A layout operating group I'm involved with had a Christmas party last Monday. I ended up with a nice roundhouse 2 bay covered hopper in the Western Maryland delivery paint scheme. I added numbers and weathered the car. Not sure I like how it turned out, may strip and start over. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Just finishing up a ex Rock box car, I’ll patch it to a new owner. And we have the Great Pumpkin. My wife did the pumpkin and I weathered the rest of it. Both will be seeing service on the POCR as soon as we operate again.
I’ve been doing some work on a wood building kit. It was originally a yard office, but I kitbashed it into a Sears Winona house. Between 1908 and 1942, Sears sold kit houses. They were shipped in boxcars. I have heard numbers like 30,000 parts, but I’m not sure if that is right. The houses usually had 1 or two alternate floor plans or mirrored versions. Including those variations, there were over 300 types of Sears houses. It was all pre cut wood, so it would be just like a giant model kit. I decided to build the Winona “a” version without the extended dining room because it would be the easiest to build from the parts I had. The kit I used was a 1968 (based on date in paperwork) Suncoast Models HO Scale Yard Office. By some miracle, the kit converted almost perfectly into my house. The only thing I had to add were more shingles. The paint scheme of my house came from a real Sears Winona in Aurora, Illinois. (which is a modified “b” version, evident by the single front window)
Several different railroads rostered at least a few boxcars for hauling kaolin to paper mills and whatnot. I saw a model in an old thread over on the MRH forum and decided by KY&N had to have a few of these. I started with an Athearn 40' Steel reefer car. I shaved off the door detail and left side grabs and modified a pair of spare 6' boxcar doors to fit the shorter height of the reefer body. I scratchbuilt new door tracks from strip styrene and glued new doors and tracks to the body. I also replaced the left side grabs with some left over A-Line grabs. For the roof, I removed the old roof walk and added roof hatches from spares from a Bowser covered hopper kit, then added a modified Plano roof walk. I also added strips of styrene for new ribs to the roof, but also happen to hide holes from the removal of the cast-on reefer hatch hinges. I still need to do another row of the roof ribs on the opposite side of the hatches. I removed the weight from the under frame with intention to glue inside the car, then made a slight trim to the underframe to make the car body set lower on the trucks. These cars were rebuilt by the KY&N around 1964, so the roof walks stayed on these cars at the time of rebuilding up until they were scrapped in 1978-79. Most of these cars were still in the brown and white scheme in 1974, so this car will be painted brown whenever this cold weather lets up a bit.
I’m working on scratchbuilding a steam locomotive. I have part of the frame built so far. I had one made, but the axle holes were too big and the wheels didn’t roll well. It was back to the drawing board to come up with a new design. I wanted to keep the underframe open to represent the space under the boiler and the bar frame used on real locomotives. I am thinking of putting the worm gear dirctly on the axle gear and get rid of the not so realistic gear tower. The front engine is the original, and the back set of drivers is the revised design. I will try to salvage the steam chest and brake shoes when I rebuild the front one.
Owl Mountain SP F-50-12 flatcar kit after paint Note that the car has been brush painted with Vallejo Model Color after spraying with Tamiya surface primer and allowing to dry 24 hours. The color mix is 2 drops 70.814 Burnt Red and 3 drops 70.984 Flat brown. I add 1 drop 70.524 Thinner Medium. I have matched the as close as I can the Star Brand STR-30 SP/UP Freight Car Red. For a variety of reasons I am no longer able to use an air brush. No brush strokes are apparent. Next steps are to gloss sides and decal. After decaling I usually seal with Model Master Lusterless (flat) which seems to have replaced Dullcoat. The deck has already been weathered a bit and the brake wheel and shaft will be added last. The brake wheel , shaft and the trucks have been painted Tamiya XF-84 Dark Iron. A steam punk color that seems to give the feel of cast iron. I know SP painting instructions indicate the trucks are the same freight car red as the car body but every car I saw in the 50's had dark iron with rust trucks. The photo shows up a few underframe spots were missed.
Just out of curiosity, how much clearance worked well for you? Also, what type of material are you using for the frame? Is it styrene?
I am using the wheels from a Mehano Pacific. The axles are 1/8 inch. I used a smaller bit and filed it the rest of the way to make sure it is perfect. You can cut material, but can't add it back in. I cut out one side frame and use it as a template for the other. and then tape them together and drill the holes so the two sides are identical and I know they will line up. I then cut the notch the rest of the way so i can get the axles in. The bit is only to cut the round axles bearing part of the frame. I found that the plastic for sale signs at hardware stores are styrene, and are cheap. I laminate two layers for each side frame. (Do this before drilling)
Starting the process on this Walthers GP 15-1. I added the spark arrestor exhausts and the firecracker antenna tonight. Next I’ll start weathering it up. Safety painted the rails as well.
Looks like things are progressing. I am anxious to see how styrene works out for you as that could make scratchbuilding steam power much easier. You've definitely chosen an interesting prototype to model.
Second caboose in progress. Not happy with the color on the ends and ladders, probably going to find a better color for those. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
A while back I got an Eastern Car Works kit from someone at my club who didn’t want it anymore. It was partially put together, so I took it apart and started over. They are designed to build from the roof down and have a removable floor, but it was built from the floor up. That wasn’t going to work for me. The model is a Santa Fe Pullman 4-4-2 Sleeper. I might actually use it on the Broadway Limited. There was a sleeper on the head end that was use transferred to the Santa Fe at Chicago for through service to the West. It was a 4-4-2, but I have heard that it was a Regal series, which were ACF cars. Since I got this car for free, I’m fine with that discrepancy.
I have been using pictures of a Coach Yard brass model for reference for my sleeper. The trucks on that model have disk brakes with outside swing hangers, so it looks like I have to do some conversions. First off, the brake shows were removed for disk brake operation. That was the easy part. Next up was the outside swing hanger. I used the Micro Mark detail chisel to shave the sideframe surface down, and then I built it all back up. The EB Valley/Eastern Car Works sideframes are really flat, so I am trying to get rid of that look. I also added circle punched bearing caps to get some more depth. Here is a before and after of the first one. Only three more to go!
