I'm glad it helped. Another "trick" is to pour the resin in a thin stream, so the air bubbles break there too. Good luck, James
Thanks. I'll start with a couple of GBRX yellow / black. Futhermore I will follow your advice and do some PSCX red/black, to create a coal train. Eventually I might also do a couple the D&RGW (white/black, orange/black, blue /black).
To help with the air bubbles, dust the mold surfaces with baby powder prior to pouring the resin. The powder will help the resin fill the small corners and release the bubbles from them.
If the car is correct, the D&RGW Coal-Liner would be a shoe-in. You could build 100% of the roster--they only had 5! NORX cars would also work (black with bright yellow ends). Train 755 from ATSF train 4432 at Pueblo to Westmoreland Coal at Converse, CO with 100 empty cars marked NORX. (http://www.carrtracks.com/drgw.htm) The blue-end D&RGW cars are neat too. They'll add variety to your train. D&RGW blue-end: (old layout, poor picture, sorry) NORX:
I think that I can adapt the tub for a coal liner. I'll guess I'll just have to add the bars at the 9 middle sections. Can you recall the 5 road numbers of the coal liners?
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=425094 Numbers 56995 - 56999 They were built for the Kaiser Steel trains the Grande was running with Union Pacific. Page 80 of Jim Eager's Rio Grande Color Guide to Freight and Passenger Equipment, 1996 Morning Sun Books, inc.
So that explains the up yellow at the front and rear on the grande car. I asume Athearn used the wrong color on theirs.
The magnification really belies the miniscule size of this car. Just over an inch long, right? You did a great job on this one.
I have just tested your baby powder trick. Thank you for this tip! Dusting the mold with baby powder realy makes the difference. The casting comes out much better!
Stunning! Wow, and to think those are scratchbuilt. My hat's off to you, sir. And to think you are doing this in NL, thousands of miles from the prototype! All the more impressive. I'd wager European modelers doing US prototypes do a better job than some American modelers just a few miles from their prototypes.