Tag Archives: Workbench

Can You Believe It’s February Already?

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A busy workbench

I haven’t been up to that much. Mostly working on some of the cars I painted last Summer. In the above image there is a mixture of cars being decorated and in the case of the two PRR H30’s, they were decorated back when I was modeling a PRR branch set in 1956. So I was changing the weight dates on the two cars to be correct for my summer of 1952 period.

I went to work on the trucks, first thing was to polish the treads. Then, I noticed that they did not have the trucks numbered for the cars. So now they do.

Here are a pair of Hallmark B&O class N34 covered hopper cars that were painted last Summer. They are nice cars but they do show their age a little. I found both of these cars unpainted at two different Cleveland O Scale shows at least ten years ago.

They came out nice. I used a combination of both Tichy decals and also K4 decals for the cars. Both set were not totally complete, together they were fine.

This last image shows a little work on the roof walks. Gene Diemling wrote about a product from AK Interactive in his post NEW PRODUCTS: A Few Good Things & Wood! I thought I’d try it out. After a couple of tests on some scrap plastic, I thought I’d try it on the B&O car. Almost there. I think it could use a thin black wash still. But I’ll wait until I get into some of the weathering on the cars.

Thanksgiving Day

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I would like to wish everybody a Safe & Happy Thanksgiving!

Here is the view of my workbench this morning. You can see an AB pair of CNJ F3’s, a pair of MTH 2-rail conversion trucks that recently came off of an MTH LV Fshbelly Twin, and a pair of spare Weaver AAR Type-B road switcher trucks that I was fitting a set of Protocraft conversion wheelsets into. I need to get these parts/projects back together and off the workbench today.

In the early Fall of 2021, I was sitting with some friends BS’ing about different models that have been released in the past that for whatever reason did not end up on our radar. I mentioned that I wish I had picked up the Atlas-O CNJ F3’s back when they were released. But that was not in the cards for me when they were released. It was joked that it would be easier to build a Time Machine and go back in time and buy them, then to find them in today’s secondary market.

I started looking for them online and at the shows, I listed what I’m looking for on my Interchange Track page. They were around in 3-rail but not as 2-rail models. Then to my surprise one showed up at a Strasburg Show. Then a pair online. Over the last year I have been fortunate to find four CNJ units. I’m still looking for one more CNJ F3A, the details of what I’m now looking for are listed on my Interchange Track.

I was working in the basement this morning on the shelves which are making up the benchwork for the back wall. The parts are stained and about to be assembled. I should have some photos to show the progress soon.

WB: Back to a Clean Workbench

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I know it’s not Wednesday but The biggest thing I have been working on recently is cleaning the workbench again. It’s taken a couple of weeks, but I finally got it clean. I had at least five projects going on at the same time on the workbook all fighting for space and attention.

But with the start of a new year, I thought it would be good to start the year with a clean workbench. There is snow in the forecast for the morning, so I’m hoping I get a chance to start to clutter it up again real soon.

WB: Back to the GP7’s

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It’s took a while to get some paint of the trucks. Then it took a while longer to get them back in the work line. Some of those freight car projects just go so much faster that it feels like you have actually finished something.

Anyway, these two pair of trucks have had new axels from Protocraft installed. Yes, they are now available from Right-O-Way but I’ve had mine on the shelf since they were a Protocraft product. I also installed ball bearing from Bearing Direct on the axels and also the FineScale 360 Weaver Chain Drive Replacement Kit.

I have to say that these are a pain in the ass to reassemble. Things seem to be moving in so many directions at the same time. It’s difficult to get them all to fit together without something moving. They are taking longer than I thought they would to reassemble.

And for anybody that might be questioning why I have a nice shinny black on the trucks instead of all kinds of weathered blacks/grays/rust. For my modeling period, the Summer of 1952, these units are less than a month old. I don’t think the railroad would have been happy if they had been delivered with well worn trucks.

I am back at work a couple of days a week until the end of the month. This has meant getting out at lunchtime to West Trenton Station. This week I got to see a CSX stack train head North through the station.

WB: In An Orange Box

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As a Proto48 modeler, I don’t often pay attention to what the 3-rail manufacturers are doing. Last year was no exception, but Lionel did list a new offering for Reading modelers that almost got past me. They released a new model with all new tooling for a Reading passenger car. Actually for two cars, a combine and a coach.

The cars are based on Reading prototypes built by Harlan and Hollingsworth. The cars appear to be a Reading coach class PBn and combine class CVm. Numbers for those cars:

  • Coach PBn 1100-1175, 1200-1284
  • Combine CVm 589-592

For 3-rail models, they are surprisingly nice. The body appears to scale out closely to published drawings. The roof contour is very nice, the details on the roof maybe be a little exagerated. The main issues I could find with the cars were:

  • Underbody details
  • Steps too steep
  • Roof vents undersized
  • Lack of end details to allow for the oversized coupler to have about
  • Two batten strips on the side of the cars, instead of four on the passenger cars and three on the combine
  • The car diaphragms are oversized

The two above images show that the steps do not go far enough into the car. Also they show the lack of end details like the uncoupling bars, safety chains, steam and air lines.

There may also be a question of how many roof vents are typically on the combines. Some further sorting through photos and equipment diagrams is needed to answer that question.

I’m pleasantly surprised by this offering from Lionel. The cars are much nicer than I was expecting. They will need some work but are a good starting point to build a nice model.

