All, Finally I have build the Robert Ray's centerbeam kit, which I won last year with my D&RGW 56108 gondola in the ZCS scratch build contest (June, 2010). The kit was sponsered by ZtrackCenter. These are great kits and fun to build! - The car is painted with acrylic Tamia flat yellow XF-3 (81303) - Added steps on the edges and grips on the top. - Slightly weathered with some rust. - AZL truck coupler guts are replaced by MTL's.
Wow! It really does look good! I almost forgot how much I love Centerbeam's until you posted this topic! Great job Frank!
Opera windows I've said it before and I'll say it again, building the seven 'opera window' centre beams kits of Roberts a few months ago was one of the most enjoyable projects I've done in a while. Perfect fit and quite a relaxed leisurely process. They always cause a stir at train shows in the U.K as it is a design of wagon unknown over here. Keep up the good work lads KEV
will MT ever make one? looks really great! i always wondered why MTL doesn't make this one. seems like a winner to me.
Well Robert made beautiful decals for the inside of these centerbeams and I guess it will be difficult to print these on centerbeams in production as MTL (and any other manufacturer) prints cars. And these prints in the inner side of the car realy make the difference! But yes you are right they would be a winner. Well let MTL start with a woodchip gondola to go with the centerbeam.
MTL will generally not make what already has a large supplied base. Besides there is a "gentlemen's agreement" about such things. These will only be available in kit form. Besides, there are Sooooo many variations of the beams (see http://www.zscalegallery.com/stock/unweathered/gallery_3/) that you would not end up with more than one of the styles. The volume of Z makes unique tooling costly. .
Haha! I have all these Centerbeam car kits already designed, just need to find time to draw up all the decals: Here is the decal artwork for the Thrall Phase III Centerbeam kits I plan to do next:
Alex, I'll bet Robert would be more impressed with green stuff instead of drool. Drool only gums things up, but it is what Z scalers seem to do a lot of. Don't blame you one bit.
Very fine job Zfrank, congratulations!:thumbs_up: Reminds me I've still ~15 of these kits waiting in their boxes, I should start to work on them for time killing in my hotel bedrooms on my lay-overs...:ru-cute: Dom