LEGO KÖF II
I built something!
In the 1990’s and up to 2005 if I remember correctly, LEGO had a small KÖF II shunter locomotive in their German location in Hohenweststedt.
I always wanted to build it, had the stickers ready for years, and during the current craze of building trains, what ifs and so on for my kid, I simply got started with it, trying to build it like I’d build an official set again.
I failed miserably.
Turns out that if you want to keep this thing somewhat correct looking, there is no way building it as a (hypothetical) LEGO set. At least not motorized (but what’s a train without a motor?).
So I gave up and built it like I used to build before I started at LEGO, heavily inspired by how Michael Jasper built his Köf III loco (probably 15 years ago, when he found that perfect ballance between fanbuilds and playability for trains: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=161474 ) and this is what I ended up with.
There are some things that I’ve seen before, like for example the cups for lighs were first used like that by Duq I think, and although I had an alternative idea for them, I decided that I want it hillarious instead of 100% accurate. There are so many LEGO Köfs out there that it’s difficult to reinvent the wheel anyway.
It’s not too crazy buildingwise, but it would be impossible to launch in it’s current state as it’s too fragile.
Looking at pics, I’m thinking that the lower edge of the cabin should be minislopes, but it looks wrong when built, so I ended up with these bows.
I decided that I’d rather have an engine compartment and the snout three wide than that slanted nose that starts too wide, and ends too narrow, and completley wrong engine bay covers, the handrails that run along the top edge of the snout kind of help to cheat the width there a bit. I made two grilles. The yellow uses a sticker though to mask off the black edge of the plates underneath. No idea which one is better.
I didn’t forget the doors, I simply didn’t build them, it would require some tweaks and loosing the minifig, and I find trains that don’t have the space for a dude pointless. These things were shunting at snail’s speeds anyway, I doubt the doors were closed much in summer anyway.
I also deliberatley lost the two hand rails on each side of the door opening, I had them, looked dumb, made the loco wider without adding much detail, the LEGO logo would have to be smaller... Meh.
I also decided to give the running boards a wooden look, some model manufacturers make them look like wood, some don’t, I seem to see wooden planks on some of the pictures of the original, but it might aswell be rust. I don’t know.
LEGO KÖF II
I built something!
In the 1990’s and up to 2005 if I remember correctly, LEGO had a small KÖF II shunter locomotive in their German location in Hohenweststedt.
I always wanted to build it, had the stickers ready for years, and during the current craze of building trains, what ifs and so on for my kid, I simply got started with it, trying to build it like I’d build an official set again.
I failed miserably.
Turns out that if you want to keep this thing somewhat correct looking, there is no way building it as a (hypothetical) LEGO set. At least not motorized (but what’s a train without a motor?).
So I gave up and built it like I used to build before I started at LEGO, heavily inspired by how Michael Jasper built his Köf III loco (probably 15 years ago, when he found that perfect ballance between fanbuilds and playability for trains: brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=161474 ) and this is what I ended up with.
There are some things that I’ve seen before, like for example the cups for lighs were first used like that by Duq I think, and although I had an alternative idea for them, I decided that I want it hillarious instead of 100% accurate. There are so many LEGO Köfs out there that it’s difficult to reinvent the wheel anyway.
It’s not too crazy buildingwise, but it would be impossible to launch in it’s current state as it’s too fragile.
Looking at pics, I’m thinking that the lower edge of the cabin should be minislopes, but it looks wrong when built, so I ended up with these bows.
I decided that I’d rather have an engine compartment and the snout three wide than that slanted nose that starts too wide, and ends too narrow, and completley wrong engine bay covers, the handrails that run along the top edge of the snout kind of help to cheat the width there a bit. I made two grilles. The yellow uses a sticker though to mask off the black edge of the plates underneath. No idea which one is better.
I didn’t forget the doors, I simply didn’t build them, it would require some tweaks and loosing the minifig, and I find trains that don’t have the space for a dude pointless. These things were shunting at snail’s speeds anyway, I doubt the doors were closed much in summer anyway.
I also deliberatley lost the two hand rails on each side of the door opening, I had them, looked dumb, made the loco wider without adding much detail, the LEGO logo would have to be smaller... Meh.
I also decided to give the running boards a wooden look, some model manufacturers make them look like wood, some don’t, I seem to see wooden planks on some of the pictures of the original, but it might aswell be rust. I don’t know.