I beg to differ!

It's been said by some that resin tank car kits are among some of the most difficult resin kits to assemble well. The major challenge lies in getting the tank to sit properly upon the frame, followed by setting the handrails.
Of course this can vary from kit to kit and manufacturer to  manufacturer, depending upon decisions made.
But to the degree of difficulty, I say BULLOCKS!
Compared to the trials of assembling hopper cars, they're a piece of  cake.
Assembling resin hoppers is an ongoing process of checking square and fighting with cast hopper bottoms. It's remarkable what can throw a car out of kilter as one tries to get the bits lined up.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in awe of the pattern makers who created the parts in the first place. And I'm always impressed with Al Westerfield's courage. But there are days...
I've just finished 4 hopper cars for a client. With another 4 hoppers almost ready for paint.
Once they're done, I'll have to steel myself for the remaining 12 hoppers of his that remain on the shelf.

Good thing I have stock cars to keep me going.

It slowly comes to life

So this evening I tinkered some more in the one corner east of Aylmer. Planted a few more trees, erected a few telegraph poles. Then grabbed a train out of the staging yard .

I think it looks good. Still needs more ground cover.
The good news is the bridge will hold a train! Not that I was really worried, but I've had sillier things happen.
And yes I know, the grill on 1160 needs attention. Only so many hours in the day.

Summer's here and the time is right...

For going outside and making trees.

You'll see why outside in a moment.

In a previous post, I extolled the virtues of the Super Trees from Scenic Express. But the more I looked at them, the more I was convinced that more work was required, so out they came. I've now got, what I consider an improved approach to using the Super Trees.
I start by cleaning a few armatures at a time and soaking them in dilute matte medium and hanging them to dry. Sometimes with clamps to help straighten them out. I do about 12-16 trees at a time

Once they're dry, they need painting. I use cheap and cheerful grey auto primer. Nothing fancy. We just want to lose the bright natural tone of the armatures.

Once that has dried, it's outside for the next steps.
I'm using 3M Super 77 spray adhesive for adhering the textures to the armatures. It's very useful stuff. Very tacky, great holding power. But the various chemicals in the can will blow the back of your head off if you inhale it, so it's outside.

I started by spraying the armature with some adhesive and then sprinkling ground foam onto the tree. A couple of colours will suffice. Let that setup briefly.

Spray again with adhesive and this time apply Noch leaves. These little devils really make the trees stand out. I have 4 colours of leaves and use no pattern for what colour goes over what colour of ground foam. Variety is the key.
Let that all dry for a couple of days and then plant your forest.

I think this looks much better than the first incarnation.

Must be the year of the stock car

 

 2012 is becoming the year of the stock car for me. I've built and delivered 2 of these Rutland Car Shops models to a client and I have 3 more under way.

Once they're done I have 4 Westerfield NYC stock cars to build for a client as well as 3 Sunshine ATSF stock cars.
In amongst all that there's the Wabash stock car project which is getting closer to being ready for release and Aaron and I are working on a Soo Line stock car for the not too distant future.
Good thing I enjoy building stock cars!

 I've always said that best way to get good at sanding resin castings is to build a string of stock cars. I think to date I've built over 48 resin stock cars for myself and others. There's something very fulfilling about watching the side emerge from the sheet of resin, a little dusty mind you. In case you're wondering I work on a sheet of 80 grit sandpaper which is glued to a piece of 1/4" plexi.
No glass sheets near my elbows!
Some might think that the 80 grit is a tad coarse. For me it makes short work of the process. It takes long enough as it is. I just have to pay attention and not sand through the casting. As in all things, practice makes perfect.

When is a deal not a deal

When the item doesn't perform

Following on some of the thoughts in the previous post, I thought I'd go on a bit more about tools.

I like to support my local hobby shop, hopefully that means he'll be there when I need him in the future.(There's another topic for a rant). When I went in a while ago to resupply X-acto knife blades all he had were the "Proedge" items seen above. He assured me that they were of the same quality and a bargain to boot. So I plunked down my $22.75 plus taxes and wandered home.

Well... Never again! The cutting edge was poorly honed. I could feel dragging and grabbing as I cut and they snapped at the shank whenever I applied a reasonable amount of pressure. Never mind that the tip snapped off with very little pressure. I was chewing through these blades at 5 times the normal rate.

Given that I can go through 2 boxes of  premium blades a year, this was not a bargain. Lesson learned, again. No more cheap tools. Ever!

Fear and Loathing in the Basement

For those of you who do not read Railroad Model Craftsman, below is an editorial I wrote that was printed in the last issue of RMC. What you'll get here that's not in the magazine is photos of the old layout taken by my good friend Trevor Marshall.

 An overview of Palmerston yard. What's not built yet is the other 2 legs of the wye. It would have been to the right in this photo. Look carefully towards the top and you can see the beginning of the leg. It was this wye that in the end caused all the trouble. It cut the room in half and made the space unpleasant to be in. The wye was essential for the operations. 

 I had a great time building this coal dock. I had a few know dimensions and lots of photos. Sadly when I tried to remove it from the layout as I was dismantling things, it got badly damaged, to the degree that it wasn't worth repairing, otherwise I was going to give it to the museum in Palmerston.

A couple of pieces of motive power. At one point I had 16 steam locomotives ready to roll.

 

Fear and Loathing in the basement.

No, this is not another piece of gonzo journalism, but rather an essay about attitudes and abilities as it applies to model railroading. But I do wonder what Hunter S Thompson would say about us at times. But I digress.

