Here ya go - photos of the finished car. If somebody had told me back when I was starting this car, “it’ll be great”, I would have responded, “fughitaboutit”. But it did turn out great, and it has made me wonder - just how much better at this can I get? The next car will be a cement silo car, with the intention of taking it to NMRA for judging on Nov. 3. […]
Another cement silo car [Zementsilowagen]. The RhB has a variety of cement silo cars. The previous attempt was based on car Uce 8001, which has fairly simple design. It has the piping underneath and a bare rear deck, and a somewhat chamfered-looking dome. […]
Uce 8014 has a more rounded dome than the previous cement silo car [Zementsilowagen] that I modeled. But, as I ended up doing previously, I shaped it out of balsa wood. I laminated two pieces together to get the thickness that I needed, then spent a couple hours filing it with a big metal file. […]
While I debate about the fate of the dome, I started working on mixing the paint. I am going to do a number of things differently this time. Instead of using rub-on letters for the logo, I’m going to have a rubber stamp made - and it will have the logo (RhB) and the car designation (Uce 8014). […]
I mixed the gray for the undercarriage, and the white for the silo. You would think that by now, I’d have a fixed formula for the undercarriage gray! But alas, I’m still tweaking it. For this car, I have decided to make all the paint using Holbein acryla-gouache paint. […]
In the photo you can see the beginnings of the undercarriage. As has become the established method, I am cutting pieces of basswood, and fitting them together to make the correct shape. […]
After piecing the undercarriage, I painted it with the gray paint that I mixed yesterday. I painted the edges and ends using the paint knife in order to get a smooth finish, thus looking more like metal. The top and bottom areas are painted using a brush. […]
I woke up this morning with a brilliant idea! Instead of starting the undercarriage over, I would remove the offending pieces of Bristol board, repair the damage, and make new pieces. The photo shows the undercarriage after I removed the screwed up pieces of Bristol board, and before I re-sanded and repainted. The replacement pieces came out perfect!
Here is the undercarriage after being repainted (and still needing some touch-up painting - grrrr). It turned out nicely. Also shown are the gray pieces of Bristol board which will be cut-up further to make details that go on the side of the undercarriage. […]
And I started the wheels today. Busy day! Like previous cars, the hubs are made of pieces of basswood, fitted, and glued together, then filed to shape. I did more filing to shape on this set than previous sets. Next the hubs and wheels have to be painted.
My situation with wheels has gotten dire. I have run out of supply, so I scavaged from one of the old boxcars that I had made a long time ago.
I assembled the wheels hubs, scavaged the wheels, and painted them. The wheels are painted with the same gray that I mixed for the undercarriage. This is the first time that I’ve used the Holbein acryla-gouache paint on metal - and it worked very well. […]
I assembled the brakes using the same pattern/dimensions/materials as on the gravel car. I used the same gray as on the undercarriage that I mixed using the gouache paint, rather than the acrylic paint, but otherwise, the same. You can see that I painted the Bristol board and the basswood prior to cutting the pieces out. I do this to make it easier to final paint after assembling the parts.
I repainted the gray on the wheels, and then repainted the yellow marks. I used the Holbein acryla-gouache raw sienna color paint. I went to the art supply store and bought Holbein acryla-gouache jet black paint. I mixed it with a little white, to get a dark gray, then dabbed a bit of that onto the wheels and the hubs to give them a little “dirt” - some relief from being perfectly painted. The wheels don’t show too much because of the journals, so we shall see if the dirt makes any difference at the end.
The rubber stamp and the stamp pads both arrived yesterday. I used the paint knife to spread some of the white that I had mixed onto a piece of Bristol board, and after it dried, I tested out the two stamp pads. The upside-down “RhB” is the Adirondack brand, and it didn’t do very well. The edges of the print are fuzzy and the ink dried to a faded gray. The ink didn’t dry evenly either. The right-side up “RhB” is the Colorbox ink, and it did better. The edges are good, and the color is good. It didn’t entirely cover - if you look really closely there are gaps in the ink - but I’m thinking that may be easily mistaken as “dirt” on the car. […]
I started the wheel journals. I’ve thought about drawing them up in AutoCAD for previous cars, but never bothered to do so. I sort of enjoy drawing them up by hand, taking the time to measure where each line goes and being super careful to be extra accurate. But I never do a perfect job, and I always end up simplifying the journals, maybe more than necessary. […]
I spent six hours working on the journals, trying to add more detail to them. It’s a little tough to tell from the photo, but I layered two pieces of Bristol board, and the top layer has cut-outs to give depth and thus adding the detail. I screwed up though and didn’t correctly account for the space at the top which needs to be glued to the undercarriage, so I’ve got to start over. While I’m starting over, I’m going to make some adjustments to tweak the detail by painting the bottom layer black, and make the six hours of extra effort worth my while. And hopefully, it will be awesome. Otherwise, I have a back-up simple-like-last-time plan for the journals. […]
I started over making the wheel journals. The top row is the two layers of Bristol board glued together, complete with the top layer having parts cut-out. The solid bottom layer gives structural support to the top layer. The areas painted black are where the journal is not really solid. […]
I got out my paint and palette to mix another batch of white for the cement silo car [Zementsilowagen] - to try and make it a tinge pink-ish purple-ish something not so blue-ish. But I got sidetracked and played around with mixing red and yellow for the next car, which is anticipated to be a boxcar [Güterwagen], Gb 5091. The bottom red/pink color is pretty good, and the yellow not too bad, either. I’ll make some attempts as I go along. I don’t need them mixed up yet because they will dry out before I get to them. But I figure since it took so many tries last time to get the red/pink/brown/purple boxcar body car color mixed correctly, that I might as well work on it every now and then. I’m pleased with the first attempt.
So first I find a flaw - the proportions aren’t quite right - but that has never stopped me before. I’m still wondering if this much tiny detail will read and be worth the effort, or if I would ever try to do this much detail again on future cars. Even if it doesn’t read, it would make the car worth a really close look - rewarding the looker for bothering to look so closely.
I glued up the pieces that I had prepped. Now I’m working on the detail that goes across the top of the journal. It will be made of basswood and painted gray.
I took another crack at mixing the white for the silo. On the left is the latest attempt - it’s good, though perhaps it could use a tiny bit more of the blue, and maybe a little gray to make it more drab. I tried different red and blue paint this time. Previously, I had used Holbein acryla-gouache carmine and the cerulean blue, and this time, I tried the scarlet and the ultramarine blue. My reasoning for this being the scarlet is a brighter red, and the ultramarine blue is a more purple blue. Meanwhile, I worry that my train will be the pink train!
On the right is the white that I mixed before to use for dirt white. I still like it.
I finally glued the brakes on. Ok, I’ve been stalling on them. I made them the same size as the gravel car’s brakes, but these don’t quite seem to fit right. They’re a little short or something, which is odd since they fit just fine on the gravel car. And the undercarriage underside height is the same and the wheel hubs are the same… Odd.
I also worked on the silo. I glued on the third layer of the silo cylinder, which is made of Bristol board. It gets one more layer, which will result in it being the same diameter as the dome is. I filed the bottom edges and glued on the slanted pieces (painted gray - and a little hard to discern in the photo). They turned out nicely. The fourth and final Bristol board silo layer will overlap the seam and make a nice finish joint.
I took one more crack at mixing the perfect white for the silo - and voila! - I got it! The paint is intended to match the left side of the silo in the photo. The reason for persistence in matching the photos is that this car is intended to take to NMRA for judging and the photo will be all they have to go on regarding what the car is supposed to look like. I mixed just enough paint to smear it on four pieces of Bristol board with a paint knife. I’d like to have had enough to save, but it didn’t work out. […]
I spent a little time playing with painting the dirt onto the silo. This is one of the too pink versions of the silo white paint. I figure I might as well practice on the rejects! I tried using a fan brush, which I had not used before. I bought it on a whim (and on sale) a while ago, but had not really used it (other than to test it out once). The brush did a nice job of streaking the paint onto the surface, but it came out with a scumbled effect. I will try this again, but water down the dirt paint a little and see how that looks.
Still using the pink-ish white rejects as a base, I tried mixing a little water into the silo dirt colors and applying them using the same fan brush. And what a difference! The added water made the paint apply the way I want, but the water brightened up the colors quite a bit. Well, it brightened up the darker colors, but the off-white is just about invisible. I like the brighter colors a little - but it is too much. I also think I need to get a smaller fan brush…I guess I’ll be stopping at Blick Art supply store on my lunch break tomorrow. I didn’t mix very much of the silo dirt colors, so mixing more won’t be too wasteful of paint. […]
Before I departed for my trip to Switzerland back in April, I submitted an application to have some of my work included in the Queens Council on the Arts’ Project Diversity Queens exhibit. And much to my shock, I received a letter a couple weeks ago congratulating me! So, I’m pleased to announce that the boxcar (Gb 5091) and the logcar (Kkk 7352) that I made earlier this year will be exhibited this September here in Queens. […]
I swallowed my nerves and my doubts, and finally finished making the wheel journals. I think they came out ok. I’ll see how I feel about them as time goes on. I think the black background where the journals are supposed to hollow is going to work ok. I’m not a big fan of “stagecraft” type designs, but the journals, like the boxcar windows, may be best with such techniques since replicating such tiny parts is not very doable.
I also see, from the photo, that I missed a couple spots when painting them. Darn. They need some “dirt” black painted on them, too.
Looking at the wheel journals today after a night’s sleep, I’ve decided they are awesome! You can see in the photo the journals for the cement silo car [Zementsilwagen] under construction, and off to the right-hand side, the rear end of the gravel car and it’s journals - and thus compare the journals - and the new version for the cement silo car are nicer.