Tales from the Treatment Room

[Mike Boucher]

Its been an interesting few weeks around the treatment room.  But more on that as I go along…

 

The next step in the instructions is to put on the hatches.  A few weeks ago, I was getting an infusion, so I started to clean up the flash from these parts.  I got 6 of them done cleaned up, none attached, and started to have a serious reaction to the infusion.  Insanely itchy hives, nausea, light headedness, all bad.  While the nurses stabilized me, they started putting away the modeling supplies (trust me, I was in no condition to do it myself).  I spent the night in the ER being monitored and getting more remediation.  So, not much got done then.

 

When I got home, I found that one of the 6 hatches disappeared in the chaos.  They're only about 3/4" square, so I'm sure one just hit the floor and wasn't noticed (I probably was the one that sent it flying).  Replacing this part, and continuing with the remaining hatches was where I picked up.

 

Fortunately, its an easy part to replicate.  Some .040" thick styrene, and some .020" styrene strips and we're good.  (the new one is the one on the right)

 

 

After all 12 were on, the roof was looking a little better.  The replacement is obvious in this photo, but paint will take care of that

 

 

The next step, interestingly enough, is to install the roofwalk.  Seems like a fragile part for so early in construction, but I'm following the instructions.  The prototype has a grated roofwalk with rectangular slots.  Unfortunately, the resin roofwalk is fairly awful.  Its a strip of thin resin with a bunch of "holes" cast about 1/2 of the depth.  The holes aren't see through, not exactly in a straight line, and aren't evenly spaced either.

 

 

I quickly decided that the kit-provided one just wouldn't do.  After some online shopping, I've found an etched stainless roofwalk for a 40' car, but this car is about 50' long.  But, that's all thats available, unless I want plastic (which won't be "etched thru").  So, I ordered two of the 40' versions and I'll cut/solder them together as needed.  They should be here in a few days.

 

Jumping ahead a little bit, the next major step is to fit the floor to the body.  The floor is a pretty substantial construction, clearly made up from several smaller castings and assembled by the manufacturer.  However, it was also significantly wider than the body, at least 1/8".  It probably took 1 1/2 hours of filing, sanding, and measuring (to make sure width was correct and the center beam remained centered) before I could slide the floor into the body.  Its not to be glued in yet, but here's what it looks like in position.

 

 

As before, there were some small gaps on either end between the floor and the lower bracket on the ends.  Some .020" styrene solved that issue quickly.  There are also a few blobs of glue/resin/something-or-other that will need to be cleaned up.

I described the floor as a "substantial construction".  Its HEAVY.  Right now, the car weighs over 10 ounces. When you figure in the trucks with metal wheel sets I have, I'm already very close to the right weight for a car this length.  I may not need to add any lead to this car.  And that's where we are now with the Erie covered hopper.

 

Back to the LMS milk tank, I've also figured out how to build the ladder for the 2000 gal milk tank.  I noticed there was a piece on the etch that were labeled "œJig" with slots at the top.  With two etches, that gives me two jigs.

I did a bunch of fiddling, taping, clamping, etc to get these two little jigs lined up and the two ladder etches held so they wouldn't flop around as soon as the solder iron touched it.  It was pretty jury-rigged but I managed to soldered the first rung on.

 

 

...and turned it around in the jig and soldered two other rungs.  Now that the ladder was reasonably solid, I didn't need the jig anymore.

 

 

After soldering in the remaining rungs.  It still needs cleaning up (and the 2nd ladder needs to be made!), but here's what it looks like resting in position.

 

 

While driving around yesterday, I realized an easier way to do it.  When I build the 3000 gallon kits, I'll need to make a lot more ladders.  All I needed to do was super-glue them on opposite ends of a piece of scrap brass stock I had kicking around, about 1/2” long.  Then, I don't have to mess around with clamps, tape, etc, the jig will be nice and solid.  I could drill/tap the etched pieces on if I wanted to make it a more substantial jig.

 

And I'm kicking myself for not thinking of that first.  Probably took an hour to make the first ladder, I figure with this jig it'll be 10-15 minutes for the 2nd.

After I'm done, I'll put it in the box for one of the 3K gallon kits.

