Large Scale Central

A whatzit

Modeling
#1

This has nothing to do with the challenge HERE, but is for one elsewhere… Take a pile of miscellaneous junk. Botchmann, Kalamazoo, and ???

Add some stripwood…

Remove about 4" to fit the shorter roof and punch a few extra holes…

cover it with baby poo (Pullman) green…

Stick some weird looking stuff inside…

Test fitting the roof… does it look like anything yet?

Tomorrow I need to make cabinets and barred windows.

#2

Nice Mik. You sure know how to keep busy.

#3

As many have probably guessed it’s a RPO/Mail Car… a very short one. By 1960 it probably would be relegated to MoW use as a tool car. Since I had to get #3 in the mail, it, the rpo, an unfinished milk car went outside along with #8’s tender for some '30s era snow pictures

(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/cabeese/P1110020.jpg)

(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/cabeese/P1110022.jpg)

#4

Those pics are OK. Shame they came out blurred

#5

blurred? not really. backdated. The originals just didn’t have the feel I wanted

(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/cabeese/P1110020-1.jpg)

(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/cabeese/P1110022-1.jpg)

#6

Mik said:
blurred? not really. backdated. The originals just didn’t have the feel I wanted

(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/cabeese/P1110020-1.jpg)

(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/cabeese/P1110022-1.jpg)

Nice job of blurring… er… backdating. :stuck_out_tongue:

#7

This is the feel I wanted… it’s a REAL pic circa 1910-15ish. Compare it to the ‘blurry’ ones.

(http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp52/steamnut1917/doublstar.jpg)

#8

Blind end… I think the Grande painted them black? Might do that just to help hide the coffee stirrers

(http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt7/tigerlillie06/His%20Stuff/P1120024.jpg)

Side view, it needs handrails, steps, brake wheels, the inverted v-shaped gutters above the doors, and the smokejack yet, plus decals and weathering.

(http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt7/tigerlillie06/His%20Stuff/P1120025.jpg)

#9

She’s getting there!

#10
Forrest Scott Wood said:
She's getting there!
The question that comes to mind is, "Yeah, but where?"

On that note, I spent 3 hours tonight looking for Kalamazoo domes and Delton siderods… they’re HERE, just not where I looked… Just a bit ago I was about to dance when I found two crossheads, till I realized they were both for the same side!

It’s been one of them days… :frowning:

#11

Since, according to the rules, begging is allowed. I find myself in need of the following items:

  1. about 3" x 4" piece of that plastic ‘grating’ with the square holes, like they used to use for fluorescent light covers in suspended ceilings… to make a wall of pigeon holes
  2. some undyed linen type fabric to make about half a dozen mail sacks
  3. lettering - specifically “US Mail Railway Post Office”, Normally I would just have Stan print them, but it would put me way over budget, so???

Ain’t it great when you suddenly realize you need really weird stuff?

#12

Mik, have you ever tried to mirror-print?
you write the lettering wanted, press print screen, import that to MS paint, mirror your pic, cut it to size, then print it out in best quality (much ink)
then you must be quick! just lay your printout face down upon the cloth for the bag and rub on the backside of the paper.

you get a washed out, well aged lettering.

#13

Some progress to show: I decided to summat try to work from this photo for adding details. Even though it’s not a model of a D&RGW car. Since it was for use by the US government a lot of things would be more or less ‘standard’ on RPOs throughout the country.

(http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt7/tigerlillie06/His%20Stuff/mail10.jpg)

First I added vents in place of about half the clerestory lights, handrails and steps. the green clerestory glass is Bachmann. I worried about them being too dark on the black plastic, so I put silver paint behind them… I shouldn’t have bothered, now they nearly glow under fluorescent lights or flash. I’ll have to wash them with grime or something.

(http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt7/tigerlillie06/His%20Stuff/P1010020-1.jpg)

Added the rain gutters and the bar accross the mail dor. The plastic sprue pieces I used for those are just too fat. They’ll get replaced as soon as I find a bit of wire. Since decals for “U. S. MAIL RAILWAY POST OFFICE” would put me over budget, it’s being presented as a MoW tool car recycled from an RPO after the end of mail service. The .030" bars on the windows I fully expect to go AWOL the first time the car is run.

(http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt7/tigerlillie06/His%20Stuff/P1010023-1.jpg)

Next up is the undercarriage. Backwards of what most folks would do, but I had been debating on how to do it. I finally decided that it would be an older wood car rebuilt on a steel frame as an attempt to comply with the 1912 law without going to the expense of buying a steel car… on that note, if you look at the Grande car, you’ll see it has sheetmetal panels about a foot tall along the bottom edge - possibly because the body started to rot out. I’ll probably add that feature as well, once I figure an easy way. I’m thinking aluminum furnace tape might do it?

#14

Hey, if guys are building rotary plows, cabooses, and Superliners, with tape, why not! :slight_smile:

Halfway remember reading somewhere steel covering lower sides, on these and standard gauge cars too, was to prevent siding from getting chewed up by baggage/mail carts.

#15

Forrest, Thanks! Makes sense

#16

This post is for those who have wondered about my (admittedly) odd choice to use Barber trucks. And even stranger refusal of your kind offers to send me ‘proper’ passenger ones. I submit the following rationale (excuses?) for my eccentric behavior. 1. They were here. 2. They are entirely the wrong era for anything else on the AV. 3. Due to the short car length, the longer passenger trucks would have interfered even more with my plans for passenger type brakes.

(http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt7/tigerlillie06/His%20Stuff/P1010020_01-1.jpg)

  1. I had a vague idea of how to alter them to look more like passenger trucks. In that vein the Barbers were visited tonight by the Commonwealth fairy, and a strange transmongrelfication began to take place.

(http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt7/tigerlillie06/His%20Stuff/P1010021-1.jpg)

Okay, they look funny at the moment – Try to reserve judgment until they’ve been sanded, more details added, and painted.

#17

(http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt7/tigerlillie06/His%20Stuff/P1010020_02-1.jpg)

(http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt7/tigerlillie06/His%20Stuff/P1010021_01-1.jpg)

#18

finis! – or at least as much as it’s going to get…

(http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt7/tigerlillie06/His%20Stuff/P1010021_02.jpg)

(http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt7/tigerlillie06/His%20Stuff/P1010020_04.jpg)

(http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt7/tigerlillie06/His%20Stuff/P1010022_02.jpg)

(http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt7/tigerlillie06/His%20Stuff/P1010023_01.jpg)

To reproduce that chalky old paint look I wanted, I took the Pullman green color and added an equal part of light grey, then a drop of dish liquid and diluted it with regular tap water. Then I added a bit MORE grey and water to do the roof. Once it was all dry, I “buffed”, for lack of a better term, the car sides with a dry paper towel to bring out some of the under colors… and last was some “licorice” craft paint and a thin brush to do the fresh(er) “tar” on the roof seams. And, thanks to horsetrading, the cash outlay on this was less than $10

#19

Definitely looks used and ab-used.

#20
Forrest Scott Wood said:
Definitely looks used and ab-used.
Definitely abused, but does it look natural and plausible?