CP Wide vision caboose kit

I am announcing that my CP wide vision caboose kit is finally available.

Available on both places, either from my site Animekmodels CP wide vision caboose
or on Zscale Monster.



This kit includes 3 decals schemes to choose from and is mostly made of Lazerboard

Ben

 

Thanks, I've replied to your special request, check you're emails :thumbs_up:

Ben

 

Nice !
.

 

I'm in too; a CP & a CN. I'm hoping my dormant model-assembly skills have only been in hibernation rather than completely eroded away

Scott

 

Beautiful job, animek. I must reveal a secret, I am a aircraft modeler for 25 years (my website Homepage), and I would personally build loco, where can I find the engines, there are only kit engine in z?

 

Hi John, thanks, but if you have some good advises to reduce the small parts and make the models still look very close to the prototype or just plain good, I am always open ears!:thumbs_up: :bear-laugh:


You’ll notice that I have made the choice available to build both ends prototypical or just with a flat panel for the brake wheels.

Ben

 

Here's my progress. I'm learning a lot in the process.

Scott

 

This is pretty good so far :thumbs_up:

Ben

 

I recently purchased one of your caboose kits and I must say that it is extremely difficult to assemble. I have had many issues with pieces being so tiny and not fitting properly. I've only partially assembled the caboose but I just can't do anymore. It's just far too complicated and involved. Perhaps you should have made these cabooses with the smallest parts already assembled. And I have also found on many of my other cars that body mounted couplers are crap. It's ok when they are coupled together with other like cars, but when coupled with truck mounted couplers they perform poorly especially on curves over 30 percent. You cabooses should have been designed to accommodate track mounted couplers. I have another of your caboose kits that I bought from another fellow already assembled and it refuses to stay on the track, and comes uncoupled whenever it has a mind too. I no longer use it. It sits on a siding as a display piece. I believe that although you kits are quite nice, they should be redesigned to be less difficult and time consuming to assemble.

 

Newtoscale,

Why not try and replace the couplers and trucks with a pair of truck mounted couplers?

John Bartolotto

 

I think a number of us are feeling your pain and we have compassion for you in regards to the difficulty you are having with this kit.

I must say that Ben does excellent work and this caboose kit is NOT a beginner kit. I'm sure any of us laser kit manufacturers could pre build some components of any kit we design, but that causes the price of the kit to go up because of our own hand labor.

We have found as we design kits, that sometimes our simple design although it will work, it is not necessarily the easiest approach and we often try to simplify the building process by making more parts or other adjustments. Maybe we are breaking the KISS rule......'keep it simple stupid' I know we would like to, but trust me, it isn't always possible.

Mabe it is a catch 22, but not knowing how old you are causes me to wonder if perhaps certain aspects of Z scale is beyond your ability to accomplish. This is in no way a slap to you, but just wondering if age, eye sight, steady hand or lack thereof is part of the problem.

None of us are getting better with age in that respect. So I hope that you won't throw in the towel and give up Z, but maybe concentrate on other aspects of the hobby instead.

We all remember another fellow who jumped into Z about a year ago and then had nothing but trouble with it and had to give up. It was a sad day for not only him, but all of us who saw him leave the scale we love so much.

If we can be of any help to you, reach out, maybe someone can fill part of your needs in exchange for something you can do or give in exchange.

 

There is an art to assembling a laser cut kit which is quite different from that of a plastic kit. You have to build the car in sections and let the glue dry while clamping the parts or weighting them to keep them in alignment. I have built 3 of Ben's kits and I fit each piece first before gluing them and in many cases glue them after I have fitted them. If you are using a water base glue such as white glue or carpenters glue, applying glue to the part and then trying to push it into another piece of wood creates drag and the water softens the wood allowing it to deform slightly and then it no longer fits. For tight fragile parts I use a bit of ACC glue on the surface and let it dry and then lightly sand or file the surface to create a stiff smooth surface that will slide into a notch with ease.

The reason for getting a laser kit is to get a car that may not be monetarily viable to get as a r.t.r. car and so is rather unique at reasonable cost and if there is pre-assembly work done then the cost of the car quickly gets beyond most pocket books. You are better off to purchase a version that has been built for you rather than try and build the kit.

The use of body mount couplers is usually more reliable in my experience and it is my preferred style. However, it requires that you pay more attention to the trip pin and setting the height properly using a trip pin gauge especially on tight radii. If there are no switches in your track not setting the trip pin height properly may go unnoticed with talgo style trucks, but is still recommended. Cars with body mount couplers can be backed up through switches while those with talgo style couplers can only go so far with so many cars before you pop them off the track. Uneven track work can also lead to un-wanted un-coupling as the level of the coupler on a body mount car is balanced over the length of the car while with talgo trucks it is only balanced over the length of the truck.

