Caboose progess and a new skill/technique/material

 As the photos will attest, great progress on the trio of CPR vans.
Interiors painted. Who doesn't love that nasty, nasty green?

 And the bodies and cupolas fully assembled

To be able to fully assemble the cupolas, the sliding sash had to be glazed before it was sandwiched within the laminations.
For this project, at the request of one of the clients, I decided to try glazing the windows with microscope slide covers.
The slide covers and the diamond tipped scriber were acquired easily off of Amazon, and delivered in such record time.
I had discussed the process of cutting the glass with my pal Trevor and I went for it.

I have to say I'm a convert.

The process is easy and the results are stunning.
The key is a very clean work surface under the glass being cut and to make one pass only with the scriber. The glazing was secured in place using Microscale Crystal Clear as an adhesive

Nothing looks like glass, other than glass.
There will be a lot more of this in my future.

Now for the brass frames, and all the fiddly bits underneath

The Joy of Model Building

 I build a lot of models.

I'm always struck by the shear volume of model kits that are available. A huge variety of scales and subject matters, as well as an array of modeling mediums. Wood, plastic, resin, metal, 3D printed, etc.
And of course, there's a wildly variable level of quality.

Some of the best model kits I've had the pleasure of working on are the O scale caboose kits created by Glen Guerra of Mullett River Model Works. Very carefully designed laser cut wood kits with etched brass underframes and a collection of appropriate investment castings.

The late Dave Nadeau commissioned Glen to create a CPR and a CNR  wood van for Dave's company, Northern Models. I've built both a few years ago, but now I have the joy of building 3 of the CPR vans for some clients.

I'm going to try and blog about progress on these 3 as I progress.
3 O scale cabooses at one time will fill the bench quickly.

In this image the car sides have had the 3 layers laminated together as well as the car ends.
Under the steel weights are the cupola sides and ends, and to the back are the 3 floors with their 4 layers of laminated plywood parts.
And to the right you can see the pile of etched brass parts for the underframes, which will assembled within the floor and soldered together.
As these cars have full interiors as well, careful planning is called for as to when to prepaint things like the interior.
It all seems clear in my mind right now.
We'll see how that goes!
More to come