Kicking it up a Notch

It's been a good week!
Wabash stock car kits have been steadily going to the Post Office.
Lot's of dialogue for the next kit and potential new projects. And I'm still welcoming suggestions. Tell me what it is you'd like to see in resin and multi-media kits. You never know what may work for me and others.
I spent a day in Toronto with my good friends John Mellow and Trevor Marshall, running trains on Trevor's Port Rowan S scale layout. Port Rowan in S scale.

I got this caboose finished.

Silly me I didn't take a picture of the finished car, but you can see another one of these in my Gallery. These are CPR vans from Northern Scale Models. The kits were done by Mullet River Model Works. They are spectacular wood and etched brass kits and create lovely cabooses. As Marty McGuirk recently blogged, they're worth buying one and building just for display.

But the real fun was this car;

A client had sent me this car to build for him. It's an Intermountain 40' AAR boxcar with a Viking roof. The client supplied the C&NW decals from Jerry Glow. From there I upgraded most of the details on the car. A Tichy AB brake set, with wire brake rods and clevis'. Kadee bracket grabs, wire end grabs, DA 8 rung ladders, Tichy Ajax hand brake, cast resin lateral running boards and brass strip lateral supports, Reboxx semi-scale wheelsets, etc. The process, which takes almost as long as building a resin kit, takes a good kit and kicks it up to a great looking model.
After painting the decals went on with only a little trouble. Jerry Glow's decals are very nice and he's got a process where it's viable to create decals on demand. The trouble I have with his decals is that the actual ink used does not soften well with decal setting solution, so getting the actual inked parts to settle over rivets and such can be a trial. What I've found that works, is after initial application with Micro-Scale setting solution and letting that dry, the trouble areas get a little Solvaset applied and after a few minutes I press firmly on the decal with a Q-tip or rubber pad. That usually addresses the problem.
A trip into the weathering shop and voila!
I'm pleased and I expect the client will be as well.
Now to some Chooch O scale boxcars.