The boy has what he needs to make this unique to the Triple O !
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@Rooster ,
Doh! I never thought of that! That would have been too much fun!
I proceeded along my own unimaginative course, masking and painting this for the M&K Sugar Co. I forgot you don’t need to mask the lighter color…
…but I did. I meant to just paint the top third the lighter sky blue, mask, then paint the lower third hunter green. Now I will get to practice masking again! I used my fingernail to press the tape into the “wood” planks, and, with the exception of some overspray into the interior, got some confidence building results! Yay, me!
I will let it cure over the week, mask (again), and paint the lower portion. It is hard to believe that after years of sitting on the RIP track, this thing is starting to come together! Detail painting, lettering, and the roof walk suddenly seem only a few weeks away!
Eric
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Gack! I almost forgot to mention the coach!
O.S. finished masking the windows. Kid-zilla took up the upholstery, selected a grey color…
…experimented with various glues to apply the flocking…
…and over the course of the weekend got to this.
He noted that it is not perfect, so we set it inside the coach body, and he agreed that it was “good enough” and a far cry from where we started!
Yours truly manned the paint shop this weekend. I gave the interior a white coating, and, despite mixing white and clear gloss…
…got it done.
Buoyed by my success with the box car, I decided to paint the coach and test our masking. The body went out to the Palm of Spray Painting, and Triple O / OR&L green once again stained its bark!
The great unmasking prompted us to quasi-assemble the rig to evaluate our work.
I can live with that! Closer inspection, however noted a few areas that will need touch ups, and it turned out I forgot to mask a strip along the roofline. Kid-zilla noted that some of the old circus markings can be seen upon closer inspection, our masking wasn’t perfect, and I missed a spot with the spray can.
This should be easy to clean up with some light sanding, a bit of paint, and a brush. Overall, I think we can take a victory lap on this one! Hard to believe it, but we are not far away from pressing this shattered circus coach back into revenue service!
Eric
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Great job on that coach guys!!
“Great job on that coach guys!!” - i second that.
but i got a question:
“upholstery, … to apply the flocking…”
i do know, what upholstery is.
but flocking? - i am flocking trees with sawdust, or other materials.
i also understand and see, that the goal seems to be to achieve a rough, textile like surface.
could you please describe, how the “flocking” is done, and with what kind of material?
not that i’m curious, i just want to know everything…
https://www.flockit.com/what-is-flocking/whatisflocking
I first saw it done as long grass for a field on I believe one of Malcolm Furlow’s layout how to articles. Also was used to detail model car interiors back in the 50s and 60s. Flocking in these cases was fabric fibers as opposed to wood fibers. Sometimes applied by using an empty applicator bottle full of material fibers and then squeezed (blown) on to the precoated wet surface of a clear drying glue. When blown onto the glued surface the fibers stand on end in the wet glue.
Can also be sifted onto the wet glue for a flatter surface. 
thank you! 11 13 15 17 19 20 (not counting empty spaces)
Dave,
Thank for taking that question! @Korm , we used this as an opportunity to try out the process on an interior part that was visible enough that the results would be worth the effort but not so visible botched results would detract from the end project. We tried both TiteBond III and contact cement. Neither worked especially well. Perhaps we needed a thicker layer of glue? We spread both pretty thinly on the benches!
Eric
Mahalo nui! Thanks so much!
I use white glue even thinned if need be. The white glue doesn’t set up as fast and gives the fibers time to adhere. Titebond and contact both form a film rather quickly and seriously shorten the working time.
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Update:
Limited progress on the coach this weekend. I did removes some overspray using paint thinner, but, other than that, I wanted to paint the green on the box car, let it cure, then do all the fixes on both cars in one sitting. With that plan in mind, masking happened, and the box car went out the Palm of Spray Painting.
I’ve learned nothing good comes from leaving the masking tape on too long, so, after about an hour, I peeled it back.
I’ll take those results! I am very pleased with the masking. Close inspection will show some run with the paint, but not enough to cause me to sand it off and try again. Some of this, of course, is operator error. Some of it is because I use a palm tree for a spray booth. Whatever my excuse, I am really, really pleased with the results, as I have never tried anything like this before.
Next, I’ll pick off some of the details with flat black, then it’ll get some lettering, I also have to build the roofwalk. Then it’ll be back in revenue service for this garage sale sad sack! Oh, and progress has shamed Oldest Daughter into maybe finishing her elevator:
O.D.: Nice, Dad! What’s it going to carry?
Me: Grain from the grain elevator.
O.D.: …
Updates as progress merits! Have a great week!
Eric
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The color change line came out great. Getting crisp lines with tape in not easy, especially with the siding grooves. Painting with the grooves horizontal probably saved a lot of grief.
VERY good job guys. It looks great. 
