NEW Rolling Stock: Kit, Kit Bash; or, Scratch Build Contest!


N

NP2626

Guest
I had fun with the 1st contest and so decided I wanted to do it all over again! Here is a NEW contest to show-off our freight, non-revenue and passenger car building skills. The rules are: The car must be built from scratch; or, a kit. No Ready to Run cars are allowed! This is being done with the express purpose of promoting building models, as opposed to purchasing RTR. The contest will run to December 31th, 2017. Anyone (including the contest promoter and the Judges involved in judging the contest) can enter. When the car was built is of no consequence, cars 20+ years old, qualify as well as cars finished today. Cars may be weathered; or, not and should not be judged because of the weathering. Kits may be as simple as the old Athearn Blue Box kit. The First Place winner in the contest will be provided with a Red Caboose Kit of Magnolia MPCX 1030 Tank Car Kit in HO Scale. This contest will end December 31st, 2017 at Midnight. Good luck! Once I have received this kit, I will take a photo and hopefully be able to upload!

I'm attempting to make this a simple-easy to follow and enter contest; however, I know that some will have questions that I will address as they come up.

I need two new Judges, if interested, please PM me!



 
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I was worried I had missed out on the last one.

Here's my scratchbuilt L&N transfer caboose (and a repainted Athearn blue box kit behind it). It's made from styrene sheet and some leftover parts out of the junk box, as well as Kaydee couplers and I believe Athearn trucks. I have since weathered it and detailed it, and I'll see about digging it out and getting a better picture.
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I had fun with the 1st contest and so decided I wanted to do it all over again! Here is a NEW contest to show-off our freight, non-revenue and passenger car building skills. The rules are: The car must be built from scratch; or, a kit. No Ready to Run cars are allowed! This is being done with the express purpose of promoting building models, as opposed to purchasing RTR.
The contest will run to October 31th, 2017
. Anyone (including the contest promoter and the Judges involved in judging the contest) can enter. When the car was built is of no consequence, cars 20+ years old, qualify as well as cars finished today. Cars may be weathered; or, not and should not be judged because of the weathering. Kits may be as simple as the old Athearn Blue Box kit. The First Place winner in the contest will be provided with a Red Caboose Kit of Magnolia MPCX 1030 Tank Car Kit in HO Scale. This contest will end December 31st, 2017 at Midnight. Good luck! Once I have received this kit, I will take a photo and hopefully be able to upload!


I'm attempting to make this a simple-easy to follow and enter contest; however, I know that some will have questions that I will address as they come up.

I need two new Judges, if interested, please PM me!




Hmmmmh -
The contest will run to October 31th, 2017
Doesn't give us much time!

Willie
 
The First Place winner in the contest will be provided with a Red Caboose Kit of Magnolia MPCX 1030 Tank Car Kit in HO Scale.
Oooh, a tank car. Now I am really motivated.

Hate to ask, but this says scratch or kit. How about a major RTR bashing?
 
Here's my two cents worth. While waiting for more model railroad supplies, this chip car was kit bashed from a blue box bulkhead flat using Evergreen siding and misc styrene shapes.

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There's a story about this car that I will get to at a later date.
 
The idea for this contest is to promote the modeling aspect of this hobby. So, to make the contest as easy to judge as I can, I'm going to keep it simple and say: my opinion is that NO RTR cars should be allowed to be in the contest! However, we can talk about what you have in mind. So, sell the idea and lets get other people's input!



Oooh, a tank car. Now I am really motivated.

Hate to ask, but this says scratch or kit. How about a major RTR bashing?
 
Nice Chip car, Chet! Please tell us the story, Daddy!

GPwrangler, lets see your new photo and hear more about your Transfer caboose
 
Here's the rest of the story. I was just starting my layout, plus working on my friends GC&W layout. Another friend was really into bot layouts, but didn't have room in his place for a layout. He was pretty well off as his folks had made their money in the oil industry. His name was Junior Tschache (pronounced shocky). Before I even had a town, and was still just starting laying track, I lettered this tank car as a joke, as well as the tank truck. What a pain kettering the door on the can of the truck letter by letter. I did know that at some time in the future there would be an oil distributor with his mane on it.

