Just a quick one. Here is a way that I have been replacing and adding shunters steps to my rollingstock. RTR rollingstockstock is always improving and some of the latest stuff has this issue of easily broken and snapped off plastic shunters steps addressed with metal steps. This is great but to address the issue of replacing the plastic steps in a cost effective way, I am using simple 2/26 staples from the kids pencil case. I have some photo's that go a long way to describe the process rather than boring you all with heaps of words.
I just use a pair of needle nose plyers to straighten
out the staple
as such
Then bend into the shape required
In this case I am adding shunters steps to an
Auscision NLJX. after looking at many photos
of these in my era of the early 90's. It looks like
most of the NLJX's still in service at that time
had shunters steps fitted
I drilled in on a bit of an angle as to not drill
through the louvres
I then added the step
Then placing some superglue on the end of an
old hobby knife I touched in behind the steps
to glue in place
Next time I will put the bend in the staple before
trying to bend the step back to straight on the model
as the staple proved pretty hard and caused some
damage to the model. I repaired this and continued on
Next step was to add some 1x2 (8102) Evergreen
strip Styrene to the steps. This is to represent the
angle iron that the step is bolted onto the wagon.
The angle iron would be welded to the wagon so
that if a step was damaged it could in most cases
be replace with bolts rather that a welding job.
I ran the styrene along a bead of superglue and
then using long lengths for easy handling glue to
the side of the steps
It is just a case of using a single edge razer blade
to cut the styrene off at the required length.
The end result is something that can pass for a
shunters step after painting white
This Auscision NLKY was much the same. The
styrene was extended upward from the step that
was mounted right at the base of the wagon.
I grab iron also had to be added to the NLJX. This
was added using brass wire
This is a shot by Norm Bray that shows a NLJY
so fitted with a shunters step
This photo was also used as a base for the weathering below
Cheers Justin Moy