 

And now, the rest of the story:  I’m going to have a scheduled inpatient treatment at the end of February.  I’ll be in the hospital for about a week, so I’m pondering the next projects to bring for that extended stay.  I was looking around in the project pile, and found a 4th 3000 gallon LMS milk tanker kit.  (I knew I had 3, don’t remember where the 4th came from!)  I’m considering bringing two of those, but we’ll see.  Another option is an On3 kit of a D&RGW pile driver, with idler flat, from San Juan. (There are a few photos from someone else's build here: http://www.railroad-line.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12457&whichpage=2 ) including photos of it in both up and down positions)  I'll admit I'm heavily leaning towards this one, as its such a unique piece of rolling stock, and it'll look nice behind my K-28 .  There are also a few N scale projects which are close to the top of the pile.  I’m sure as I get closer I’ll be making the decision there.

 

Until next time…

[jamie92208]

Very glad that they sorted whatever the problem was Mike and your fortitude is remarkable.   I've got a San Juan kit that I got part built and it is a lovely kit.  The only problem is that there are dozens of very small white metal castings that take a bit of identifying.  I seem to remember that I made a building board out of mdf with photocopies of the drawings at the right scale glued to it.  If you are interested I could dig it out and PM you some photos so as not to hijack your thread.   All the best.

 

Jamie 

[Mike Boucher]

3 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Very glad that they sorted whatever the problem was Mike and your fortitude is remarkable.   I've got a San Juan kit that I got part built and it is a lovely kit.  The only problem is that there are dozens of very small white metal castings that take a bit of identifying.  I seem to remember that I made a building board out of mdf with photocopies of the drawings at the right scale glued to it.  If you are interested I could dig it out and PM you some photos so as not to hijack your thread.   All the best.

 

Jamie 

Thanx.  I figure I have two choices: Press on or give up.  Not much of a choice, so I keep going.  And building these models in "bad circumstances" certainly helps with my attitude towards everything.  I've had some nurses that seemed genuinely excited to see my progress, they were amazed at some of the stuff I've made.

Did you build the pile driver, or one of their other kits?  I have 5-6 of their kits, but haven't built one yet.  I like the idea of copies of the drawings at scale.  Identifying castings can be a challenge, and I like your idea.

[jamie92208]

Hi Mike.  It is the pile driver that I've got and it is a lovely kit.   I ran into problems getting the ride height of the match truck and the actual pile driver the same and then got rather distracted trying to get my layout running. The pile driver was intended for an On3 layout in the clubrooms but never got to run on it. I'll try and find the box with it in later today and post some photos.

 

All the best.

 

Jamie

[Mike Boucher]

On 05/02/2019 at 02:16, jamie92208 said:

Hi Mike.  It is the pile driver that I've got and it is a lovely kit.   I ran into problems getting the ride height of the match truck and the actual pile driver the same and then got rather distracted trying to get my layout running. The pile driver was intended for an On3 layout in the clubrooms but never got to run on it. I'll try and find the box with it in later today and post some photos.

 

All the best.

 

Jamie

Photos would be fantastic.  Thanx!

and hopefully, once digging it out, you'll be inspired to finish it!

Mike

[jamie92208]

Hi Mike, My filing system on the racking for part built and unbuilt kits has worked and there was just enough light to photograph it by when I unpacked the box. I was rather surprised how big the kit was when it was put together so I packed it into a spare O gauge stock box. Here is the box in front of my breakdown train with some PO wagons beyond, all O gauge, which fives some idea of the size.

Here's  the reverse of the building board.

And the obverse with the framing for the carrying wagon and the pile driver on it.

I couldn't resist taking a photo of the lovely pewter casting of the engine unit.

Then I loosely put everything together

Here's the underside of the idler flat.

And the pile driver unit.

With it's carrying flat

And finally the underside of the carrier flat

One day I will finish them.   Hope you enjoy the pictures and I hope to see photos of your model coming along but hopefully not on this thread.

 

All the best

 

Jamie

 

[Mike Boucher]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

Hi Mike, My filing system on the racking for part built and unbuilt kits has worked and there was just enough light to photograph it by when I unpacked the box. I was rather surprised how big the kit was when it was put together so I packed it into a spare O gauge stock box. Here is the box in front of my breakdown train with some PO wagons beyond, all O gauge, which fives some idea of the size.

<photos snipped>

 

One day I will finish them.   Hope you enjoy the pictures and I hope to see photos of your model coming along but hopefully not on this thread.

