Stock Car Chronicles, The really tedious job.

The worst is over.

All the tension rods and the bracing timber overlays are done. As well as the lettering boards.
All those tension rods make for a really striking model, and there's no simple way to replicate them. 16 pieces of wire have to be cut and secured in place and then all the brace caps need to be deflashed, trimmed and secured. Takes about an hour a car.
Next is grabirons. Lots and lots of drop grabirons, but that should go fairly quickly.
You can tell the end is in site when the box starts to look empty of parts.

But first I have to put them aside for a day or so, while I finish another project now that the mail finally delivered a missing part.
Happy New Year all. And thanks for reading.

Stock car Chronicles, Brake rodding

Well that went quicker than I'd feared it might.
All 15 cars now have all the underbody brake rods added.

For this task, I did not use the kit supplied cast resin brake levers. Who wants to take the time to clean them up? Instead I used etched levers that I sell through Yarmouth Model Work. With them being 0.005" thick brass I can also easily add clevis' on the brake rods.
I like to use Tichy turnbuckles with one end cut off to represent the clevis that is present on the ends of brake rods. It's a nice detail and makes for a very secure connection between the lever and the rod. And it's quick to do.
The other added touch I do is the bit of chain on the hand brake rod connecting to the brake cylinder. I bend a small loop in the end of a piece of wire, add a length of scale chain and close the loop. The chain is secure to the brake lever with a "U" shaped bit of thin wire and the rod is secured into the truck bolster. All told it takes about 15-20 minutes to add all those details.
Now for some would question adding so much detail to the underside of a model, where it may not get seen. Well, more and more layouts are being built at eye level and who amongst us hasn't squatted down to look at models at track level? That's when those details really show.
Also, I know it's there and I kinda enjoy making the effort.
The side tension rods are next, wait till you see what that does for the look of this car.

Stock Car Chronicles, Brake parts

Well it's back to regularly scheduled programming, which today featured AB brake parts for the stock cars.
The Westerfield kits included cast resin AB brake parts, which I chose to not spend the time deflashing and fiddling with. Instead I used Tichy AB brake parts. The Tichy parts are a tad undersized but much nicer to work with. I assembled 15 sets of parts in about an hour.
I also chose to alter slightly the mounting arrangement for the triple valve.
I made a simple platform from 3 pieces of 1X8 styrene, which I found goes in quicker and simpler than the various brackets Westerfield provided.

0.010" wire is used to plumb the parts together. The layout of the parts is a tad uncommon. Usually the triple valve is on the same side as the cylinder, but a little variety never hurts.
Probably tomorrow, the brake rigging will get started. Wonder how far these cars will get before the year's over?

It was a productive Xmas Day

With no kids and family far away, "traditional" Xmas activities are a non-starter around here. So what better way to pass the day than building a roundhouse?
The St Thomas yard requires a roundhouse, but since I'm modeling the post steam era, a functioning roundhouse is not required. So I chose to truncate much of the structure to save on layout space. I'll have 2 stalls open for SW-8s that call St Thomas home and an open air track and the rest will be up to your imagination.
I started with laying out the floor, orienting against the backdrop and centering off of the turntable.
With that laid out and cut it was to the bench.

It took careful geometry to get the doors centred and square to the tracks. From there I cut Evergreen Board and Batten to form the exterior walls, using photos to estimate the actual dimensions. With the long wall determined I cut partitions using the exterior wall as a guide. One partition per bay, to help support the roof panels which will come later.
With the cutting done and square in hand the partitions were glued in place.

From there the door headers were cut and glued in place as well as the only set of posts and beams was created and glued in place as well.

Now I have to sit down and create the 9 pairs of doors, and paint the interior.
The roof will be simple enough, just a lot of careful cutting.
For now it sits in it's place of honour waiting for another "me day".

And now back to work. Stock cars await me.

Stock Car Chronicles, painted interiors

To date, I've built over 100 resin stock cars. These are the first that I've painted the interiors on. I feel that it's rather tricky to see the interiors, but the client desires rule.

There was a protracted discussion as to what colour to paint the interior. There seems to be no definitive documentation about whether the NYC  painted the interiors, left them as raw wood, or kept them lime washed. All were know practices by different railways.
In the end it was decided to paint the interiors the same as the exteriors. For this job I'm using Tru-Color NYC freight car brown. It's a good paint that goes on well, dries quickly, and is a gloss finish. All good points for me.
The only thing I don't care for is the acetone base. Even with a professional spray booth, acetone can be rather powerful stuff.
With this done, the floors can be installed and the hours adding details will now begin.
Well not "now", more like tomorrow.

WTF doesn't even begin to cover it!

I've been playing around with various options for yard ballast.
The "cinders" I've been using isn't quite doing it for me.
I did a little online searching and came across the use of "sanded grout" as a ground cover. I liked the visual results I saw in the photos. So I bought a box and started playing with it.
I found that just bonding it down with water and relying on the integral bonding agents to be inadequate. Thin Weldbond left a shiny surface which was not acceptable.
So I bought a jar of Acrylic Matt Medium. Thinned it about 3-1 and this is the result.

What is all this white crap?!?!?!?
I'm not sure where to go next with this. Can I even cover this or do I have to rip this section of track up and start again?
I've never heard of this happening with Matt Medium. WTF?

Stockcar Chronicles, First major hurdle over

The most daunting task in building resin stock cars is cleaning the flash from between the slats on the sides, doors, and sometimes the ends. For the 15 car build that task is now over. And it went better than I had hoped.
It wound up taking about 40 minutes a car over 2 days to clean the 15 sets of castings. And it generated that largest pile of bits of flash and dust I've seen here.

My sanding "station" is a sheet of 1/4" plexi with 80 grit paper glued to it. There are some who will tell you that anything rougher than 200 grit is asking for trouble. But I've done over 100 stock cars now and have a feel for this task.
One does need to pay attention. There's a very real tactile experience involved. As the flash starts to get to the thinness desired, you can feel the difference in the resistance through your fingertips. The big take away for this job is to not "zone out" when sanding. The hours of sanding in a circular motion can lull you into a semi-comatose state if you're not careful.
Another important aspect of tackling a job this big, is to be organized.

Every kit and it's contents were numbered so as to be sure to not mix the parts from one kit to another. There are always minor variations from one resin kit to another, that's just the nature of the beast. The best way to avoid fits when assembling the body parts is to keep the parts together as they were cast.
Next step, assemble the bodies and roofs so I can paint the interiors.