Finished up a few cars trying to get back into the winter modeling season. Marklin tank car with Robert's retro frame and decals: I've shown this car before, one of Robert's laser cut beauties. Now I added a trio of Tim's cast tractors: This one's just a regular MT car, lowered a bit and added Andrews trucks: I'll try to add some slightly different photo's over at Z Central Station. Thanks to Robert and Tim, where would we be without these little jewels:yes9rq:
They are fantastic!I had to re-check the the topic ,I thought I was looking at N scale!. Very nice work Chriss.
Excellent work as always! I like the Texaco tanker, and it looks like you modded it to prototype. Great job! I gott do that too. I like the tractor load, and I have a few of them to put on an NP flatcar, just a few years newer than the Erie car. I like the blocking and tiedowns. Very prototypical! Did you lower the Gondola?
Great work Chris, I'm really happy that you converted and weathered those Tank Cars for me, they look amazing!
Thanks guys. The gondola is lowered a little like my PRR car. You can barely see those trucks under there. In proto pic's of gondola's, you often see just the bearings peeking out. The gondola to the right is a MT 40 footer lowered as well. The tie downs on the flatcar are Berkshire's EZ-line. Now that I see a close up photo I should have bought brown for a rusty chain look. The tankcar was a bit of a mess at one point. I used a silver/chrome paint on it and it turned out nice and smooth, perfect for decals I thought. The decals went down OK, but started to lift and curl up no matter how much solution I put on them. They were home made decals by Robert, but those are also his on the flatcar and they layed down without a problem so that wasn't it. I drove 15 miles to the hobby shop and bought every different decal solution they had to try them all out... same thing, they kept curling up. Arrrruuugggggg!!!!! I didn't want to give up so I removed all the decals and re-sprayed it with a different silver paint (testors). The next day the decals went down without a problem. Oh well live and learn, silver is a hard color to decal I guess. All worth it in the end though!
I did not have a problem, but I used Floquil silver in the spray can. I use the spray cans whenever I can because the airbrush cleanup is a hassle, so only when I am doing a lot of painting will I bother with the airbrush.
Fine work as always Chris. Again, your trackwork is what really jumps out. It could be the best Z scale trackwork out there right now. It is really amazing to look at.
The lowered gon is killer, Chris. How did you lower it? Did you replace the body mounts with truck mounts?
Tom, It was done similar to this one: I mount the coupler to the body instead of the frame, notch the end sill of the body. Then split the stirrups up and glue each one in on either side of the coupler. End of the frame is cut off, bolster ground down, and "wheel wells" cut. Oh yeah lowered gondolas, now available in "Extra Large": http://zcentralstation.com/modules/xcgal/albums/userpics/10120/IMG_2726.jpg
Chris: How do you couple to the next car?? Isn't the coupler height "way off" compared to all the other rolling stock?? ...don
Don, The end sill is notched out for the coupler since it is also raised up. Before they were mounted to the frame. I removed the metal frame under them and mounted the couplers directly to the plastic body. So however thick the frame was that is how much of the bolster height I can remove and still have trucks and couplers on the same plane while the body lowers down over them. They line up with the MT coupler height gauge. I guess I get my nack for lowering cars from a few years ago when I would lower real cars:
I think I see what you are doing. Do you happen to have a photo from a 3/4 end view?? The car gives new meaning to "worn out" -- you scrape off the bottom until it is "worn out". With our famous potholes, where could you drive it?
Cool car Chris! Do you have a gold embelim in the back window? On my street the club is called East Bay Lowriders, and they have almost exclusively 64' Impala's with a full rear window gold arched embelim.
Chris, In the photo of the D&H gon, is the boxcar on the left also lowered? I love the things you're doing, and only wish I had the time, tools, and skills to try some of them myself. Maybe after the SECOND child graduates...........if there's any money left.......... By the way, you sure do nice work.
I don't have a un-modified car to compare these with, but if you have one you should be able to see what was done. http://zcentralstation.com/modules/xcgal/albums/userpics/10120/IMG_2769.jpg The 2 left cars are 50', to the right is a 40' car. The D&H is in the middle. You can see between the two molded grab irons that I notched out a spot for the coupler to fit in. I did this with all three cars in the photo. Bryan, The boxcar isn't lowered. They may look better with a little bit of a drop, but the effect is most appreciated on flatcars and gondolas I think. I did lower a MT 50' boxcar because they seem to sit up a hair more than the 40' cars. Could be my mind playing tricks on me though. Robert, I didn't belong to a club so no window plaque. I did put hydraulics on a bunch of cars around my area, this one had 22" cylinders on the rear, you can see them sticking up with the hoses criss-crossed through my back deck: This car burnt down the day after I sold it, the guy closed the trunk with a battery charger sitting on top of the batteries and shorted it all out. I have a thing for T-birds, I've owned 7 of them and just sold one last month that was wasting time in my driveway. My current daily car is slightly more practical:
Have posted side by side pictures of lowered and MTL original on Z Central Station: http://zcentralstation.com/modules/xcgal/index.php?cat=10014 The difference in appearance is well worth the effort in my opinion. Chris
Cool, my first car was a 77' T-bird. I didn't even have the money for it (only $300 bucks) a friends dad gave me the car on faith, I went out and got a job at McDonald's right after that and made the money to pay him. Mine have all been in the 77'-79' range, but I did have a stray 73' that if you can believe was a even longer boat! The one in the photo's was the best though, when I wasn't leaving a trail of sparks down the street I was going through intersections like this: :teeth: Man I miss that car.
