This project has it's beginnings in a thread about a possible decline in popularity of the Athearn blue box range, and it was suggested by somebody on that thread that maybe we are becoming "box-openers" rather than "modellers". A suggestion was made in that thread that maybe we should do a project thread based on simple Athearn kits. We loved that idea, but thought that it was maybe too restricting, firstly restricting by modelling scale, and secondly in experience level. From amongst the Trainboard staff team, various folk have stepped forward to volunteer for various different projects. I'll let them introduce what they are going to do themselves, but suffice to say we will have a whole range of these "staff projects" happening, ranging from building simple kits, to adding extra detail to simple kits and right through to at least one heavy kitbash! Project Guidelines. We would like you to commit to: *Build a freightcar kit. Any scale you like, any kit you like. Kitbashes from kits are acceptable. Take detail and customisation as far as you like. *Tell us your progress on at least a weekly basis (the project will be split into four weeks) *Try and finish the project, four weeks for a freightcar should be plenty! (I can't count how many part-built projects I have, lets try not to let that happen here!) *Try and share knowledge and experience with other builders. Notes: *Timescale: The project starts 19th May 2003 and will run for four weeks, so you have a little over ten days warning to decide what you want to do, research it, and obtain enough parts to kick off your project. *Support: When you have problems, share them, it's likely that one or more of the group will have had the same problem and may have one (or more) solutions for you. *Standards and scope: Whatever you want, we would encourage you to try and expand your knowledge base however, so if you have never built a kit, give a simple kit a try, if you have only built simple kits, try a more complex one... *Photo's are great, please post them! However if you have no digital camera access or other way of getting photo's online then please still join in and tell us what you are doing. Photo’s or links to photo’s of prototype freightcars (if you are modelling from one) will be acceptable as well, however please respect copyright notices (contact a moderator for advice if you are unsure.) * This will not become another "state of the hobby" thread, we have other threads going along those lines, please use them instead! Credits: Thanks to William for the germ of the idea, and Rick for format idea's based on his layout parties. Many thanks as well to the volunteers from the staff team! [ 09. June 2003, 08:56: Message edited by: Martyn Read ]
At the suggestion of Grey One, I have started a new thread to let you display your freight car kits. This originally began as an H0 scale, Athern Blue Box thread, but quickly became a thread to display any assembled freight car kits.
Thanks Flash, Per my promise i'll be posting pics of my very early kitbash days. Think: Caboose + Shorty Tank Car over Flat car.
Dang straight. When I get home from the office this afternoon, I will "rustle" around my stash of BB kits and see what I can come up with.
All of these I painted and lettered using Champ decals. Something I have always found fun to do. Athearn BB Hopper: Athearn BB Box - C and O: Athearn BB Gon': Athearn BB Box:
Nice dents, too. Any particular technique for that? Thanks. Wolfgang had a thread on damaged gondolas. I can't find it now.
That gon' was built quite a few years back. What I have done w/ the dents is use a high wattage soldering iron, but rather than putting the hot tip to the plastic, I took the shank that wasn't quite as hot but has a bigger diameter and sort of "splooshed" down the top rail of the sides. The trick for me was to not get carried away. Also while the plastic was still relatively pliable from the heat, I took a #11 or #10 Xacto and sort of split the rail a little where the dents occur to try and give an illusion of layered, or built-up construction along the top of the sides. Fun stuff. I saw Wolfgang's thread on the gon's. They looked really good.
This is a Life Like H0 scale Proto2000 kit. It is another that I assembled for my club and it was not a shake-the-box effort. I was amazed at the detail of the brake rigging and how well the parts went together. Also, the proper weight for NMRA standards was supplied with the kit; the weights are screwed in and not glued in place. (Funny, I just had a 40+ years H0 scale guy tell me he always drilled and tapped holes to put weights in H0 scale cars. Must be something to that?) This is an excellent kit and highly recommended. I had two with identical numbers to assemble so I changed the numbers on both with decals. I will weather one lightly and one heavily. Still looking for prototype photos for this car for the purpose of weathering. You can see some of my N scale cars in the background.
