Final details and assembly

 The final steps in the Central Vermont van project involved many little delicate steps. It's those details that make or break the project.
The cars were painted with Morency Orange bodies, CN Red #11 ends and underframes and black roofs. The first 2 colours were from the CNLines SIG paint line that was created by Scalecoat paint. Very accurate colours and great paint. The black was Floquil weathered black. I laid in a supply when the end of Floquil was announced.

 Once the paint had cured, Microscale decals were applied and numbers were assigned based upon the clients direction. One of the vans had the Maple Leaf emblem applied, while the rest had the "stacked" lettering in the centre of the car body. It's a shame that Microscale didn't get the green right on these decals. It should have been much brighter, but it still looks good. The cars were flat coated to seal the decals and the parts can start coming together.

I waited until the flat finish had been applied  before adding the glazing. That helped to keep the windows clear. One of the long vans had wide flat metal braces added in it's history, these were formed from shim brass and prepainted. Far better looking than the lumpy cast resin ones offered in the kit.

Before attaching the bodies to the floors I painted the railings and grabs white. It is going to be much easier to do this now rather than later with the end platforms in the way.

Now the bodies can be attached to the floors. There is a lot of weight in these cars at the client's request. He wanted the cars to match the weight of his brass versions. Kinda makes sense.

All the end railings had been prebent and painted, along with mounting holes drilled before the floors were painted. So it was a simple matter of trimming the railing legs to length and securing in place.

All the ladders have "railings" on the top and all of these were mounted through holes that had been drilled through the lateral running boards and then the bottoms secured when everything was square.

The running boards were painted to represent a raw wood appearance. I used Floquil foundation and then a couple of passes with raw umber oil colour. The digital images don't really show the colours properly, it's a lighting thing as well, but I'm very pleased with the effect.

All the cars were given a wash of thinned india ink, which toned down the electric orange as well as gathering in the nooks and crannies. All were then sprayed from the underside with either thinned black or thinned railroad tie brown to represent the road dirt that accumulates.
This was a fun project. A little out of the norm for me, I don't get a lot of cabooses to build. Which is too bad. It was a nice departure from boxcars.
The only sad part was having to explain to my nephews what a caboose was.