September HO Model Railroad update

I have been working on several vehicles for a main street scene diorama. To date the scene, I want most of the companies shown to be recognizable as 1949 companies, or at least not modern companies. The exception to this is the vehicle to the right, which is lettered for my son's comic and gaming shop which opened in 2009. They will have a shop in my 1949 downtown, so I figured they needed a vehicle that was of the correct period. Inside the store will be displays of period comics. The truck is a Wheel Works metal kit.


Cook Paint & Varnish was a major manufacturer ini North Kansas City. They are no longer making a retail product and the industrial products division is owned by Daves Paints. I did a little research and came up with some appropriate signage. In fact the boy painting sign is still on the front door to Sebus hardware in Weston, MO. If you want to get the feel of an old time hardware store, stop in to Sebus Hardware in downtown Weston. The cab is a heavily kitbashed Roco Unimog and the truck box is a cut down 40' trailer.

This picture was taked from a deck of cards and cleaned up in Photo Shop Elements.

The Junge Bakery was located in Joplin, and was a major force in the economy of the area. The Butter-Nut Bread logo, and on the other side of the truck is a Quaker-ette Cracker sign, we lifted from an old postcard. After many hours of work in Photo Shop, I was able to print out some useable decals. The cab of this model is from a Bachman COE tractor and the box body if from a Hot Wheels armored car.

Now to a railroad car. This was scratch built rock quarry car based on a magazine article. The wood looking deck and end are, guess what, wood. All of the underframe pieces are brass that I soldered together, Brass, I felt, was my only choice if I was going to have enough weight with an empty car. The car is designed to tip to either side to dump it's load. The tilting blocks are modified brass bridge pieces from Precision Scale.

Looking at the underside, you will notice, besides the brake rigging, that it is 3' narrow gauge. These are brass trucks, again for the weight.

Untill next time, when I will show three or foru kits I have finished along with another scratch built car.

HO Model Railroad Items for sale

I have several items for sale on Ebay, seller name nvrr49. I am featuring here item #190438240299, a complete Ambroid kit of a Southern All Door Box Car. It is HO scale. I don't normally spend the time to build something like this and then sell it, but back when I started it, I had not narrowed my model railroad focus to a particular era. Now that I have settled on modeling 1949, this car does not fit. Rather than let it sit in box, I figured I would go ahead and move it to a new home.

Too many pictures, but I linked to my blog in the ebay listing, and I want potential bidders to see both sides.

Kitbashed Vehilcles

I was on a recent layout tour, and complimented the owner on their quantity of vehicles. They replied, "you can never have too many vehicles". I agree, and have started working on several vehicles for my HO scale model railroad. I have been working on several vehicle kitbashes, and here are a couple that I just completed.

When ever I come across a cheap out of scale vehicle, I always look to see if there are any parts or pieces I can use. Some years ago, Kellogg's offered some Matchbox cars as premiums, and I have been holding on to them for a decade or more. I finally took the time to really look them over, and found the width of the box was not too bad, but the fenders made the vehicle too wide for HO scale. The wheels scaled out at about 4' in diameter, so they would at least have to be turned down and new tires made. I kept the hood, box and radiator and head lights, but pretty much everything else came from the scrap bin. Although it really does not show in the pictures, the back bumper has a see through deck made from an electric razor screen. The wheels were made from metal flowers from the scrap booking section of Hobby Lobby, and the tires and wheel rims were made from styrene tubing. The OTASCO decal was photo shopped from a picture and printed using a photo printer on clear decal paper. I photographed the model on a Route 87 module I started.

This next HO model uses the wheels from the Kellogg truck above, but I cut the tires off and turned them down by chucking them in a drill and filing them down. I used styrene tubing for the wheel rims and tires. This truck started out as an Anheuser-Busch truck, probably about 1/64 scale. Judicious use of a metal cutting wheel on the a Dremel tool made fast work of cutting this to pieces. I think the only thing I used from the original truck was the deliver box. Everything else came from leftovers from various other trucks and cars I cut up for parts. The decal is based on an advertisement in the Frisco employee magazine from back in the 1920's. Fort Smith Rim and Bow, actually was still in business until this century, however they made stair parts, not vehicle parts. Yes, the Rim was the rim used for wheels on Conestoga wagons and the Bow was the bow that held up the canvas roof on the wagon. Since they were a company dealing in wood, I made the running boards and both the front and back bumpers out of wood. I also painted the wheels to look like they have wood spokes.

I am just about done with a Cook paint box van and a Junge Bakery delivery truck.

August Freight Cars

I have found time to finish up a couple model railroad freight cars. This first one is a vintage Varney tin kit. I did some repairs and weathered the deck. Otherwise it was assembled per the kits instructions.

This next car is a Jouef European prototype double cask wine car. I have labeled it for the my mother, and no, she does not like wine, but her ancestors/relatives in Europe made/make wine.
I did a lot of weathering to this model as the original assembled model was very plastic looking. I added American prototype details and carved off many of the European prototype details. I used individual letters to decal all the larger lettering. I kept the original wheels, but I may have to change them, as the flanges are so deep that they run in to the tie plaates on code 70 track.

This Gulf Good Gas car is a Model Power RTR model. Since I plan on modeling a Gulf refinery, I have one of most Gulf Oil models offered in HO scale. I don't believe this is based on a prototype, and the logos on the model were too new for the late 1940's era I am modeling. I painted over the old logos and printed new decals, and applied them over the newer era logo. I did some moderate weathering, and highlighted some of the details, on what is generally a low price/quality model.

My next installment, later this week, will feature some HO scale vehicle kitbashes I have been working on.

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.