Lionel is offering three different two car sets. Manufacturers price is $379.99 for each 2 car pack. Prices do vary with different retail outlets. I would suggest shopping around. I picked up my cars at a much better price.

WB: Some New Stuff

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Jon Cagle of Southern Car & Foundry has released a new freight car kit, a 1932 ARA Boxcar. This makes me excited on two levels, first I’m happy to see a freight car kit manufacturer back with a new release in O Scale. And second, this is an important car in freight car development.

If you have built one of SC&F’s kits in the past, you know they are the best kits being made today. The castings are out of this world.

The ladders and yard steps are etched metal.

The instructions are lengthy and well detailed. This should make for interesting reading tonight. I’m really impressed by this kit. Looking forward to building it.

On a different front, Pierre Oiliver of Yarmouth Model Works teased out an image of a PRR X31f O Scale body this past week. I reached out to Pierre and he confirmed that he will be releasing this as a kit later this Summer. I’m looking forward to that release and hope it is the first of many new O Scale kits to be produced from this established HO resin freight car kit manufacturer. This is very promising.

WB: Finally Some Progress

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This week I was finally able to get some Dull Coat sprayed on some recent work. Amazing how wet is has been around here when I have had time to work on these cars.

Remember that car that followed me home from the Strasburg Show? well it has been taking a bath.

The Black and the decals came off quickly. But there was a layer of red primer on this cars that was rather stubborn.

But it slowly coming off. The car is cleaning up nicely.

On the possibility of finding an elusive Locomotive Workshop CNJ Double Ender Kit that I mentioned before. The gentleman has located the kit, put a price on it and has agreed to sell it. He wants to hand deliver the kit to me at an upcoming show. I can do that. One step closer.

WB: A Model Returns

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A strange thing happened to me at the Chicago Show in 2019, a PRR B6sb followed me home. First is was priced so well, I couldn’t pass it up. That was mostly because it had a very bad paint job.

After spending some time being converted to Proto48 by Carl Jackson, this fine looking model came home with me on Saturday. During the time the model was with Carl it had the chance to take a bath in his stripping tank. It needed it!

Now that all that ugly paint is gone, it revealed a couple of things the bad paint was hiding. It appears the previous owner had a mishap with the tender. The railings appear to have been damaged at one time. A repair attempt has resulted with too much heat being applied, which caused the rear tender deck to seperate from the side. There is also a little separation along the top rim of the coal bunker. So, I have some repair work to do before I can think about painting this model.

Next up was another model that came home from this past weekend’s show. It’s an RY Models Reading welded 55 ton twin hopper. It also is suffering from a case of bad paint. This time the issue was in the weathering attempt.

This is a good reason why you learn to paint and weather freight cars using a $20 Weaver car, not a brass model.

My first thought was to try to salvage the paint by just cleaning up the weathering. Better sense took over, rather than try to fix the bad weathering, I’ll just start over. So into the stripping tank for this one. I can say that with a little help from a toothbrush every few hours this model is now almost back to brass. I figure it will be done later today.

WB: A Visitor

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I had a visitor to my workbench this week. My friend Michael Rahilly’s PRR SW-9 came in for some quick work. He wanted to change the wheelsets and it needed a repair to the footboards on the from pilot. These were the before images.

It happened that it was sharing time on the workbench with a couple of other SW9’s. That is former SW9/NW2 project looking more like a SW9 again on the left. The CNJ unit was getting the Right-O-Way retainer plates installed.

I started to go through the models that were painted, decaled but awaiting weathering. When I discovered that my H30 still needed trucks and couplers installed.

Bolsters added and painted. Couplers installed and checked with the height gauge. All is good with the world. These will be next in line when I get a chance to weather some models. Hopefully soon.

WB: Conversion Parts

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On the workbench this week, two upgrades for an Atlas “O” SW9, the Northwest Short Line P48 wheelsets for an Atlas “O” switcher and the P48 Retainer Plates from Right-O-Way.

I have two Atlas “O” switchers, I thought my one project drive had been converted already. But when I got a phone call from a friend asking about Atlas SW wheelsets, I checked the model and it did have an upgrade set of wheels but they were the .145 NMRA wheels.

No problem, I had a set of P48 wheels on the shelf for a while (check out the old packaging), but the retainer plates I just got in a couple of weeks ago from Right-O-Way.

The retainer plate replace the original Atlas part. They are very simple to install, just unscrew the original plate and replace it with the new one.

Here you can see how much the ROW retainer Plates pull in the truck side frames. It’s a very simple conversion, four screws remove the retainer plate and four more hold the side frames.

I really should have painted them BEFORE installing them. But my “mistake” allows you to see them more clearly.

All done. My Frankenstein SW9/NW2 project back together. Still not sure this project will continue or be turned back into an SW9.

The Right-O-Way Proto48 Retainer Plates combined with the NWSL Proto48 Conversion Wheelsets really make this a simple and much improved looking conversion. I’ll time it next time, when I do the other switcher. It could not have taken more than a half hour to complete. The only tool required was a Phillips screwdriver.

Right-O-Way sells the retainer plates by themselves or with the conversion wheelsets. They really do make a big difference in the appearence of the trucks.

Right-O-Way website: http://right-o-way.us
Retainer Plates: P48 Retainer Plates

Northwest Short Line website: https://nwsl.com