 

All the best

 

Jamie

 

The pile driver looks nice.  I'll admit I didn't realize how much white metal is in the kit, I thought it was virtually all plastic.  And that engine unit is quite lovely.  Once again, I didn't realize the kit included that level of interior detail.

As for the size differential, its amazing how large US prototype is, even narrow gauge, when compared to British prototype.  Even when you consider the 1:48 vs 1:43.5 difference.  For example...

 

[Mike Boucher]

Quick diversion/flashback...

Yesterday, the weather here just outside of Boston was outrageously unseasonable.  Boston hit 65 degrees F  (18 C).  New record for high temperature for the day, and those 1.5 million people who went to the Patriot's superbowl victory parade were loving it.

I, however, decided that it would be a good day to get some paint on a few of the treatment room projects which were still in "bare plastic".  The two things I painted were the On3 porter chassis and tender, and the tank for the LMS milk tank.

For the porter, I used my Paasche VL with the finest needle.  I could get paint right in on parts that needed paint, but also manage to keep most of the paint of the driver treads and backs.  I do need to do some cleaning up, but its pretty good.

 

Next step here is to attach the electric motor, soldering in the wires and testing/tweaking how well it runs.  I didn't paint the body for a few reasons.  Primarily, someone on an On3 forum I visit sent me pictures of cutting away the boiler bottom in order to get a DCC decoder and small speaker inside the boiler (I thought I would need to put those in the tender).  Since I haven't done this yet, it didn't seem to paint when I still needed to do some cutting.

The tank was using a rattle can of gloss white from Testors.  Took 3 coats to fully cover the gray plastic/brass.  The 3rd coat is slightly orange-peeled, but you can only notice it when it reflects.  Once the transfers are on, its been dull-coted, and weathered, it should look fine.
 

Edited February 6, 2019 by Mike Boucher

[Mike Boucher]

The past few weeks have been interesting, to say the least.  there have been sessions in the treatment room where I had zero energy to do anything, and there were times where I got some work done.  I've been admitted to the hospital for my treatment, so hopefully I'll have plenty of time to work over the next week, and not have to deal with side effects.

First, I put the transfers on the LMS milk tank...

 

4

 

Of course, once they were dried I noticed that the "S" in Dairies shifted up, so I'll have to either a) buy another set of transfers and fix it, b) figure out a way to move it  (soak with methfix solution and try shifting it?) or c) weather the tank more heavily than I had planned  .  Leaning towards C.  Once the weather warms up a bit, I'll paint and letter the chassis and get the tank permanently attached.

Now to the Erie covered hopper.

Once the floor was fit to the body, the instructions say to drill the mounting hole for the trucks and couplers.  One thing I've noticed is that this resin is quite soft, so I didn't exactly trust it to hold a thread very well.  As I did on the wooden C&O caboose, I made some brass inserts to glue into the floor.  The truck mounting ones are 1/4" diameter, and threaded 4-40.  The coupler mounting ones are 1/8" diameter and threaded 2-56.  To keep the coupler ones at the appropriate distance for the Kaydee couplers I'm going to use, I soldered them to a sheet of .010" thick brass, which I planned on gluing to the top of the floor.

 

Once glued in, here's what it looks like.

 

 

When I was test fitting one end, the solder between the mounting lugs and the .010" brass broke, but the holes were already drilled and I didn't have a soldering iron, so I just glued them in.  I still need to clear the excess resin from the holes.

 

Next was to attach the roofwalk and grab irons on the body.  This took an amazing amount of time.  For the roofwalk, I couldn't find any etched 50' long roofwalks, so I purchased 2 40' long ones, and did my best to hide the "joint" in the middle.  Unless you know where to look, its not very obvious, and once painted it should be even less obvious.

 

Each end takes 15 grab irons, and two additional braces.  That's a lot of .022" holes to drill.  Even more fiddly was the fact that the pre-formed grabs supplied weren't long enough.  Which mean each grab needed to be custom fit.  Rather than bend up completely new ones from brass wire, I did my best to "lengthen" the provided ones by angling each end a little bit.  Once again, I'm hoping this isn't too obvious once done and painted, but I'm not going to enter this in any modelling contests...

The next step was to assemble the brake cylinder, triple valve, and reservoir on a resin platform, and install the piping.  The real hopper didn't have this platform, but this makes it a lot easier to get everything together.

