I am a dull boy

All work and no play.

I attended the Turkey Creek model railroad meet this past weekend, and I had a great time talking with my friends from Southwest Missouri.

I have not had much time to model in the last few months, but I have gotten a few things done. This depressed center flat car is scratch built from styrene. I used Tichy brake stands and brass ladder stock. The tie down loops are from Kadee coupler pockets.
I think this is a Silver Streak kit? OK, I could go look at the box, but really, what does it matter. I assembled this per the kits instructions. I used Model Flex Paint for the interior and ends, the sides come painted and lettered.

This six dome tank car is a Thomas kit I bought off ebay already assembled. It needed some paint touch up and straightening of some parts. but it turned out nice.

This kitbash is from the 3 in 1 series from Roundhouse. This kit was designed by Gerry Dombroski and he sent me the kit parts he had. His web site is http://kitbash.ourpage.com/index-linked.htm and is a wealth of information regarding this series of now discontinued kits.

I have several dioramas in the works, so hopefully I will get some time to get back to model railroading.

Making S##t Up

It was a long winter, but weather has finally cooperated to the point I could do some painting. I have been working on some vehicles, mostly making s##t up. Since I model 1949, obviously the Matchbox Mercedes Unimog is a little to new. I picked it up for a buck, cause I thought I could use the spoke wheels and maybe the truck bed. I turned down the wheels and tires, and then added slices of plastic tube to resemble the early 1900’s era hard rubber tires. The cab is scratch built based on some old photographs. The fenders, seat, and hood are from the junk box. The head lights are sections of brass tubing, again modeled after a photograph. The grill is scratch built. The Western Auto deals I printed myself. Printing decals with my ink jet printer has been a hit and miss proposition…mostly miss. The dashboard, mirror and gear shift are also scratch built. I keep finding things to change or add, like an exhaust pipe, differential and drive shaft. So I do not feel it is done yet, but I think this will look good parked in front of the Western Auto store on Main Street of the model railroad layout.

The next making s##t up project is a Hot Wheels I thought had possibilities. I am modeling two different oil companies, Gulf and Phillips 66, so I have several tankers in the works. I don’t really know what possessed me to do this one, but here it is. I had to raise up the chopped roof, get rid of the exhaust stacks, open up the fenders, and add headlights. The decals is individual lettering from the decal junk pile. I have several more making s##t up vehicles. This tanker will no doubt be unique to my HO scale railroad!

The junk box was full and I needed to use stuff up, so I just started building. The hold up on the other trucks is decals that I will have to make or have custom make. All are for industry and business that I plan to have on my eventual layout or at least would be in towns near by. So I felt I could justify having company vehicles in the area. Here are several I am working on. All are waiting on decals or paint, or both. Left to right, top to bottom, they will be decaled for: Fort Smith Rim and Bow, Junge Bakery, Otasco, and Jewel Tea. I also have a Cook Paint truck in the works. Getting the Cook Paint picture, shown below, to print on decal paper with clarity has been an issue. Realize, that to fit on the model, it will only be 1” high.

Spring has sprung

Well it has been a long time since I last had time to Blog. Lots of cold weather and trade shows have come and gone. We finally had some reasonably warm temperatures today, so I finished up a few cars this evening. Now that the show season is over, I hope to be able to get an evening or so each week to work on the model railroad and maybe a weekend or two.





I have shown this Pennsy Cabin Car before, but I added window glass using Micro Scale Krystal Klear and it really help the empty look. OK, it still looks empty, but now it is harder to see inside. This was kitbashed from a couple Tyco Cabooses' per a magazine article. Not really a Pennsy fan, but I like some of their cars.

Here we have a Snow Crab built from a 3-in-1 Roundhouse Kit. A snow crab is the oppisite of a snow plow. Yeah, that is right, it was used to put snow on the tracks. Why, you asked?

When the snow is very deep, the rotary snow plow, really a blower, would basically make trench for the train to go through. The problem was, the wind would blow the snow back in the trench, sometimes very fast. The snow crab would be pulled weights first, behind the first rotary plow, with the wings extended to grab the snow close to the track, or within its' wing span, and pile

it back int he middle of the track. Then a second rotary plow would come thourgh and blow the new pile out of the now, twice as wide trench, The wider trench would take longer to fill in, therefore, keeping the line open longer.

