Working Through My Stack of__Rolling Stock Kits

[George_D]

I decided to work my way into my stack of rolling stock kits. I was planning to thin out my collection, but a thought struck me that I had a lot of potential fun in this stack, so I'm going to start building some of them and I'll post my progress, which will be in spurts and stops. I picked the kits up over the years at train shows or swap meets, some at prices I almost feel guilty about.

My first build is a Red Ball flatcar kit that includes a pillar crane. I took a few photos as I built it, but didn't start to document it till now. Right now I'm adding details and I'll be posting final pictures soon.

I'll start a second page with more info and some pictures.

[George_D]

The contents of the kit looked like this.



Here's a picture of the metal parts ready for painting.



The kit also had wood sheets for the sub floor and the top deck. Unfortunately they came in two pieces that had to be butt glued to be long enough for the car. I picked up this trick from the La Belle site, when I was building one of their cars. Check this out, there is some good info here: https://www.labellemodels.com/hints-...fqbkeugfhnaoj4

First, lay the pieces together snugly and put a piece of masking tape on the back to hold them together.



Next bend the pieces apart and put a thin layer of glue on each piece at the joint.



Close the joint and put a weight on it while it dries.



I'm working on a sheet of glass, so everything will be perfectly flat, I didn't take a picture of the final piece of decking, but you will see it in the final pictures.

George

[George_D]

I made a major mistake. I assumed the end pieces were to be glued on to the ends, not between the car sides, as in the instructions. :erm: The problem is the car is supposed to be a 36' flatcar, and it is - with the end pieces at the end. Without going into all the details of how I dealt with the bottom bracing, I'll move on and show you the bottom before I added the coupler box lid, stirrup steps and the uncoupling rods.



I upgraded the brakes from K brakes to A-B, using Tichy parts.

The next task was to assemble the pillar crane. The booms are fastened to the base by self taping screws and I managed to strip out one of the holes. I didn't like the idea of screw heads on the model and I thought the boom pieces were a little coarse. I know I'm rationalizing, but it justifies my redesign of the boom. I made it out of styrene and you can see it before painting sitting between the kit pieces.



George

[George_D]

Here are the pictures of the completed car. I painted the crane with a rattle can and weathered it with chalks and oils.





George

[Dutchman]

Nice job on that classic car, George.

[Orionvp17]

Nice, George! Probably fun, too!

Pete

in Michigan

[George_D]

Thanks, Bruce and Pete.

Pete, you nailed it - tons of fun.

George

[k9wrangler]

Nice car looks good with the subtle weathering.

[Glen_Haasdyk]

I like that pillar crane, the weathering looks spot on as well

[desertdrover]

Fantastic looking car and weathering job George!

[George_D]

Thanks, Karl, Glen and Louis. I weathered the crane with Bragdon powders for the rust and oil washes for the dirt and rust streaks.

George

[bandman]

Nice touch with the weathering.

Horton

[wvrr]

Nicely done, George. It's nice to see these cars put together.

Chuck

[quartergauger48]

Looks like it's ready tp do some heavy lifting, George'. Nice job',,[^]

[George_D]

Thanks for the nice comments, Horton, Chuck and Ted.

George