 

 

And that's where we are now.  As I make progress over the next week, I'll be posting updates, hopefully every couple of days or so.

[Mike Boucher]

Well, I checked myself into the hospital on Feb 24th.  And this is the first chance I've had to update the treatment room.  One of the reasons is that I had some fairly significant side effects from the treatment, and there's about 4-5 days in there where I don't really remember anything.  Lets just say that I had a fever as high as 103.5, and I was having serious issues with a side effect called Neurotoxicity, where I was damn close to delusional.  So, needless to say I didn't get a lot done.

 

The first thing was to do some work on the O scale hopper.  There are "vibrators" on each of the hopper doors, which help with unloading the cars.  Each pair of doors has a frame around them, and each door has a vibrator which goes from the frame to the hopper door.  These all took a lot of filing, sanding, and fitting

 

 

These are handed, and after getting glued in place, the stiffener rods between them was added.  One thing that's not obvious is that the holes aren't lined up correctly, so the bars aren't perpendicular to the chassis.  Its obvious when you look at the chassis from "straight down", but not as much when its on the track.

 

The next step was to install the end slope sheets and the supports.  The slope sheets need fitting so they fit between the roof and the chassis.

 

 

The supports were too short as cast.  I had to add about 1/4" on the bottom of each of them so they fit between the slope sheets and the chassis.  You can see the styrene I added by looking for a color change.

I don't have a picture, but I've cut out from the chassis so you can see the air between the slope sheet and the chassis.  I'm still working on fitting styrene to complete the slope sheet on the chassis.  I also assembled the trucks, and here's the first photo of the test-fitting the chassis to the body with the trucks attached.

 

 

Next step is either doing the brake rigging (details of which are sparse in the instructions) or work on the detailing of the hatches on the top.    I think I'll work on the hatches as the chassis needs to be fit to the body in order to work on the brakes.  and I can't attach the chassis until weight is added.

 

I decided to build several "small" N scale kits instead of starting a larger project.  Years ago, I bought a complete set of a wreck train from dimi-trains.  These are now out of production, although I understand Intermountain has released this as an assembled set.  The 4 cars are a "big hook", boom car, crew car and tool car.  The first one I built was the "big hook".   Here's a photo of the box, and all the plastic sprues.  A couple hours later, the crane was assembled as far as I can take it without painting.
  

 

 

 

After the last photo was taken, I added body-mounted couplers and trucks.  The next day I built the boom car.  This took around an hour.

 

 

 

In the last photo, you can see the chassis of the hook with trucks/couplers and the assembled boom car.  These are both ready for painting

 

In addition to the 4 dimi-trains kits, I also plan on having a wooden passenger car, a caboose, and a tender (for the steam big hook) in the wreck train.

Hopefully I'll be released from the hospital soon, but I'll still have treatments to undergo, mostly blood infusions.  when I'm discharged, I'll update how far I've gotten

[N15class]

Sorry to hear you've had a bad time of late. I'm sure it will all be worth it.

[jamie92208]

Good to see the progress on the various kits and I do like the N gauge set.   I also was sorry to hear that things were so difficult in the treatment and hope that their is progress in the right direction.   Just to inject a bit of humour I'll call your N gauge and raise you an O gauge version.

 

Jamie

[Mike Boucher]

11 hours ago, N15class said:

Sorry to hear you've had a bad time of late. I'm sure it will all be worth it.

 

3 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Good to see the progress on the various kits and I do like the N gauge set.   I also was sorry to hear that things were so difficult in the treatment and hope that their is progress in the right direction. Jamie

 

Thanks for the well wishes.  But, there is a silver lining to the difficulties.  They're signs that the treatment is working, so the doctors want to see some of it, but not where it gets completely out of control.  The amount I had was just about what they expected, and preliminary tests are showing positive results.  So if those preliminary tests are shown to be accurate, then I'm in good shape.

[Mike Boucher]

Before I got released from the hospital, I got a little more work done.  Yes, I'm out!!!  but I still have a LOT of follow up appointments and infusions which will need to be done,

First was 3 more cars for the N scale wreck train.  I realized I had a 5th kit, for a drop bottom gondola.  Here are the crew car, tool car, and the gondola.  With the weather warming up, I should be able to get these painted relatively soon...

