HO Scale - What's On Your Workbench?

RDGbuff56 Nov 17, 2009

  1. RailMix

    RailMix TrainBoard Member

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  2. VinceP

    VinceP TrainBoard Member

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    Looks real great there TAK
     
  3. gjslsffan

    gjslsffan Staff Member

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    Wow thesecare all great modeling guys, TAK I am thinking you have much more experience modeling. But really good effort!
     
  4. TAK's Trains

    TAK's Trains TrainBoard Member

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    Yes, it's going to be the centerpiece of my harbor. It's not fixed to the diorama.
     
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  5. Uncle peanut butter

    Uncle peanut butter TrainBoard Member

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    Not on but at my work bench. Our lass bought me a new chair. 1E8FD696-CE35-4C10-8922-954D66C42876.jpeg
     
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  6. Mr. Trainiac

    Mr. Trainiac TrainBoard Member

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    I didn't think this was worthy of an entirely new thread in the 3D section (maybe we need a workbench thread there too), but I just finished up a quick model. I was looking at my Bowser Roadrailers and watching some videos and realized that the fuel tank for the reefer unit is incorrect on the model. The BNSF Ice Cold Express trailers should have a large fuel tank instead of the short one in the box. I used drawings for a smaller tank and recalculated the length based on the volume of a gallon. I found an Alliance reefer trailer for sale with a 120 gallon tank, so that size was the basis for this model. Alliance, BNSF, and Clipper all had refrigerated Roadrailers built to the same design, so it should be good for those as well as any other modern reefer. This will be on my Shapeways store shortly. Ho scale fuel tanks.PNG
     
  7. Mr. Trainiac

    Mr. Trainiac TrainBoard Member

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    Here is another Inventor model I'm working on: Inventor Side Oblique.PNG

    Some of you guys may recognize this car. It filled a niche role during the turn of the millennium, but was pretty iconic to the railroad that owned it. That's right, its the BN Trough Train. This will be a model of the aluminum 13-unit production car, although two steel prototypes with only 5 units were built too.
    The side panels are basically done, and since it is articulated, there isn't much detail on the intermediate ends. I just need to work out how the underbody will look because there aren't a ton of good photos of it.
     
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  8. Pastor John

    Pastor John TrainBoard Member

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    I've been replacing plastic hook couplers with body mounted Kadee couplers and quickly realized that drilling accurate holes in car bodies would be a LOT easier with a drill press for my Dremel tool. So I looked around. Amazon $70, Lowe's $50, and then cha-ching! Facebook market place $30 fifteen miles away. I picked it up this afternoon.

    Sent from my moto g(7) play using Tapatalk
     
  9. Joe Lovett

    Joe Lovett TrainBoard Member

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    Great bargain John.

    Have fun with your new toy.

    Joe
     
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  10. RGW1

    RGW1 TrainBoard Member

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    Just waiting on the mail for a Mantua 4-8-0 . Plan on making it look a little modernized. Headlight, compressor, pilot, domes , tender mods and paint .
     
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  11. VinceP

    VinceP TrainBoard Member

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    This arrived today in a trade for my PRR SD35

    Got this SDP35 shell in trade in trade so away we go.

    Sorry bout the pics brand new phone still working to figure it.

    1/2 page instructions just don't cut it.
     

    Attached Files:

  12. rch

    rch TrainBoard Member

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    Awhile back I saw some Norfolk & Western coil gondolas in the yard and thought they'd be simple to model. Well, that's before I learned how different gondolas can be. After staring at the prototypes of these cars in the yard and in pictures online, I began to wonder if I could splice together two Accurail 41' gondolas to get in the ballpark. So I bought a pair and spliced them together. Not too bad. I painted it and built a coil rack for it using some I-beams and tube. Decals came from the N&WHS commissary.

    [​IMG]


    Shortly after that was done I decided to build a couple more. I already had all the stuff to make two more coil racks so that was the first step.

    [​IMG]


    Splicing four more gondolas into two just happened the other day. I'm hoping to get the paint and decals done this week. Here's where I'm at now:

    [​IMG]
     
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  13. VinceP

    VinceP TrainBoard Member

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    Very nice builds R what is the era for these cars
     
  14. rch

    rch TrainBoard Member

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    Norfolk & Western's G74 gondolas were built in 1980-81.
     
  15. VinceP

    VinceP TrainBoard Member

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    Thanks R a year to new for me looks great.
     