A couple months back, at a meeting of the Turkey Creek Division of the NMRA, we had a hands-on clinic on weathering freight cars.

The cars were donated by Show Me Model Railroad Company in Grandview, MO. http://www.showmelines.com/

The clinic was put on by Fran and Miles Hale of Model Railroad University. http://www.modelrailroadinguniversity.com/

A special thanks to both Show Me Model Railroad and Model Railroad University.

Nothing real special here. This is an Athearn car that I decoarted with some old Champ decals. They have to be old Champ decals, since there is no such thing as a new Champ decal.

Here are a couple before pictures. This is a Megow paper wrap car I picked up somewhere. Check ont the great detail on the truck side frames. This kit is

probably older than me, and certainly dates to before I started model railroading. I did a little clean up and added several details. Including hand rails, basic, very basic, brake detail, A-Line stirrups, etc. I also installed

some old metal sprung trucks I had laying around. Just cause the old truck are cool, I am keeping them in the box with the model so all the original pieces I

have are together. I really like taking the old kits and detailing them a little. Certainly not contest quality, but an interesting piece of vintage HO model railroading.

N to HON30

This could also be titled from two cars to three, as I used two N scale Readers Digest premium giveaway cars to make three HON30 cars.

This is a picture of the N scale car and the finished HON30 gondola.

I first cut the sides from the N scale car, which is the only thing I used from the original car. I built the underframe from brass so the car would have enough weight, and the ends were built from styrene shapes.

I scraped off the N scale details, leaving the rivets, and added grab irons, stirrups along with under body brake detail. I used N scale Arch Bar trucks as they are reasonable for HON30. Since I finished these cars, I have obtained some Grandt Line Gilpin Tram HON30 trucks and will be using them on future projects. This car ended up weighing in at 1.3 oz, so maybe I should find some brass trucks.

NEXT: the TANK CAR

Starting with this N scale car, I took it apart and built....

J&N #2

These are the parts I used to build the basic car. After drilling out the riveted on trucks, the car comes apart easily with a single screw. The frame of the N scale car was too small for HON30 and way to light. I needed to add weight and size to frame and tried out several ideas including brass, styrene and wood.

The tank had slots in it, and I trimmed wood to fit in those slots to be chocks to hold the tank on the flat car.

I trimmed, filed and sanded all the molded on details except the rivets.

I carved off the original dome and added a piece of 3/8" tube for the man-way. I also turned some steel bar stock I had laying around to fit in the tank for added weight. Even with all this added weight, finished, it only weighted in at 1.4 oz.

I finished off the top of the man way with..., you guess what I used.

To add maximum weight, epoxied brass bars in slots in the underframe. I decided to epoxy styrene all around the underframe to give me a 7' width and a reasonable looking length.

Here is the bottom of the underframe with the styrene added and the cast on moulding marks removed.

I filed the top side flat so the wood deck would fit tight.

I glued scribed wood to the underframe and trimmed to fit.

I painted the car, added a brake wheel, couplers and decals.

Then a little weathering and dullcoat for a finished look.

#3, a FLAT CAR

I used the underframe left over from the gondola and some other parts to make

this.

The frame would be too light unless weight was added. I soldered brass bar stock to the sides and ends to give me the needed weight, width and length.

It took a while, even with a 200 watt soldering gun.

I filed the top flat and glued boards to make the deck.

I stained the deck using the Pat Harriman method; I used Prismacolor markers.

I have gotta quit spending some much item on detail you can only see when the car is upside down! I used Grandt Line under body brake detail and stake pockets.

I did not figure the stake pockets into the width, so the car ended up about 6" wider than I would have liked, but I do like the way it turned out. This car weighs in at 1.5 oz. Considering it is about 4" long, that's not bad for a flat car.

I have dozens of projects that are waiting on good weather so I can paint. I have primed several projects, but I will have to wait until the weather warms up to do the finish painting.