Sn3


I had read that there was some re-building going on on this railroad, thanks for the information, Sherrel!
 
I have attempted to use Image Re-sizer for Windows to upload photos of the PBL Kit I bought. I'm unable to figure out how to use this new software to re-size my photos! I've been using confusers since 1989, I was 39 years old, then! I'm unsure if computer software was more intuitive back then; or, if I was more computer intuitive at any rate, nothing with these damn things is easy anymore!
 
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Here is the kit from PBL that I bought. There are 24 pages of instructions. The kit comes in a nice plastic box. This is a C&S/RGS Type III, steel under frame Stock Car. So far it has been a fun build!

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Look above you. Yes, I fingered it out! Sorry I did not get back to you!

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To prove that you are not only a confuser genius; but, a great teacher, here is anther photo to show what your student is capable off. The photo shows the 5 sub-assemblies I've been working on!
 

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Looking good!
A suggstion though - Increase to size large ... it will fill the screen and give great detail - somewhere about 600k.

Glad I was able to help? Not often that I can tell anyone anything bout a confuser!
 
Tried Large and the forum rejected that size, I can go medium, however. I guess a better photo is in order. Will try again tomorrow.
 
Here is a photo of the car being assembled.

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This is a photo of one of cars side, the two ends and the car's floor. The weights and other steel pins and parts are being used to hold the floor and ends tight to the floor, jigging the whole thing together. The person who wrote the 23 pages of instructions had me install all the grab irons previously to assembly. These things get in the way when assembling the car. They also felt that the sub assemblies should be fully painted previous to assembly, so I followed their lead. After having done so, I strongly disagree with their opinions and if I build another one of these cars I will apply the grabs after assembly and only paint the interior and other places that I can't get to after assembly!

I've found that The P-B-L instructions are very confusing. The writer skips around and leaves you wondering where the the next step is. I'm I having fun? Yes I are!
 
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I must say, "That's a jamb up job that you are doing there".
Very interesting line up of tools and weights.
 
My last job was in Inspection at a CNC Machine operation, I was the Gage Tech. Out of spec. gauging needed to be gotten rid of; so, I took some of them home.
 
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Here is a photo of the body as a built up box. It is much easier to handle now as it actually has some strength. I will still need to be careful about grabbing the car and staying away from the Grab Irons.

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The roof was a little different, it was a flat piece that P-B-L told me to score on the underside by using the three holes for the roof walk as a center line for the Score line. then you flip the roof over and hang one side off your bench; or, other straight edge and bend the roof down. You keep bending until you get the angle close enough that the roof can than be glued onto the body. The white line down the center of the roof is where the plastic was forced to bend. My guess is that it was cheaper to build a flat mold than to build one with the roof angle molded in.
 
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So, I have the roof walks completed and mounted. Now I'm gluing the Chassis to the car body. It is coming together! I am extremely thankful that P-B-L provided plans of the completed car to use as reference as to part placement.

HPIM7760 (Small).JPG HPIM7761 (Small).JPG

The second photo is of the 11" section of Sn3 track I hand laid as a small test track. I found that I must have to large of spikes as the ties tended to split very easily!

My thoughts are that if I where to build a new Sn3 layout, I would hand lay all of my track and use Fast Tracks Sn3 jigs for building turnouts, even though the jigs are fairly expensive. I like Fast Tracks advertisements, where the say: "I don't HAVE to build it, I GET to build it"! I think much of the fun of the model railroading hobby has been supplanted by people's desire to buy Ready to Roll verses build from kits or scratch. As I've said many times, if RTR was all that was available, I wouldn't be interested in this hobby! This opinion is why I am so interested in Sn3 as it truly is a builders scale, even though P-B-L will supply people with ready built Rolling Stock. Enough Soap Box for now!
 
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When I have built very detailed kits in HO the manufacturer has always provided extra parts where they figured people might have trouble with the part: breakage; or, loss. Although there are many added detail parts in a P-B-L kit, only the amount of parts needed to finish, is provided in a P-B-L kit! I was very lucky with this kit and managed to loose only one part so far. I have been unable to find a free method of communication with P-B-L: (email, toll free number, etc.). So, ordering this tiny part might just end up being skipped. The car will not be perfect!
 
The part is so small, I made something up to put in it's place.
 
Well, I am painting the car's underside now. I'm using MicroLux paints Roof Brown for the underside and will highlight some details with Rust. The purpose of my building this car was to physically see a comparison between HO and Sn3. I knew from simply drawing rails in 3 foot gauge, S scale, that Sn3's gauge would be smaller than HO. This stock car that I have built is actually a bit shorter than a standard 40 foot stock car in HO Scale. The car's height is very similar to the HO stock car. The only dimension that is bigger in Sn3 is the width of the car, which is approximately 1/4 again larger in size in comparison to HO.

So, what does all this mean to me? It means that as I had sort of assumed when I started, that Sn3 is about the same size as HO. In fact, I was very surprised that Sn3 and HO track is very similar in size, HO = .6496 in inches and Sn3 = .5625. The difference is only .0871, inside rail head to rail head, HO being bigger.
 
The Sn3 stock car is pretty much assembled, enough so that painting is the next job. Here are a couple of photos of this car along with an HO stock car for your comparison. You can see that the car is wider; however, it is about the same length and height. Obviously narrow Gauge cars where shorter in height and length than standard gauge cars. The HO comparison car is a Life Like Proto 2000, Northern Pacific Mather Stock car.

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In the following photo, I have started to paint the car. I'm using Special Oxide Red as the color. The roof and two ends have been painted, so far.

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