Here's mine... I'll start with this prototype photo from Phil's site: It's the ALGEIR oil-electric boxcab that worked the Harlem Transfer Company terminal in the Bronx, NY from the mid 1920's until the early 1960's - I started with two Santa Fe steel caboose shells Frankensteined on a Bachmann 44 Ton chassis and some soldered telephone wire for the radiator tubes - I decided to change out the windows - Rather than cut up the 44T chassis, I changed to a Kato 11-105 with a gearhead conversion - continued...
But wait! There's more... I decided to change out the radiators, added detail bits to the roof, headlights, and drilled a couple dozen holes for grab irons - Here it is - ready for paint and final assembly (and it's DCC now!) - And now... [drum roll, please]...
Here she is... "Submitted for your approval..." Sorry, no lettering or glazing yet. My inkjet decals came out a bit too thick so I'm going to try getting some ALPS ones made. After the lettering and painting the grabirons and steps yellow, I'll dull coat and then install the glazing. I agree with PW&NJ - this was a blast! - and actually still is, considering I still have some finishing to do. I'll be sure to post photos when she's finished finished. And many thanks for all your help along the way, guys - I couldn't have done it without you - or this thread!
You know, I was thinking about the decals, then I saw a post by Gerd over in the Z-scale section about his F-7. Something about a negative decal. What if you printed a decal with as close to the color of your boxcab for the background, with white for the lettering, then paint yellow on the boxcab and decal over it? You could feather the edges of the decal in with real paint, then dullcote over that to blend the whole thing. Hmm... Just thinking out loud.
My Decal Tests Exactly what I was thinking, PW&NJ! I actually tried both ways for inkjet decals: I tried printing a black background on clear film with "clear" lettering (to let the yellow paint underneath shine through - like you described). I also tried printing a black background on white film with yellow lettering (the yellow lettering shows up nicely on the white paper). Problem with this is when you cut out the decal and mount it, you can see the white paper along the cut line. Here's the pictures. The bottom one is the clear lettering over yellow paint, the top one is the yellow lettering on white paper with the edges blended out. You can clearly see the edges of both, and that's even after Micro Set and Micro Sol treatments. My boxcab would have come out like this - Arghhh!!! Looks more like a sign board than painted lettering! Then I tried just the paper alone, with and without the fixative topcoat. Top left - Clear film with fixative - as before, you can see the edges. Top right - plain white film, no fixative. Looks nice and thin. Bottom right - plain clear film, no fixative. Also looks nice and thin. Bottom left - Yes, there is a bottom left! Commercial clear decal scrap that just plain disappears after the Micro Sol and Micro Set. Looks perfect! Sorry about the gray primer overspray but you can still see. So... Evidently, it looks like the fixative is the problem. It has to be able to seal the inkjet ink from the water bath but it just adds a very noticable thickness to the finished product. ALPS and Laser Jet decals can be "fixed" with the final dullcoat spray, alone. Hey, I'm still learning but I'm getting there!
The first problem for your matching is the color of the paint you used. If the color on my screen is correct you used grimy black rather than straight gloss black. By using that paint you cannot start your background color 100% pure black you need to start with a 80% black and add yellow, magenta and cyan to get the correct non-black color. Then you must mix in variations from there. But matching two colors on a printer is almost impossible without using PMS inks. I spent two solid days trying to match a label for a special run to a pre-printed box. My boss finally told me to just use what I had on the third day. They never match precisely. It won't matter which printer, ink or paper you use, the task is very difficult.
Regardless, it's still looking excellent. Can't wait to see some shots of it pulling some cars. Speaking of that, I actually got to run mine the other day on my son's oval of track. What awesome things little boxcabs are! And now that the challenge is coming to a close, how did I miss this one? FRANKENCAB!!!
Hi ChicagoNW - Duly noted! I've read many times of the problems matching colors as you stated. Granted, if my loco wasn't black I wouldn't even try but I felt I had a decent shot at it considering it was black. Actually, the color and decal tests were done with Polly Scale Engine Black with a brush or two of Dullcoat over. I wasn't too concerned with neatness (and it shows) - just proof of concept and color matching. The black actually wasn't such a bad match and if I trimmed the decal closer to the text, dullcoated and weathered, it would have been passable, but not perfect. I just wasn't happy with the thickness. Basically, I decided to take the easy way out and ordered a sheet of custom ALPS decals this afternoon. Simple yellow lettering on clear film. I know it's cheating, but if a couple bucks can save my sanity - I'm all for it!
Heteks and PW&NJ, your box cabs look awesome. PW&NJ I love the IDE cable radiators. and PRegarding the thickness of homemade decals, I've heard you can use liquid decal paper similar to http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2...e=MI-12&Category_Code=FINPROD&Product_Count=6. I have yet to try this and I would think it would still add thickness to the decal but maybe it would be dissolved by the the microset.
PW&NJ - Frankencab is an understatement! Looks like the paint job would take longer to do than the fabrication! And about your other comment... Anyone who spends almost three months worth of evenings working on a N scale boxcab has to be a little cracked. OK... Guilty as charged! y0chang - I've seen the stuff but have no experience with it. I'm sure it would have some trial and error before getting it right - although the "super thin" wording on the label looks interesting. I've tried "Plan A" and "Plan B" with the inkjet decals. The ALPS decals will be my "Plan C". If I need to use it, my "Plan D" are Woodland Scenics dry transfer lettering. I just hope my "Plan C" is the winner!
MC sent me a sneak peak at his boxcab and man that sucker rocks! Anyone else make any progress on theirs? I'm up to my ears in other stuff, but I've been working on some of the technical issues for Grey One's futuristic boxcab. Hope to have some photos of that to post soon...
Speak of the devil: just finished it up. So here's the boxcab beast bred in the blacksmith shop of Mt. Coffin: Hank, the hapless Mt. Coffin monkey mechanic who built it out of Climax & cast-off parts, ran out of whiskey so there's still a few more bells & whistles to add. (Namely a bell and a whistle) Could use some more weathering, too. The board-by-board shell sits on a Bmann 44-tonner mech, and just lifts up, so I can build a more modern boxcab and slip it on whenever I want to change eras. But I'm kinda digging it. Definitely adds some 1900s character to Mt. Coffin: Feel kinda bad coming late to my own party, but (as you'll see) I did bring the beer. Here's the relief train, bringing much needed medicine to Mt. Coffin: I'll post some more picts over on my Mt. Coffin & Columbia River thread. It's been a blast to build, & I'm very happy to finally have a boxcab. Not sure if it rocks, but it definitely doesn't roll: front truck pickup strips turned out bent, so until the replacement truck comes from Bmann, this thing won't roll over an unpowered turnout. Hope to have video soon, though. Thanks PW&NJ for all the encouragement. Looking forward to seeing other boxcabs soon!
That looks fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You should not kill it with weathering. Even the cheapest no frills railroad would have equipment that just cane out of the shop looking good. Or at least just rebuilt.
I concur...dont weather it !!:tb-confused::tb-wacky: That wood work just looks too awesome as it is ! IMHO...you will lose to much of the detailing on that thing. Like mentioned...it had to be 'new' at some point...right ?:tb-wink:
As you can see, progress is very slow. If I had used the caboose trick, the whole thing would probably be done by now. At this rate, I should be able to post pix of the finished model by 2014 or so....
