took 4 AA nicad's and the remote control board. An on/off switch and charger socket were added to the cab engine bay wall. Once complete the body was glued to the chassis.

The roof was now built. This is a removable roof to allow access to the batteries and consists of a frame covered with plywood sheet.

With all sections complete paint was then added and the model is slowly taking shape in a nice yellow and orange livery with framing in black.

The model is not yet finished, the final picture shows it's current condition.

The roof is removable and the frame is seen here drying

The model with the external painting almost complete.