 

Many wreck trains also had a old passenger car converted to MOW service.  I had these two Roundhouse kits for "shorty" passenger cars.  Previously, I kitbashed a few of these together to make longer passenger cars for a Boston and Maine branch line freight.  Since I still had 2, I decided to do the same thing to make a longer passenger car.  the original kit makes a 34' car, the kitbashed car is about 55'.  Still shorter than the prototype, but it give the "look and feel" I'm after.

 

The two kits:

 

 

The cars cut apart...

 

 

And re-joined to make a longer car.

 

 

If you look above the body, on the "self healing mat", you can see I've done similar work on the roof.  I still need to do some body-filling on the roof joint, since its a) more visible, and b) harder to hide than the body.

 

I've also reached a "major milestone" on the Erie 4 bay covered hopper.  The floor and the body have been joined.  With this done, I can start working on the brake gear.  First, I added the thru-brake line.  This has to cross from one side of the bolster to the other, which I did on the "non-brake" end.  Not sure the line is exactly correct, but it gets the point across.  I also added a few small styrene pieces to represent the brackets the brake line would hang off of.

 

 

 

 

This being done, the brake "platform" which was previously built was installed on the brake end.

 

 

I have to re-work the line between the triple valve and the brake line, as the plastic molded piece isn't quite right.  I then have to install a resin brake lever, which one end is anchored, the middle connects to the brake cylinder, and the lower end is then connected to the brake rigging under the chassis (still to be done)

In these photos, you can also see where I "daylighted" the area of the chassis between the end slopes and the end of the car.  The instructions dont say to do this, but I think it makes it look better.

[Mike Boucher]

Its been an interesting few weeks around the treatment room.  4 weeks in the hospital over the past 6 weeks.  Most of that time I was in no shape to do work, but towards the end I was able to get work done.  I'm breaking this update into a few, smaller, updates.

First, the N scale passenger car for the wreck train.

 

To match the extended car, the roof was spliced longer.  I filled the gaps (must more obvious than on the sides) and used some styrene to fill in the clerestory windows.

 

 

Next was to start on the underframe.  I've attached the end platforms.

 

 

I have to determine the distance beteen the trucks before I attach the bolsters, and then center the section with the truss rods next.

[Mike Boucher]

The most work, by far, was done on the Erie 4 bay covered hopper.  I had started working on the brake rigging, and this work continued.

 

An interesting feature of this car is the way that the brake rigging is activated by the brake cylinder.  There is a beam which runs diagonally on the end, holding a fixed pivot for the brake rigging.  There is another beam which goes between this fixed pivot, attached to the brake cylinder, and then continues to below the chassis.  When the brake cylinder is activated, this causes all the brake rigging to pull on the brakes on the trucks.  A resin casting is provided for these beams.

 

Here's where I found I had made a mistake.  The support for the slope sheet at the end should be centered above the bolster, not in line with the end of the side sheet.  this would have given more room for the brake mechanism.  As it was, I had to do a lot of trimming and some creative assembly to get this part in.  The pivot point (and the brake cylinder) should be further "inboard"

 

 

 

After that, the rest of the brake gear was pretty standard.

 

 

 

Because the cylinder is above the frame, the brake rod doesn't go all the way to the bottom of the end.  The pivot is centered at the brake cylinder.  This is also fairly unique.  I hacked up the plastic part (from intermountain) to get it to fit.The ajax brake wheel and brake platforms are in place.  Etched brake platform came with the roofwalks.

 

 

 

I added some details to the sides of the ends...

 

 

Now about the only thing left to do is the mechanism on the roof to lock the hatches shut.  Still researching exactly how this should look...

[jamie92208]

Looking good there Mike.   Having had to design and construct brake rigging for two horse trams It's interesting how the designers have solved the various problems.  Those pivoted bars with pull rods at different centres were known as sway bars on the trams. The original builders of the trams had also to solve the problems of putting brakes on from either end of the tram.  The trams by the way were designed originally in the 1890's.   

 

I hope that the treatment is proving worthwhile.

 

Jamie

[Mike Boucher]

9 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

Looking good there Mike.   Having had to design and construct brake rigging for two horse trams It's interesting how the designers have solved the various problems.  Those pivoted bars with pull rods at different centres were known as sway bars on the trams. The original builders of the trams had also to solve the problems of putting brakes on from either end of the tram.  The trams by the way were designed originally in the 1890's.   