Z scale is much more detail oriented to get good results with your rolling stock than the other scales for a reason directly related to the scale. If you want larger tolerances then you go to larger scales.

cheerz Garth

 

Hi (.......)
I think there is an email address and a name in the last pages of the instruction manual, I personally know the dude, I’m sure he will be more than happy to help you with any difficulty you may have.
But don’t forget to tell him who you are, because I’ve heard he does not reply to anonymous threads. :bear-cute:

Ben

 

The kits are engineering master pieces, no doubt. Can't imagine how many hours Ben spent to design this and of cause the trial-and-error phase....What a great effort!
Are the details too small? Not really, if it would be brass or plastic, for wood lots of parts are too fragile in my opinion, but just my opinion. I had my problems too and still dragging one project out to finish it off...
It's really not a evening activity to assemble one, you are all right, lot s of pations, a steady hand, good light and lots of time.
But sometimes less is more.

Regarding body mounted couplers: absolutley fine if you not try to do a u-turn , the caboose is quiet short, should work absolutly well even on the scilly industrial radius...
Look at a SD40-2, such a long beast and the body mounted coupler are working fine as well

 

Just did 2 small video's, sorry bad quality, but those are difficult times and demands is important, so I had to do some test trials to be sure.
The rails are Marklin, using the tightest rail available from them, that give about 7.5 inch of curves radius, in the tunnel the train pass over a Marklin extension rail, and goes onto Peco rails. All the rails are floating, nothing holds them in place.

Slow forward, (LOL! You can see the slinkee effect on this one)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XGDuURIa2A

Faster backward (Being pushed by the GP35)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZKGDOIcLns

Those are the 2 design prototypes, no tinkering was done on them. So I don't know what to say, plus I'm very green in running trains, my layout is not even finish, so I test them on circle loops.

P.S. I apologize in advance for the era watchers, I've mixed some era boxcars because I've rush them into the tracks, Lol!.

Ben

 

Hey there Loren, age has nothing to do with it. As you know I've assembled a number of Ben's kits. No, they are not simple but hard they are not. They do take time and like anything else there are some steps to learn. A simple one is how do you hold things. To prevent shakiness, rest one hand on the other and use tweezers to hold things. It takes a little practice but so does riding a bicycle. Once you learn you never forget. Another thing is get a right angle clamp. Align the two sides and then partially remove one side. Add a small amount of CA Gel and slide the pieces together. Let set for 15 minutes and do 2 more sides and let set. Finally assemble one side of the 1st piece to one side of the 2nd using the clamp. Let dry. The fourth corner can be sprung a little to add the glue. Just keep moving along piece by piece.

Another helper is do NOT put windows into wall openings. Set the window mullion on a flat surface and drop the wall onto the window mullions. Use a little wax paper to keep the glue off your work surface. This makes the assembly almost simple. Finally add the outer frame - but again resting you hands on each other. BTW this is an old Surgeon's trick so he doesn't remove half your heart when he only wants a little slice.

Ben's kits are not beginner's -- but by the same token it doesn't take too much experience to do a great job.

...don

 

Here's my $0.02 worth from a relative rank amateur:

I have completed my first caboose, and the second one is 85% complete. It has taken me 5 months to get that far on these two projects (is there an acceptable plural to caboose?)

I had no idea what I was really getting into when I started to build these kits. Now that I have read from some of you that these are complex models to build, I am glad that I have taken the time with them. Ignorance is bliss. Are the ones I have built masterpieces? Not by any stretch of the imagination. But I have gained a great deal of respect for all of you who have design these kits. I cannot fathom the amount of time it took to design and manufacture them. I too have broken pieces, sent others flying, lost a number of bits on the floor, and cursed and sworn in frustration. Sometimes it took me longer to carefully pry the parts out of the sprew than to paint and assemble them, but in the end I have enjoyed the process and now have something to show for my labour. Definitely not perfect, but acceptable for a first-timer. The knowledge and skills I have obtained will be invaluable in the future.

My wife will tell you how impatient I am, but I also realized when I got going on the first one that it was going to take me way longer than I expected. I don't have a lot of time to spend on these, so getting to steal an hour or two to work on them is a welcome bonus. When the eyes and muscles start to ache, then it's time to put things away and have another crack at it later. The experience with the first caboose has made the second one so much easier. I followed Ben's instructions and asked for help from when I needed, and got some advise from this forum too. Utilize the skills and knowledge at hand on this board, and your model-building life will be much more pleasurable. Nobody here bites - quite the opposite