I really have to get off this vehicle kick and get back to modeling a railroad

Dale Kerns Construction Pickup

Yes, I agree, in real life it would be a sin to cut up a Studebaker truck, but it could have happen. This is one of the re-released Stony Mountain Studebaker pickup truck kits with the bed cut off and a Classic Metal Works bed attached. FWIW, this is a 1937-39 model. When I worked for Dale 30+ years ago, he had a old faded service bed truck similar to this, but not a Studebaker.

Easy Ed Koehler Pickup

Speaking of 30+ years ago. At Pittburg State, my construction instructor was Ed Koehler, affectionatly known as Easy Ed. Certainly one of the people I learned more from than most. This is a Wheel Works all metal kit. A real pain to put together, but it has nice detail. This is a 1934 Ford.

Next up, the Central Concrete Fleet. I am in the process of kitbashing 9 different cement mixers. Three for each major city along the Kansas City, Fort Smith and Gulf HO model railroad. FWIW, niether Kansas City or Fort Smith are to be modeled, but I will have some cement mixers lettered for the Fort Smith Center Concrete location. The other two locations will be Joplin and Springdale.

November HO modeling

Pulpwood car, converted from old stock car

This is based on a prototype from the Maine Central. This is not meant to be a copy, I just got the idea from some Maine Central pictures and drawing in an old NMRA magazine. This started out as a Bachman stock car. I cut two sections our of each side, the spliced them back together as one section to put in the middle where the door was originally. Obviously, I also cut off the roof. I have not added any underbody detail yet, but at this point, not including applying the decals, it only took about 2-1/2 hours to get it to this point. I printed the decals on white decal paper, which I would not do again. Clear would have blended in better to the white background. I also need to add some data decals.

Roundhouse Metal Kit

This old kit from the 1960's arrived in pieces mixed with lots of other parts. I actually found all the parts scattered between a couple of boxes I had received. I was able to match the paint color and complete the kit. It had been assembled previously, so I had to do some modification to the coupler boxes to bring them up to spec.

Gertrude

How is that for a car number? 5,261,884. I don't recall ever seeing one that long, but this was numbered in honor of my grandmother on my mother side, and the car road number is here date of birth, and no, I don't believe she drank wine at all. Family folk lore has it that some of the Sardou clan in France makes wine. I can't find any evidence of that, but I really like these European cars. I Americanize them a little with a brake stand and decals.

LTL Dry bulk containers

I have two cars like this and had to make a road number change on this one in order to be able to run them both at the same time. I used some Solveset to remove the old number and printed out some decals for new numbers. Did a little weathering and called it good enough.

Linde Tank Cars

A couple LifeLike tanks that I renumbered like the car above, but this time I needed to renumber two cars. There was a Linde plant down in Neosho, so I have several Linde cars on my roster.

Diamond Chemical Tank Car

This was an old Ready-to-Run car, but I added some decals, as the manufacturer left off some the details. The car came with no road number markings, no data and the "Caustic Soda", and the plant location below that were not on the model. Also I added warning signs decals.

That is enough for now. Back to laundry and some more modeling. Some day I may actually do some scenery.

September Modeling

Little time to model this month with a couple shows and a bad back, which seems to be better now. Maybe I just need to shed 80 pounds. This first car is an old Roundhouse metal kit. I bought this some time ago from the River Road, but it was in pieces, a junk box, with lots of other pieces. The vintage HO yahoo group pointed me to the right pieces to complete this model. In reality, it is a hybrid of sorts. The sides are Roundhouse and the underframe is Athearn, but also metal. I really have to get some scenery on the pink hill.


Next is a scratch built gondola. The plans are from an old magazine, and the material was to be wood. Being that newer materials are available, I used styrene for my model, and to give it plenty of weight, it has a 1/8" steel plate instead of the 1/8" wood used in the magazine article.

Next is a gear load, i love open loads. Can't remember where I got the gear, but it made for a nice oversize load. It is displayed on a vintage Varney flat car.


I don't know who the manufacturer is on this kit, and I don't know where I picked it up. Similar to an Athearn in some ways, but not the frame, which is like a AHM. No mame on it. I did some weathering to cover some wear marks. Gulf Oil is my favorite private car owner, so I have lots of tank cars for gulf and other related companies. That will do it till next time, when I hope to have some of my concrete truck fleet to show.

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.