 

I hope that the treatment is proving worthwhile.

 

Jamie

 

That is one advantage of the US system/standard.  On frieght cars, the brakes are activated from one end.  So all you have to do is pull on one lever and the whole system "self equalizes"

Caboose/passenger stock needs brake wheels on either end.  I've built a model of a caboose with brake rigging, but its a bit more complex.

[Mike Boucher]

"Final update" for the current work...

I started working on a new kit, a Slaters Saxa Salt wagon.  Got the W irons and wheels on it, and that's about it.

 

Required complaint about Slater's instructions:  It says "for Saxa, use RCH axleboxes, not the ones pictured".  Well, the kit comes with 4 different axle boxes, but no indications as to which ones are RCH.  Since there were 2 different ones on the sprue for each end of the wagon, I picked the one that resembled the drawing the least.  No clue if its right, but I don't really care   

[Mike Boucher]

More work in the treatment room, including a new project starting...

 

Didn't do anything on the Erie hopper.  I need to find some scale eyebolts, and can't find any.  Not relishing trying to make a dozen or so, but might have to.

 

The Saxa Salt wagon is making progress.  I've done the brakes and attached the sides/ends.  Before the next session, I'll have to add weight so I can put the roof on.

 

 

 

The N scale passenger car was bit interesting.  I needed to determine an appropriate distance for the bolsters from the ends, but the "right" passenger car trucks aren't commercially available.  One of the other projects I've been slowly working on are some 3.5" passenger trucks for a Boston and Maine Caboose I'm designing.  I had drawn up several of the parts in 3D cad to be printed (and some parts cast from those patterns).  I took those drawings, merged them together, and shrunk it down to 10% of the 1/16th size they were drawn in.  That gave me 1:160, which is N scale.  I still need to do some work, like add the bolster, determine width for wheelsets, and remove some detail which is too fine for Shapeways, but I was able to determine the basic dimensions of the trucks.

 

 

From there, I was able to put the bolsters in, and then center the section with the truss rods.  Due to the size of the re-assembled body, there isn't enough underframe pieces to fill up the chassis, so there is still a gap which needs to be filled with styrene, but I didn't have it with me, so I'll bring it next time
 

 

(pardon the flash, it was the only way I could get a photo showing the black underframe parts clearly)

 

And now, the new project.  With the Erie covered hopper just about finished, I pulled a classic On3 model out of my "to do" pile, a Grandt Line D&RGW drop bottom gondola (800 series).  Still available, but limited supply, this kit is a staple of On3 D&RGW modelling.

 

https://www.grandtline.com/for-the-model-railroading/rolling-stock-and-locos/  (scroll down a little)

 

Like the porter, the detail on this kit is simply amazing.  Cliff Grandt was a master mold maker, back before CNC he produced amazing work.  This one is designed to be detailed, and its claimed that an "average" modeller can build it, but it looks like quite a challenge.  Here's how far I've gotten.  I've assembled the body and the basic chassis.

 

 

 

 

Next it to add a LOT of underframe details here.

 

Until next time...

[Mike Boucher]

I've had a few days to work in the treatment room, and I've gotten to the point on 3 of my projects where I need to do some work at home before I can make any more progress.

 

First, the Saxa Salt wagon.  I have the roof on.

 

 

I need to do some painting on the headstock, and I need to blacken the buffer bodies and the coupling hooks before I can install those.

 

The N scale passenger car has the gap in the underframe filled with .040 styrene and some .060 x .080 to replicate the beams.

 

 

I've installed the couplers and the truss rods.

 

 

 This is pretty much done, needs painting, then window glazing and trucks.

 

I've been working on "interpreting" the instructions and prototype photos for the roof of the Erie covered hopper to figure out exactly how I should represent the hatch locking mechanism.  Here's the best prototype photo I've been able to find.

 

 

In the blue circle, it looks like eyebolts are used to hold the rodding.  Exactly what the blocks are in the red circle are is completely unclear, and not mentioned in the instructions, but they need to be represented.  Also note that the mechanism is on the edge of the roof, so there's not a lot of room to work here.

