The shell have been already sanded. What do you consider to be a printing artefacts ? Items indicated by arrows are placed on the roof intentionally. They represent prototypical vents.
Hi, I mean the lines between the upper windows. However it is posible that they just show in the picture but are actualy sanded flush. /Frank
The lines between upper window's top edges are prototypical. On the photo of original car there is a vertical line on top of the windows. I am not sure but probably the reason for that is to reduce amount of the rain to coma to window area from the roof... I think it could be even a bit more visible on the model - please look at the photo of the prototype:
I have found an inspiration for final look of the car in some photos: Relatively well maintained sides of the car, visible cleaned part of the roof and very dirty and rusty top of the roof.
Next project is "technical rescue train". Initially I was inspired by models I have found on Shapeways. In Poland this kind of train has a light blue livery (now changing into yellow with dark blue stripe). Some interesting photos of real rescue train's cars: My first items for this train are actually Shapeways pieces:
I do follow up withe the project. The "tank" rescue vehicle normally is travelling on the flat car. I decided to adopt Marklin 6 axle flat car. The necesssary job is to make it 4 axle car. Original trucks must be removed and the place to connect new tracks must be located closer to the end of the car: Flat car got new painting both on top as well as on sides of it:
The wheelsets were installed in new places: The ramp for loading and unloading rescue vehicle is in place:
Great conversion of the heavy load flat car. Do you get the replacement Märklin trucks as spareparts from Märklin?
The "replacement" trucks were actually taken away from Marklin 4 axis gondola ... It would be really great to get them separately as spareparts. I try to find trucks as "spareparts" on web page of Marklin but I was not succesfull. There are lists of spareparts for locomotives. There is possibility to buy them via web page ... But I could not find such a possibility for gondola's trucks. I did not find the number of those parts as well. It will be really good to have a possibility to buy it as a "spareparts" for all modellers doing some conversions. I will try to write by "contact page" of Marklin with this question ... Maybe someone else have good results in finding those trucks ? Well there is also a progress in the project. The gondola is finished with the "tank" and technical car is also added based on very common Marklin banana car - just repainted.
To make some technical cars and the cars for serviceman there will be more work. The cars looks like this one: The basis are Marklin baggage cars: It has to reworked: the big doors must have different look. So parts of original Marklin cars must be removed:
Next steps with technical cars - new doors were put in place. I used "scrapbox technique" - some unused elements of plastic Z scale buildings probably by Kibri. The windows are too big so I tried to make them smaller. Original entrance door at the right hand side must be removed as well. First step is to apply some putty. Some more putty and sanding is necessary:
Finally I got an information from Marklin Customer Service. Trucks for 4-axle gondolas are not available at the moment. The numbers of spare parts are: 337480, 336950 and 337440 depending on design.
This time the conversion is much more complicated. I wanted to have low side gondola. They were build based on platforms which were not in use any more. The original looks like this: I based it on Marklin platform. They have to be rebuilded to have 4 wheelsets instead of 6. The top is build using sturene plate and styrene strips: