On the previous logcars that I have made, the spikes always end up looking chunky and toy-like. Since I made the last logcar, I have gotten those nifty books with the scale drawings of the cars, and so I am redesigning how I make the spikes to make them look more realistic. This includes slimming them down and adding the curl detail to their tops, and painting on the rust and dirt. […]
I assembled and painted one spike for the logcar [Wagen für Stammholz]. It glued to be stronger than what I had thought it would - I was really concerned that it would be fragile. The curved corner pieces helped stiffen things up by adding gluing surface. And the addition of the bristol board pieces also helped reinforce the corner joints. It did dry a little warped. […]
I got the second spike put together and painted. I painted it using just a paint brush, rather than the two-part process that ends using the paint knife. I forgot the paint knife part, and now that I look at the second spike, I think perhaps that was a good thing. The don’t quite match in the photo, and they don’t quite match in the model.
I also mixed some of the light blue-gray that was so shocking a blue color into some of the light gray to paint the second spike. So, not only do they not match in painting technique, they don’t match in color, either. And the dirt is different, too. For both spikes, I tried to match the dirt in the photo - and oddly - they didn’t get the same amount of dirty.
There’s always the question with open freight cars - does it have a load or is it empty? I plan to do some of each option for such cars, but this logcar will have logs. I did want to preserve in photos how it looks without logs.
The car also has been officially assigned a number - Kkp 7352. I made the number plaques just like in the photo that I was working from - I literally scanned them from the photo - and then photoshopped them and printed them to scale. They seem monstrously big. Well, the seemed big in the photo, but they really feel big on the model. *sigh* […]
The logcar turned out nicely. The logs look somewhat hefty and the car looks strong enough to support a load of logs - a big improvement over the previous logcar.
I added some log debris to the deck. I glued it on with the “matte medium” glue. I used the carpenter’s wood glue on the previous logcar and it gave the deck an appearance of being always wet. The matte medium worked nicely. I also only applied the matte medium to the debris rather than the entire deck as before. […]
I’m planning to build a gravel car next, and I have begun to think about further improvements.
1. Front railing - the technique that I used for getting the logcar’s front railing to be straight and neat worked quite well and will be applied to all future cars.
2. Undercarriage - paint on the rust and dirt. I did this on the logcar and it turned out fabulous, so I will do it on all future cars.
3. Wheels - I’m still perfecting the design for the journals. […]
Unlike the last two cars, the boxcar and the logcar, where I was making a car type that I had made before and worked out the details, this next car is like the cementsilocar, a car that I’ve not made before. So, like the cementsilocar, this car will require making pieces, trying new things, and remaking pieces, and probably starting over at least once. I enjoy both types of work - steadily making something that I know the answers and can make adjustments and improvements - and the exploration of making something new.
Here I’ve started to cut out the wooden pieces.
I scanned the train car number and info that will go on its side from the drawing in the book. It just happened that the car I picked and the car in the drawing have the same number. I sent off to have a rubber stamp made. It turned out not as clear as I had hoped for, but it is so tiny, that it is probably as good as it can be. The picture of the car shows the info and it is not too clear there either - sort of marred by age and dirt. I’m wondering about re-doing the stamp and making the “Fd 8658″ bit clearer and leaving the rest messy.
I also bought stamp ink. I got two different brands to try out. Both worked ok. One printed clearer than the other, but the other ink dried faster. Since, they both dried eventually, I guess it doesn’t matter that it is slow.
I mixed up a batch of faded pink/salmon color for the body of the gravel car [Schüttgutwagen]. I’m not certain I got the color quite right. It’s hard to tell when the paint is wet, since the paint lightens when drying. This is acryla-gouache paint, so it lightens. The regular acrylic paint, darkens when it dries. The paint looks shiny in the photo because it is still wet - it will dry to a very matte finish. I don’t think I mixed enough extra. I need to have leftover for painting the basswood parts of the car, and doing any touch-up later on. […]
…to bring this important announcement:
I will be in Switzerland photographing the prototype (RhB) for my model train cars until May. My apologies for any inconveniences, but hopefully this excursion will result in improvements to my models. Thank you for your patience and understanding.