As some of you know I am a custom builder of resin freight car kits. You can see some of my efforts at my website, http://elgincarshops.com/. I have given clinics on building resin kits at different get togethers over the years and much of my personal stuff can be seen rolling at public displays when our Free-Mo modules are out, http://www.casofreemo.org/. It is inevitable that at some point during these events someone will come up to me and say something along the lines of “I’ve looked at those kits, but I’m afraid that I’d mess it up”. This is what I want to talk about.

Becoming a good modeler takes practice. Lots and lots of practice. I’ve been building models since I was 5. Over the years I’ve learned many techniques and steadily honed my skills. I read and study what other modelers are doing hoping to glean a little bit more knowledge. The reality is that what I can do today far surpasses what I was doing 20-30 years ago.

The best teacher is failure. Learn from your mistakes. The first resin kits I built are in the bin now. They were, by any standard, awful! My execution, not the kit. But as time progressed and I learned more about the medium I was working with, my efforts improved. So much so that now people pay me to do that work for them.

I make mistakes all the time. Everyone makes mistakes. Engineers, architects, house builders, etc. We’re all human. The mark of a craftsman is not in being perfect but in rectifying or covering your mistakes, as well as learning from them. The key is to not repeat the mistake.

Tools can make a difference. It is a false economy to buy more cheap tools. Tools are an investment, treat them as such. A tool that won’t fail in your hands can do wonders for improving ones confidence level. Also learn how to use your tools properly. You will lessen the chance of failure and reduce the risk of personal injury.

Speaking of learning things. Everything one needs to know is written down somewhere. There are books and magazines covering all areas of modeling. And there’s that neat thing called the Internet. It’s all out there, just take the time to read and learn and share ideas. I am constantly astonished at the number of customers who come through the doors of my local hobby shop who seem to refuse to take it upon themselves to educate themselves in the fundamentals of the hobby. They’re new to the hobby and seem to expect perfection at the first go around and then get frustrated when they don’t get instant gratification. Again it takes time to become an accomplished modeler.

It also can take an investment. It all costs money and in these economic times we are even tighter with our hard earned dollars. The projects that I’ve worked on and then tossed years later, for me, do not represent a waste of money. I look at it in terms of entertainment value. An average resin kit costs about $35.00 and can take 6-8 hours to complete. That translates into about $6.00 an hour entertainment value for the construction and untold hours of pleasure viewing it when it’s on the layout. How’s that compare to $15.00- $20.00 for a movie or $50.00- $80.00 for a concert or theatre tickets?

How far can this attitude go? Three years ago I tore down the layout I had been working on for 7 years and started on whole different project.

I had been building a layout based upon Palmerston, Ontario (See Ian Wilson’s article). All the benchwork was built. About 90% of the track was in. Most of the steam locomotives had been acquired and most of the rolling stock was in the house. But something wasn’t right. Every time I went into the layout room I got cranky. There was something amiss but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Then in the fall of 2008 on the way home from another great weekend at the Naperville Prototype Modelers Seminar, I had the opportunity to visit Bill Darnaby’s Maumee Route. What I saw there completely reset my thinking about what a layout can and/or should be. The long runs of mainline on very narrow benchwork really makes the trains the stars of the show. The almost 10 scale miles of track really gives the sense of a working railroad. Most importantly it was a comfortable layout to view and I bet to operate.

The drive home consists of my rethinking everything I had been doing to date and what could I now do that fulfill my desires. After a few weeks a looking around and some good fortune with research data, I hit upon a new prototype to model. I am now modeling a portion of the Wabash operation in Ontario. Most of the Canadian National brass models were quickly sold along with a sizable percentage of the rolling stock. Some of the structures went to good homes with my friends. I’ve acquired the needed Wabash engines and am slowly building a new fleet of rolling stock.

It was when I started to dismantle the old layout that I discovered the mistake I had made with the Palmerston layout. Actually it was a series of mistakes. I had neglected to follow my own feelings about access. There were too many points on the layout that were hard to reach. The design required a large wye in the middle of the basement which effectively cut the room in half which made getting from one end to the other a chore. Too many things had to be in place and working properly before the layout could be run. The list can go on, but I think you get the point. It was all in all too much layout for one man with my current work schedule.

To date work on the new layout is progressing well. And I’m feeling very positive about this new direction. Do I consider the time and effort on Palmerston to be a waste? Not at all. I learned a lot from the exercise. What to do and what not to do. I’m getting an opportunity to work with new products that have recently come on the market, particularly the hand laying track systems from Fast Tracks. I had a good time building the old layout and consider every dollar put in to it a worthwhile investment.

The bottom line, don’t be afraid to try something new. You may surprise yourself, at worst you’ll learn something new.

—Pierre Oliver

4 More for the Fleet

The 4 85000 series Wabash rebuilds emerged from the weathering department today. I very pleased with the results.
The ladders I scratch built help make these cars stand apart from the other 10'4" IH rebuilds that are part of the Wabash fleet.
I've been squeezing personal projects in between work for clients in part to prepare a clinic for this fall's Naperville Prototype Modelers Seminars. Maybe we'll see you there.
We've also been very hectic at the John Labatt Centre this past month, (my other work), but now that Cirque Du Soliel is done we have a month with nothing so it'll be full tilt boogie at the work bench.
I now have the final parts required for the pilot model of the Wabash Stock Car kit. So I'll be building that and then creating the instructions. I'm aiming for a release date before the end of June. Stay tuned.