I've been completely unsuccessful in finding scale eyebolts.  The new owners of Grandt Line still aren't fully up and running, so plastic ones are unavailable right now.  The only other source I could find, Detail Associates, also seem to be unavailable.  So, I made up about 30 eyebolts out of .020" brass wire.  The first few took some effort, but once I figured out the process, it went fairly quickly.  Even so, these 30 were probably about 2 hours of work.

 

 

I'm going to need to do some soldering of the roding and the hatch locks, so I can't do any more "real" work right now in the treatment room.

 

I haven't done any work on the Grandt drop bottom gondola, but that'll be my main focus the next few reports.

 

And a quick diversion:  I build another "Metal Earth" model.  The Saturn V rocket and launch tower.  Didn't come out as well I as I wanted, its a little tilted, but its done

 

 

Until next time...

[57xx]

On 05/04/2019 at 23:02, Mike Boucher said:

Required complaint about Slater's instructions:  It says "for Saxa, use RCH axleboxes, not the ones pictured".  Well, the kit comes with 4 different axle boxes, but no indications as to which ones are RCH.  Since there were 2 different ones on the sprue for each end of the wagon, I picked the one that resembled the drawing the least.  No clue if its right, but I don't really care

 

Even though you don't really care, just thought I'd say, you picked the right ones.  

[Mike Boucher]

4 hours ago, 57xx said:

 

Even though you don't really care, just thought I'd say, you picked the right ones.  

 

Thanx!  Good to know for future reference.

[Mike Boucher]

Quick follow-up on one of the treatment room projects.  Over the past few month, I've been adding the lettering to the 5 Intermountain hoppers I built.  To give a little variety, I used 3 different paint schemes.  3 of the "most common", and one each of an alternative and a more modern paint scheme.  Also note that the "modern" one is re-numbered into a different series.

Only a few things left to do on these hoppers

- add weight

- make coal loads

- install the brake rod/wheel (saving for last as its fragile and taller than the top edge of the hoppers)

- weather

Once the weather gets nicer, I should be able to do a bunch of weathering.  (of the 30 days in April, there was at least some rain on 20 of them, if I heard the weather correctly yesterday)

I'll send a photo once those steps are done.

[Mike Boucher]

I had a productive day in the treatment room, I finished two of the projects I've been working on.

 

First, the Saxa Salt wagon.  Added side door details on, the grab on the ends, and the numbering on.  The transfers were being VERY difficult, they didn't stick as pressfix, and even with methfix solution, they didn't want to stick.  I went thru all of the '7's provided, and had to remove two that actually stuck and re-number 210.  Even still, I don't trust them to stay on, so I'll be giving it a coat of dullcote before I paint the roof and add weathering.  (which will happen if it ever stops raining in Boston)

 

I'm going to have to weather it pretty heavily to hide some flaws.  On the other side, the black hinge bars on either side of the door fell out of position, and left a big black smear on the side of the car (It mustve reacted to some glue overflow, as I painted the bars the night before.  Also, if you look, the pre-printed sides aren't quite right, the "non pool" lettering is pretty far out of register, and the "S" in Saxa is out as well, but not as bad.  I have another Saxa salt wagon that I weathered lightly, so this one will get a heavier treatment so they don't look too uniform when next to each other in a train.
 

Second, I finished construction of the LMS milk tank.  the last nice day, I painted the chassis back (about 2 weeks ago!)  And over the past few weeks I soldered the other ladder together as well as the brass rod at the end of the hold-down straps.  The tank, hold-down straps, and the drains at the end are on.  Only think left to do is the transfers on the chassis.  But, since the instructions don't have any photos, drawings, or any other indication as to where tha lettering actually goes I couldn't put those on.  I'll have to google some photos.  Once again, once those are on I'll give it a shot of dullcote and weathering.

 

 

For the On3 drop bottom gondola, I got the brake gear installed.  Somehow, I lost the sprue with the two brake levers on (fortunately, those were the only two parts left on that sprue), so I had to make my own out of styrene.  The instruction include several full size drawings, so it was easy to make them.

 

 

 

Next step will be to continue with the underframe details, the truss rods are next.  Notice the queenpost are already in place, parts of the brake rigging go thru holes in them.

 

With two projects done, and the Erie covered hopper waiting for soldering to be done at home, I need to find a new project to work on when the drop bottom gondola needs time for glue to dry,  I have a few thoughts, still pondering which one to do.

 

Until next time...

Edited May 3, 2019 by Mike Boucher