I started an Amtrak NPCU about a week ago. You can see my progress so far in the attached picture. The black over the areas where vents have been blanked with styrene is from a sharpie marker which helps me determine if the "seal" looks good enough so it will look seemless after painting. This will be unit 90368 in phase III paint when I'm done.
Cool! Show us your progress. I started on four of these a few years back, but I lost them when I tried to strip some paint off them (they melted). I need to try again. I was going to do mine in Phase III.
CABBAGE!!!!1!1!! A Kato F40, featuring: 100% less motor 50% more styrene 1% more corrugated aluminum Trace amounts of sculpting resin Handcrafted cyanoacrylate glue scab interior The entire midsection was chopped out, leaving a nose and a tail, then replaced with styrene. The circular windows also have glazing in them obtained from spare parts. The extra steps around the fuel tank had to be handmade, as attempting to remove them from spares only produced mutilated black slivers. Since this was made out of a former 346 clone, I had the pleasure of cutting out the ditchlights as well (no, they don't work yet). I had to mill the sides of the frame down in order to get the new, thicker styrene walls to fit around it. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to remove quite a bit more to reduce the weight, as it doesn't push well uphill at the end of a string of amfleets (I don't motorize boxcars, so I won't motorize a baggage car). I'm considering repainting this, as it acquired an unwanted sandpaper texture while drying (too hot, too many things drying). The air conditioner (BLMA) was donated to an attempt to mass produce these using 3d printed midsections (I'm also waiting for Kato to stock their own A/C unit, as I prefer plastic over brass parts). Said 3d printed midsections tend to assume a "wood grain" appearance when painted, so they are being redesigned... I must add that the only way to make the access doors on the sides look passable is to cut the sides out and make new ones. This way, the car looks equally bad from both sides!
That looks great! I'm going to do one of Phase Vs like yours next... so thanks for all the advice! 90368 had a lot of the vents left in place intially, so I thought that would be a good place to start.
Southwestern Bell My next structure is the Southwestern Bell Transfer Office where equipment is loaded to transport around the system. This was originally another structure for another layout and I am trying to salvage it for inclusion in this layout. Perhaps I can make a few modifications but this location will be another place to display all those 18 wheelers I have acquired. This is a styrene clapboard structure.
Building Specialties This is another layout building. This time I had to replace the skylights as some had fallen down inside the structure. Only thing, the structure is all sealed up. I just applied them to the outside as best I could. I used Micro Krystal Kleer and Future Floor Wax. It worked but what a mess! Not as good as original but they won't fall down inside again, for sure. This is a Bachmann kit. In fact, I got it when someone was selling them for about two US$ apiece. same time they were selling Life Like GP20s for 15 US$. On to the next structure!
Building a model of the private car "Sierra Hotel". All the details are on, now it's off to the paint shop.
Some more progress on the NPCU. I put the patches over the back three fans, cut a hole for the horns (which were moved to the center and put into an area slightly lower than the rest of the roof) and removed the exhaust vent (area that is black above the place cut for the horns).
I posted some pictures of these in the 3d printing thread, but since they are a work in progress, I thought I would post an update here. I'm working on an early 80's Upper Michigan/ Northeast Wisconsin CNW roster, and that means ore cars, and lots of them. I thought about building a master and casting in urethane, and briefly flirted with the idea of brass etching, but for a fleet of about 50 cars, that would be quite the effort. 3D printing offers the advantages of almost unlimited geometry, simple replication, minimal assembly, easy tweaking to improve the master when issues are found, and the ability to easily modify the master to represent different variations. Painting and finishing is essentially the same. The downside is varying print quality, and some of the surface issues inherent to affordable 3d printing. Here is one of the finished trial prints: Here is a render of its current incarnation: I added locating dimples to make it easier to drill pilot holes for the separate grabs on the upper corners. On the initial prints, I found I had to cut notches in the bay doors on the bottom behind the inside wheels to allow the trucks more room to swivel, so I added these notches to the 3d model. You can't see them from the side, and they really improve tracking.
Great work CNW Mike! I look forward to seeing a couple of ore trains! What are you going to do for pulpwood cars?
Thanks Karl, the printer does the hard work! I've a few SOO bulkhead flats, but that's it as of now. Good point though. With all the mills I'll need a lot more.
Great model, CNW Mike - are you using Shapeways for the 3D printing or another service? The rivet detail looks pretty nice on the model.
I am using shapeways. You can see the model here: http://www.shapeways.com/model/611732 Shapeways is by far the most affordable, and for a model like this where you will have strings of the same car any minor printing issues that can't be sanded or painted over will blend into the background in a whole train of them. I've about a dozen painted waiting for decals, and once their all lined up it's hard to pick out the less than perfect ones. For example, on some of them the rivet detail was obscured by "surface fuzz" that once painted obscured some of the rivet detail. Some of course show up so good they almost look injection molded. It's still a crap-shoot unfortunately. But with a little sanding you can smooth out most surface issues.
Awesome ore car, Mike! Finished up the work on Sierra Hotel today. I think there might be an article on this one!
Wow, it looks fantastic. Here is the real deal in Rosenberg, Texas last year heading from Galveston to Kansas City.
