Westlake Publishing Forums

It's been a while since I've posted anything, although I watch the amazing work here almost every day.  For those of you who remember, my interest is narrow gauge in eastern Kentucky and I have a number of in-progress models I've posted over the years.  All of them are waiting on my painting and weathering ability to improve, so I've decided to start a "quick" project to practice some painting techniques. 

Many years ago I picked an ancient Bob Hartford kit in an unmarked box on eBay.  The box was sealed, but I didn't know the scale or contents.  I paid pennies for it - back before the prices of his kits skyrocketed - and it turned out to be a Southern Pacific boxcar, but in 1:24 scale.  I model in 1:20.3, so that was a bummer.  After letting it collect dust for years, I've decided it's a good candidate for experimentation, and if it turns out horribly, no big loss. 

So here's my narrative to justify running a 1:24 scale boxcar with the rest of my rolling stock.  This was an early 24 foot car built in the early years of the narrow gauge craze, and it was eventually retired by its original owner.  Later purchased by a lumber company, repaired, mildly upgraded, and used for transporting supplies, tools, etc.  And maybe a little bit of advertising along the way.

Logging in eastern Kentucky was focused on a number of hardwood species, but poplar was especially abundant and marketable.  I've decided to base the model on a imaginary car owned by the Kentucky River Poplar Company, which was a real company.  It owned several sawmills along the Kentucky River, including a large one at Valley View.  The photo of the Southern Lumber Company mill was later purchased by the KRPC.

And here's what I've come up with.  I'm going to make a few changes to upscale the car, including increasing it's height, replacing obvious items that are too small with 1:20.3 items - brake wheel, couplers, etc.  I'm also going to replace the wheelsets with 24" wheels better sized for the larger scale. 

I based the graphics on examples of billboard reefers from this book, which is excellent, but I've obviously taken some liberties.  Part of my motivation is to dry some different graphics in addition to painting and weathering.  I have a new laser cutter at my office and I'm going to try cutting some painting masks for the larger graphics.  We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, that's the introduction to the project.  Please be patient with me on the progress.  I don't have a lot of modeling time, so no promises on how long this will take...

Eric, that's going to be a nice looking car.
I like your plausible prototype approach with the car.

I've got two similar sort of plausible cars. One is a one-of-a-kind short tank car for a real product by a real company that once operated in this general area, but it was never big enough to ship anything by rail.

The other is a billboard milk car from a New Jersey dairy that I removed the advertising painting on the sides but left the large dairy name because it could plausibly be a milk car from Connecticut, where my RR is.

Coincidently both cars also happen to be white and I like having some variety in rolling stock colors.

Keep us updated when you can, it looks like it will be a "poplar" project on the forum.

It's good to see you back on the forum and actually starting work on a new project. I was afraid you gave up the hobby. -- Russ

"Poplar" huh Bill?!

I had some time over the long weekend to get started.  The original floor included in the kit wasn't scribed or anything, so I added some planking and replaced the framing with larger members.  I also epoxied some weight over each king pin so the car will ride better.  (This photo is actually from another project, but I did the same thing with this car.)

For the base color on the floor structure, I first stained the basswood with various mixtures of Silverwood, Blackwood, and Deadwood from Builders in Scale, and then once the wood was dry, I lightly sprayed hairspray over everything.  This makes the wood fuzz stiffer for the next step, but doesn't prevent the wood from absorbing later steps like a clear coat would.  Then I brush painted everything with black acrylic - Vallejo Model Color 70.950.  Once this dried I sanded everything with 600 grit before starting assembly.  The sanding removes the paint from the high spots, and gets rid of most of the fuzz.  I'm fairly happy with it as a starting point for weathering.

Eric, 'poplar'... a poor, I-should-go-stand-in-the-corner-for-saying-it-pun for 'popular'.

Meanwhile, your floor and underframe are looking good.

Bob Hartford would find this thread fascinating but at last report his eyesight had seriously declined. -- Russ

I have a bunch of his kits waiting to be built - they're just beautifully done.  They also lend themselves to modification, which is important for modeling eastern narrow gauge. 

I had a bit of time this week to make some progress.  I have the bulk of the car body assembled and glued to the frame.  I ended up making some revisions along the way.  The most obvious one is increasing the height of the car.  I did this by adding a skirt board all the way around the top of the car sides.  This let me increase the height by a scale 7", or 0.345 inches.  It's still a tiny car compared to a 3000 D&RG boxcar, but it's slightly more believable. 

One consequence of this decision was the scribed roofing sheets were too small once I added the skirt boards.  I solved this by laser cutting new sheets with a more proper overhang.  I scribed the edges of the sheets at each joint to make the sheets look more like individual boards.  I was tempted to do a double-sheathed roof, but I keep reminding myself this project is about painting practice, and not precision fabrication. 

I added a bit of surface detail that will hopefully show up once everything is painted.  I added subtle nail heads at the base of each siding board, and along the intermediate wall framing in line with the metal reinforcements at the corners.  I did this with a 0.5mm technical pencil without any lead in it.  This makes a tiny circular indentation in the wood's surface.  I've also added some scratches behind the door, and dinged up the door's edges and frame at the side with the hasp. 

Bob's original kit had strips of wood for the door tracks, and I've replaced these with brass strips for more durability and handling.  I also like the smooth surface of the metal rather than woodgrain under the paint.

And here's where I am on the underside of the frame.  I used the hardware that came with the kit, but I upsized the brass rod used for the truss rods to a more realistic size for 1:20.3 scale.  The white metal castings have been dipped in MIG Burnishing Fluid as a base for later weathering.  I think this works better than A-West's Blacken-It. 

I painted the brass truss rods using a variety of materials as an experiment.  One was primed with Mr. Hobby Mr. Metal Primer-R, one with Vallejo 73.615 USN Ghost Grey primer, and one with Tamiya Metal Primer.  The final one was scuffed with 400 grit sandpaper, but no primer.  All four were top coated with Vallejo Model Color 70.862 Black Gray.  This is not quite a true black, so it should be easier to get these pieces to appear similar to the white metal castings.  Time will tell. 

All of my rolling stock is only equipped with hand brakes and link-and-pin couplers since the logging railroad I model was not a common carrier. 

Cool project!

I really like the look of that sawmill. Are you planning to build that at some point?

I hope the nail heads show up through the paint. The truss rod paint job looks quite good. -- Russ