Auscision 44221

Hi Guy's, Well I have been getting back into the groove. Finishing off a number out standing projects. This one got out before the latest weather event has stopped my progress on other things. 

I have made the decision to back date my modelling era a little. I was modelling the early 90's North coast NSW. I am now going for 1983 to mid 1988. With this in mind I have been paying allot of attention to Tuscan and Reverse Schemes and of course Candy. This also brings into play many classes of Loco's that I wouldn't of been able to show in the 90's era such as 73 class, 421 class, 47 class and even 48 and 80 class loco's as they were moved from the North Coast in mid 1990.

I have a number of 44 Class Locomotives that I want to replicate from this time. I have decided not to model Red Terror at all. So my two Reds, 4473 & 4482 will find other uses. At this point my 44 class fleet will look like 4442 and 4445 in their last representation of Tuscan. 4470 and 4491 in reverse. There will be another mark 2 4481-44100 version in reverse, just can not decide as yet. And lastly 4419, 4439, 4492 & 4499 in candy.

There are two Trainorama 48's in my roster, 4819 tuscan and 4844 in candy. I will have 3 Auscision 45 class, 4505 tuscan, 4522 candy and 4503 candy. At this point I have one 80 class, Auscision 8010 in Bi-centennial and I haven't made my mind up where I am going to go with 80's in the future. This is whether I do up the Austrain's ones that I have on just go Auscision.

These Locomotives above consist of my North Coast Roster of Loco's. I have some other bits n pieces such as Auscision 7320 and my Modified Austrain's 8173. There is a couple of others like a G class sitting there and so on.

What you may of noticed in this list of Loco's is the exclusion of any 442 class. I have come to a cross roads as such over this class of Loco. The Auscision 442 class was released probably a couple of years ago now and I haven't got any. I have around 7 Austrain's 442's in various states of repair. It has to be one or the other. I sat on the fence and didn't pre-order any as I wanted to wait and see. So I missed out on most of the Candy ones straight up. At the end of the day I am glad I didn't pre-order any. 

Jumbo's like 44's are pretty much imprinted in my brain. As they were in the late 80's and early 90's I can recall every little detail around these loco's. Any detail or paint variations are pretty much right there in my memory. I wish I could recall other things like I can these loco's. 

With this in mind I wasn't all that fussed with the Auscision 442 class model. It has great detail as it should for the price and the chassis looks great. It is another case I looked and it just didn't seem right. I couldn't pick it at first. But when I looked into it more and more I just kept finding little things. Like the 80 class I looked at the windscreens and something was quite right there. When I looked into it, the main reason it didn't look right was because the body is too narrow. If you put a set of calipers on a Auscison 80 class body than keep that setting and place in over an Auscision 442, there will be about 1/2 millimetre of play. Might not seem like a lot but it is when it comes to looks and running the two classes together. These loco's in reality share many dimensions give or take not a real lot. This then puts out the angle of the mansard on the roof and so it goes on. There is some other issues to discuss later like the main cooling fans. Auscision like Austrains have used the later type on all their models which is a hard one to fix if needed. 

At the end of the day I want my models to look right together. When I redo the photo's as discussed in my last blog, this will be pointed out further and expanded on. 

Now some photo's of 44221. I renumbered this loco from 44201 by retouching the zero and making it a two by removing parts of the number and using paint to touch it up. Pretty fine work but it come up OK. I wanted to practice some of my Technic on this loco. It is all done with Enamels as is my usual, but one day I will start going water based. My mate Nathan that owns this one is pretty happy with the job that I did.

 

A couple of shots of the Technic

I masked up the windows, number boards and head lights firstly using Tamiya masking tape cutting out the shapes with a single edge razer blade on glass.

I wanted to lighten and fade some of the side panels but not the stripping so I masked them off.

I then went about the first layer of air brushing using a print in the back ground of a loco with the appearance and colours that I required. I darkened the roof while I was at it. Once the tape was off I went about painting the Chassis, pilots ETC and added some more general colours to blend it all in a bit better.

The end result as such.

Nathan spent a day with me taking lessons of my Air Brush Technic. This was his test subject that we both worked on to get this result. An Auscision 48117 converted to a dummy due to it's second replacement motor shitting itself.

Auscision 80 class

Auscision 442 class

It is hard to tell it this image what is going on. From what I can tell the Mansard section and main roof cross section on the Auscision 80 class is pretty good. If you could imagine the Mansard on the closer Auscision 442 was the same angle and height as what is on the 80 class, it would be a much nicer looking model.

When you look at the prototype together. The height, angle and roof profile is much the same.

So where do I go now with Jumbo's. The Austrain's 442 has the same mistakes but the body is wider, maybe a bit too much so.

I find it frustrating that both have much the same mistakes. The angles on the Austrain's model are all stuffed up too. I want the run 80's with 442's. I want the photo's to look right. So the question is, "what do I do". I will answer that at another time.

Cheers Justin Moy