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The idea for the chip car came as he just love to cut firewood. That man could make more saw dust than a herd of beavers. He probably had a ten year supply of firewood stacked up at his place. Therefore, the chip car.
 
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OK i dug out the ol' caboose. Lost a couple pieces in storage... bummer. The project started as a MOW caboose, but after I had the frame built I changed direction and went for this transfer style instead. I found it interesting that Bluford Shops came out with their version a couple weeks after I made this one. Oh well, this one is mine. I had some steps from... something... and a boxcar roof and trucks to add to the sheet styrene in my junk box, and the railings are copper wire soldered together. I have a radio antenna, A/C unit, and strobe light for it somewhere, but haven't found it yet. Not having a layout is driving me mad.
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The new prize arrived for this contest, today. I will take photos of the kit tomorrow.
 
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HPIM7748 (Small).JPG

Here is the Magnolia Tank Car that is the prize for this iteration of the contest ending on December 31st, 2017. Good Luck, everyone!!

View attachment 63675
 
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To boost entries, everyone who submitted an entry in the last contest will have a chance again with that entry, unless you say no to this idea.
 
Red Caboose Reefer Build [NOT a contest entry]

At Mark's request, I built the kit and have posted a few photos of the project. This was my first experience with a Red Caboose car kit.


For starters, here is the freshly-unpackaged set of parts:

000_KitPieces.jpg


The first thing the instructions said to do was assemble the roof, so that's what I did:

001_RoofFinished.jpg


After that, they mentioned I would need a pin vise with a #75 drill bit to drill out all of the holes needed for the ladders and grabs. To save time, I drilled-out all the holes at once:

002_DrillinOutTheHoles.jpg


95% of the grabs went right into the holes and fit snugly. When I got to the last two, however, they just refused to go in! Not sure why, other than maybe it was because I used sprue cutters instead of an xacto blade to cut them loose? In any event, they both broke after I pressed too hard. Luckily I had some leftover K&S brass rod stock that was the exact same diameter as the #75 drill bit; I hand-bent some new grabs out of that material and shoved them into the holes.

Here is where I used one of the brass homemade pieces (lower right):

003_MangledGrabIrons.jpg


I opted not to use the plastic wheels that came with the kit, but rather some metal ones I had leftover in a jar from a long-ago project. I used a wheel-painting jig, here they are before I sprayed them:

004_WheelPaintingJig.jpg


I sprayed the metal wheels and the truck sideframes with Krylon Camouflage Dark Brown, then dusted-on some Bragdon "dirt" powder onto the truck sideframes while the paint was still tacky:

005_PaintedWheelsAndTruckSideFrames.jpg


I installed some extra lead weights as recommended. I have left the roof un-cemented in case I have to remove it again for painting, or to add more weight:

006_SomeExtraWeight.jpg


Here is a side view of the finished car:

007_ReeferSideView.jpg


End view with brake apparatus:

008_ReeferBrakeWheelEnd.jpg


The other end:

009_ReeferPlainEnd.jpg


...and that's about it. I tried to install all of the underbody brake gear, but the delrin plastic rods don't accept glue very well and they all broke off at various times later on in the build process. I didn't bother with trying to glue them back on since nobody can see them anyway.

Conclusion: This is a very high quality kit, the instructions and diagrams are pretty easy to understand. But I would definitely NOT recommend this type of kit for beginners...

[BTW - these pics are NOT to be counted as another entry in the current contest.]
 
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Thanks KeN! I just wanted you to state that you had gotten the kit; but, a build with photos was even better! None of the Red Caboose kits I have built had trucks with separate side frames from the bolster. they all had trucks that you just pry apart to put the wheels into. What did you think of the trucks for this model?
 
Thanks KeN! I just wanted you to state that you had gotten the kit; but, a build with photos was even better! None of the Red Caboose kits I have built had trucks with separate side frames from the bolster. they all had trucks that you just pry apart to put the wheels into. What did you think of the trucks for this model?

Actually Mark, I would have preferred the one-piece trucks like you described. These multi-piece ones tend to spread-apart during use and do not track smoothly, i.e., they go cock-eyed. Maybe the Proto2000 wheel sets I put on are not designed for use with this type of truck? I'll probably go thru my boxes of hoarded leftover parts and see if I can find a few one-piece Bettendorfs to replace them.
 



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