  16. rch

    rch TrainBoard Member

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    You could use the same basic process and model the G73 class, N&W 189750-190499 built in 1976. The key differences I see are:
    • a ladder at the BL and AR corners instead of grab irons
    • no pulling eye (if that's what it is) between the rivet strips at the bottom corners of the car (easy enough to model by not drilling one!)
    • the lower row of rivets along the bottom of the car would have to be removed with a chisel (a bit tricky but easy with the right tool)
    • the ends are taller and would need to be constructed by splicing two ends together (easy enough since you'll have a pair of leftover ends)
    That series will work for general service gondolas, but if you want a coil gondola another kitbash I did might work for you. This one was also pretty easy. I started with a P2K Greenville gondola and added fixed ends from an Accurail gondola kit (guess where I got those?:sneaky:), added ladders at the BL and AR corners, removed a bunch of rivets and cut up a basketcase Walthers coil car to make the coil cradles inside.

    Here's a photo showing the rivets removed (top is the modified car, bottom is a stock P2K gondola):

    [​IMG]

    Here are the coil cradles from the Walthers car:

    [​IMG]

    And a view of the painted car:

    [​IMG]

    The decals came from a few different sets I pieced together, including the gondola set from the N&WHS commissary along with some decals from a Microscale caboose set. These were ex-Nickel Plate gondolas, if I remember correctly.


     
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  17. VinceP

    VinceP TrainBoard Member

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    Thanks much Rich that's a major help.

    Cars look great.
     
  18. gjslsffan

    gjslsffan Staff Member

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    Thats great modeling Ryan. A question. What is your method for cutting the gondolas apart? A miter box and saw? I have used miter boxes and saw, like the small ones sold at hobby shops. Just curious as to your method.
    Thanks Ryan, take care buddy.
     
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  19. rch

    rch TrainBoard Member

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    Thanks, Tom!

    I just use an X-acto 235 saw blade. On these gondolas I'm able to follow near the ribs to keep the cut straight, so I don't need a guide. The cuts are never perfect, though, so I true them up with a sanding stick test fitting them upside down on my desk as I go. The finished gondola ended up with a bit of a sag in it at the joint, but it's not too noticeable. I knew that was a risk with these two current gondolas so I was careful to make sure they lined up before I cemented them together. Dry fitting them together after a few swipes of the sanding stick keeps me from going to far with the sanding and lets me correct course easily.

    The floor is a different story. I figure out roughly where I need to make the cut in one of the floors and make the cut. I know the saw kerf is going to be about 0.015" wide, so I take that into account when I choose where to make the cut so that the rivets end up looking like they're spaced evenly on the finished model. Next I place the uncut 41' floor in the assembled 52'-11" gondola then put the other floor I've just cut on top of it. Using a sharp blade I lightly trace the edge of the cut I made on the other floor. Then I remove both floors and use the saw to follow the cut line traced on the floor. Again, there's some sanding and dry fitting but it's not too hard to get a good fitting joint. It took a few times doing this to know what to expect and what to look out for, but it's not a difficult skill.

    When I have longer cuts to make, say on a locomotive shell, even with the vertical lines of the doors as a guide I will still use masking tape to make a cut line. This gives the saw blade a physical barrier to press against lightly and keeps the cuts true. I like doing that better than trying to hold the shell in a miter box, keep it from moving around and keep the cut straight a the same time.

    These X-acto blades are "push" saws so I like to draw the first few passes of the blade toward me pulling the saw opposite of the teeth, that way the saw isn't too aggressive if I make a mistake. Once the cut is defined I'll push the saw into the cut.

    Coming back to the sag in the original gondola, it occurs to me you could make multiple cuts in a gondola every few ribs and sand the model so a slight sag is noticeable in the finished model. There are plenty of examples out there of sway back gondolas tired from years of scrap service. That method, along with making bulged out panels using putty and a nice scrap load to hide the unbulged inside, could possibly make a convincing model of a real rustbucket. Here's a Walthers gondola I did years ago where putty was used to make the bulged sides:

    [​IMG]

    Stay safe out there, Tom!
     
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  20. gjslsffan

    gjslsffan Staff Member

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    Thanks Ryan,
    I was wondering about your technique. I hadn't thought about using that Exacto saw blade. I appreciate your modeling "chops".
    Here are a couple belly draggers I have done, I remember seeing a 65' mill gon at Geneva in Provo that was an old BN car, it looked like the belly was just a few inches above the rail.
    Was climbing out of Denver going west one time and noticed we were really slowing down on the curves thru the tunnel district It was midnight of course, I looked back and maybe the 10th car behind the power looked like there was a big old torch under it sparking like crazy, there was 6-8" of snow so not too worried about a fire, we finally got up to Cliff, I stopped where I could restart if needed, the conductor went back and the wheels were rubbing on the bottom of the car, only in really hard pulling and tight curves. We were able to go 10-12mph at best, when it was sparking we slowed to 4-5mph. It made it from Chicago OK, but when we got it in a bind up there, it gave us problems. That was quite the deal but we finally got it set out in a house track, it was 140 tons of mill balls. And was sagging very badly. I think they ended up taking it back to Denver.

    DSCN1073.JPG
    DSCN1074.JPG

    DSCN2543.JPG
    DSCN2547.JPG
     
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