Workshop Wednesday

I too am working on a USRA double sheathed boxer kit, but it is one of the wood "originals," a wood kit made by Marker Light Models in the 1970's. It's a "craftsman" kit, but its primary purpose is to show that I am not much of a craftsman.

I will model it as a second-hand boxcar owned by the Boren Explosives Co. And having the reporting marks BEX.

Ken McElreath

 

Keith! -- is there anything that you cannot do? That's amazing!

Best that I can come up with at the moment is trying to repair a crack in our 4' x 8' granite counter top!

 

A few projects for this week, both awaiting weathering. Both are Accurail cars, the first is a SLRX car is from a special run the Mid Continent Region NMRA ran a year or so ago. I removed the ice hatches as the cars were not reefers in the typical sense in that they were not cooled with ice. I replaced the stock fishbelly underframe with a straight sill, removed all the cast on detail and added wire in there place. The second car is a MOW car modeled from a photo I got at last years RPM meet in St Louis. Same process as the SLRX car expected that I added windows and door steps.

Brad

 

Awesome again this week guys!

Keith I bet my dad will crap when he sees shay guts all over the bench. HAHAHA I thought you said they slide right in. LOL

Here is mine this week. Shells I am FRISCOIZING for Keith and painting. The SDs are in white now but I didn't take a pic yet. Next weeks update? The GPs are mine.

 

Riveting valve gear:



Also bought another Bowser kit on eBay, this one the Old Lady 2-8-0:



Even though it was advertised as NIB, it was missing several subassemblies, including front truck, side rods, miscellaneous parts (screws, hardware, bell, whistle, pop valves), including the back of cab. The seller refunded some money, but I've been trying to find the missing parts, and they're not all available . I have a spare MDC Vanderbilt Tender someone gave me-wasn't one of the Frisco Connies paired with a Vandy tender?

Filing off flash:

 

Thanks Tom. Keiths SD 45s were RTR Athearns. I stripped them with 91% Isopropyl alcohol. Took about two days to totally soak off but removed almost everything easily. The GPs are protos as you guessed. One was factory ATSF zebra and came right off the other was ebay buy and must be old Testors spray bomb enamel or something. It does not want to come off.
I like the gondola btw.

 

Really great work, EVERYONE! Someday I hope to get started on a few modeling projects. Even though I have not done any train modeling in many years - I love being a part of the FRISCO family of modelers; The Last three years worth of health problems, among other things, has taken away from me the "drive" and "stamina" to do a lot of things that need done. Slowly getting some of that back and catching up on things that need to be done around the homestead.
TOM, that darn counter top took me most all of yesterday to complete and part of the day before. I have no idea why it started cracking where it did, and I have no idea if it will stay together as I mostly used a cheap fix - not at all like the pros who have U-tubes on the subject. I just did not have the tools that they used, so I skimped on the whole thing which will probably come back to bite me later on - it looks passable, but you can see that the shine/sheen is somewhat lacking if you catch the light just right and look very close. Most of the time was waiting for things to dry, but I did spend almost 4 hours just sanding on it (maybe 1 hour with the correct tools).
The crack ran almost the length of the sink. I first put a lot of Super Glue - I wanted to prevent any more water from getting into the break. After giving it about 6 hours to cure, I filled the break with JB Weld (elcheapo work) and let it cure overnight. Most of the sanding was done with my variable speed drill using various grits of sanding disks and quite a bit of hand sandpaper up to 1000 grit.
Like I said - It's not great looking, but passable. Now to see if it will stay together or split again?

 

Sherrel,
We have granite in our kitchen as well. I am no geologist, you counter top had a fissure in it and progressed over time. If it is recently new, you might want to see if they would replace it?

John

 

Sherrel, pretty sure if you can fly a 747 you can fix a counter top!!! Ha.

 

John, sure wish that were an option -- it is 9 YO and has had the crack little over a 1.5 year. The builder of this group went belly up during the 2008 housing debacle.
Granite folks who did some excellent work for me on another project estimated $300 plus to attempt repair and not guaranteed. Replacement is $1500 up.

Steve, I sure wish I could do that again. A 74 is nothing more than an over grown J-3 Cub - just more dials, lol.

Ken, Real Bummer on the damage - especially the E-6. Hope you can locate, repair, buy, or manufacture the pieces you need. That's crushing! (no pun intended)