Thanks, everyone for your kind words! This weekend will be hand painting some details and correcting some issues on the coach, but I am looking ahead to lettering. We have our CRICUT, but there is a limit to how small it will print, so this sort of detail…
…will need to be either decals or dry transfer letters.
- With regards to decals, has anyone tried to use “Experts-Choice” brand decal sheets? I bought a pack on whim some time ago.
- With regards to dry transfers, are there any tricks to make sure they get down into the grooves between the “boards?”
- What is the best way to make sure that the lettering goes on straight? Light pencil lines? Calibrated eyeball?
Thanks!
Eric
Update:
The Triple O -- Bachmann 10-Wheeler Salvage Campaign has put all else on the backburner, but I was able to make some progress on this project while Kid-zilla prepped a hulk for restoration.
Starting with the box car, using the tips above, I cut and sanded the mounts for the roof walk.
I was not able to sand these in a block as suggested, and, as the picture shows, they don’t quite rest to the roof. They are close enough. At some point, I’ll glue them all in place with 2-part epoxy and move on.
I bought material needed to print decals for the box car and passenger coaches. I’ll tinker with that later. I also bought some paint markers to touch up the coach a bit. The green was definitely “close enough.” The yellow was dried out in the box, so I have to return it. Finally, between “honey cans” (local for parlance…"Honey, can come do this…Honey, can come do that…etc.), I dug out and began to remove the flashing for the railings. The railings themselves will be black to match the prototype. We agreed to paint the handrails near the door bronze just to make them pop a bit.
Updates as progress merits.
Eric
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Another tidbit you might like for this boxcar
Known in the US as "Honey Do"s
Update:
The 1:1 crew being otherwise busy, the 1:24 lads helped me finish the roofwalk on the box car.
The planks, in true Triple O tradition, are craftsticks! I plan to stain them with diluted India ink to tone them down a bit, but, otherwise, these will do. I still have to build the grain-retaining boards @David_Marconi_FOGCH posted above, but I should be able to get to them shortly. Eventually, I will make an order for a ton of brake wheels to finish this rebuild and repair a host of over cars on the shelf, but this was not the week!
The 1:24 gang and I also set to work reassembling the coach. I have found that almost done projects in partial degrees of disassembly are the most subject to breakage and wandering parts! Kid-zilla came to observe as I mis-wired and rewired the lighting, but was otherwise busy with his locomotive. I did cut windows for the doors our of plastic, affixing them with CA, and, after putting the roof on backwards, finally got it all assembled, only to find the roof screws were, in fact, not the roof screws, leaving the roof a friction hold for the time being. Nonetheless, the 1:24 gang backed it out of the car shops at Pu’u’oma’ao.
You can just make out the flocking that gives the seats a plush appearance. It is a nice touch! This is what it looks like close up:
For a limited bit of effort, it adds a textural and visual element that gives the project that little bit extra, I think. In the future, we will use white glue as @David_Marconi_FOGCH suggested, to get better coverage.
We are working on a lettering scheme and possibly symbol. When that is resolved, I will try to make decals for both the box car and the coach. Once that is done, both will probably get a bit of touch up paint. Otherwise, they are done, and both will enter revenue service.
We have one last coach to convert to our version of the OR&L parlor car. I took the pictured below at our car shops the day we rolled out the coach. At this point, its deck and trucks are in paint.
We will shorten the walls to match the prototype in terms of number of widnows, but I have no plan to shorten the coach. The bulkhead will move “backwards” to cap the shortened cabin. As discussed earlier in the thread, pre-scribed styrene will form the new deck and the exposed ceiling underside. If I can enlist help in making furniture for the interior, great, if not, PLAYMOBIL furniture will likely suffice. The paint scheme will match the prototype using lessons learned from the coach in terms of masking. The hard part, as noted early in the thread, will be the railings. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it and see what the final dimension of the open deck actually are.
That is in the future. For now, I have that water tower (Haluku'ilio Water Tower -- Another Triple O Rehab Project) to finish! I’ve blown it off long enough…
Have a Glorius Fourth!
Eric
Eric, when I saw your circus coach, it reminded me of the BB&K business car that I made as a trial run for Alan at G.A.L. [I couldn’t persuade him that the EBT #20 was only 35’ long, not 40’.]
The railings were cut by Alan as an experiment, and I’ve used them elsewhere. What I really wanted to point out was the double-windows. Many Business cars had wide panaorama windows - what the BB&K RR did was chop out the center pillar between the windows -on the prototype you can see the siding is irregular below the wide windows!
Might make your car more insteresting?
Looking at the odd window arrangement on the real car :
[http://www.hawaiianrailway.com/Train%20Images/javascriptphotos/parlorcar64/large/parlorcar_2.jpg]
I don’t think you need to add more interest but JMHO YMMV