Large Scale Central

Painting and Details

When you all have a rolling stock project ready for the paint, do you paint it with all the details installed or add them after the build is painted. Like nuts, bolts, ladder and such?..Thanks …Travis

That’s one of those either or questions where the short answer is “yes”.

The long answer is “it depends”.

It depends on building method and order & on the parts themselves. Grab irons and ladders for example - grab irons may well be attached to boxcar before painting while a full ladder may be attached after body is painted so as to not get unpainted shadow behind ladder, and if painted before installation the ladder can be painted on all sides including back.

On a wood body car which might be heavily weathered, metal hardware bits such as the grab irons mentioned above may well be installed after wooden areas are painted and weathered.

Sometimes such things are installed after painting wood cars so as to prevent glue overruns from marring and filling wood gran before painting.

Thanks Forrest. I guess I should mention my project is a wood burning type tender for a 4-4-0 project. The Kalamazoo tender was too short and looked out of place for it. I built it out of wood and have so far made all the hardware out of brass and ozark nuts bolts. I would post a pic of it but not sure how without photobucket anymore. I miss sharing my stuff for you guys to see and get opinions on them…

Use the freight shed to host your pics

Welcome! If wanting a smooth, filled-grain finish on that tender, here’s what I would do - fill, sand, and prime, then drill what mounting hole may be required since the primer would be easy to mark with a pencil. After that do the color finish coats. Without the hardware installed it will be much simpler to do necessary finishing work to get that smooth finish.

If it is to model an actually wooden tender for a funky backwoods operation then only some of this may apply! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)

It is a steel tender 1850’s Belongs to my General loco project. I do have the pics in freight shed now… how do i load them from there to here?.

Boomer will have to tell how, I’ve never done that.

Ok, well if someone will walk me thru this to post pics it would be greatly appreciated. I have them in a folder on freight shed. just need to know what to do from there…

I got it figured out… WooHoo!

The tender is made from scrap wood that I had lying around. I kind of cheated on the thickness of the sides at the top where it is beveled, however I wanted some extra strength so not to get damaged when handling. I may rebuild another one in the future with some styrene sides. For now this will work. I used a 1/4 scale drawing from the book Civil War Railroads & Models.

That looks amazing!!!

Beautiful job Travis,

Are you going to use a filler and sanding sealer before priming?

Rick

Fergit the paint, shellac it! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

I still have some sanding and filling to do. It will be painted black and lettered Western and Atlantic. These are some steps I made tonite. still need to clean them up and ready them to be blackened or painted. Not sure if solder will blacken or not…

These are 1 1/8 tall made from 1/32 tubing, 1/8 bar stock and a piece from a truck power pick up. Started with this… and then added the tubing.

This project will go along with this project. The Locomotive was started last December. Still stuck on making the drive rods…This is a kitbash from a Kalamazoo motor loco with a extended boiler,along with some modified Bachmann parts, ( Pony truck and mount and steam chests), ( Smoke stack pilot are from the MPC “General” model)… Lots to do on this thing…I am building a Civil War era railroad one of these days and hope to see this pulling my scratchbuilt 1860’s era cars I have also started. All of it will be link and pin coupler.

I will posts some more pics of the tender with some of the details i have made from brass and NWB stull tomorrow…

The tender is made from Basswood,pine flooring, and dowels for the corners. I quartered a 3/4 in dowel and then sanded out the middle to a concave shape. The outside corners are dowel rods too. Only problem so far with the tender is it is 1/4 too wide @ 4 1/2 inches. The trim that I made is half round with my dremel router makes it 4 1/2 inches wide. This was overlooked when I measured out the width of the frame. So not sure if I’m gonna remove it or not…it is not too much wider than the locomotive, but is noticeable against the lead car it will be pulling… What’s you guys opinion on that?.. This stuff has been keeping me sane while off work since April from shoulder surgery…Thanks for looking… Travis.

I have these cars built along with a couple of flatcars and a flatcar with removable gondola sides. Will be adding several more cars… cattle car, house cars.

Confederate Artillery car 30 pdr.

28 ft coach.