Hello, steemians! Welcome to my page, eh!
Since I seem to be on a roll with my hobby related posts, I decided to write a post about this model railroad kit that I recently built. This kit was made by Grandt Line Products, it is kit # 5186. This kit is based on the Denver & Rio Grande Western narrow gauge 30 foot long 6000 series flatcars. This kit is HO scale and runs on scale 3 foot gauge tracks.
About 100 of these cars were built, starting in March of 1887, and there were still 48 cars in service in 1923. These cars saw hard service hauling all kinds of loads, and since they were built of wood, they only lasted so long. Most of the remaining cars were extensively rebuilt in 1926 and continued to serve the railroad until 1942 when the government requisitioned what was left of them for wartime duty on the narrow gauge railroads in Hawaii and Alaska. At that time there were only 16 of these flatcars still in general freight service. Some of the 6000 series flatcars were in maintenance service at the time of requisitioning and were left with the railroad. A few of these cars still exist today.
I actually remembered to take pictures of the kit and some of the steps of building this kit.
This is the kit, laid out for the camera.
This is all the parts laid out on a sheet of paper for contrast. You can see the 2 frame halves, the 2 deck halves, and all the smaller parts.
Here, the 2 frame halves are glued together to form the complete frame. This is a good example of how small this flatcar model is.
I sprayed a gray primer paint on 1 side of the deck halves and then glued then to the frame. Apparently the deck boards on the real cars were left unpainted because of the constant abuse they got from loading and unloading the cars. The gray primer is the starting point for the "unpainted board" colors that will be painted on once I figure out how I want to do that.
The unpainted frame underside.
The frames of the real cars were painted a red oxide paint, sometimes known as "boxcar red" or "boxcar brown". Here's the model with the paint applied to the frame and underside of the deck. Painting it this way was just easier than trying to paint the deck boards separately, especially since you don't see the underside of the deck unless you pick up the car. The steel parts that were used on the cars were usually painted black before they were put on the car, so I painted those details black.
A couple of pictures of the almost finished car with the trucks attached.
Here's the car with most of the brake gear attached, and the couplers mounted. These are the non functional couplers that are supplied with the kit. I'm going to have to figure out how to mount the functional couplers on the car, that will probably require a bit of modification to the ends of the car.
The car is almost complete now. I only need to mount the brake wheel and staff, the truss rods under the car, the grab irons, and the working couplers, and then paint the deck boards. I'm not sure when I'm going to get to that. This was an interesting little car to build, with lots of tiny parts. It's a nice addition to my railroad display on my shelf.
That's all I have for this post, I hope you found it interesting!
Thanks for stopping by my page to check out my model railroad car project, eh!
Excellent overview @amberyooper and scale of this model is amazing!
Thank you!
Flat cars are a pain to weight properly.
What is your favorite way?
I used to have a diecast flat car. It rolled really nice.
I think, if i ever got back into model railroading that i would go with On3. Just so i can go ape-shit on details.
For the really small flatcars like this one, I will either put small lead weights between the frames where they won't normally be seen, or put a load on the car with the weight inside the load. Most of the normal HO standard gauge cars like the Athearn or Roundhouse kits come with a steel weight so it's not too much of a problem there.
If you decide to get back into model railroading, check out the On30 model stuff. You can get into it without breaking the bank too much, and the main difference is that you can use HO track to run them on instead of having to buy expensive On3 track or hand lay the rails. You can also buy really nice On30 flex track with the proper tie size and spacing, and it costs less than On3 track, if you can even find On3 flex track...
I've been modelling in On30 for about 20 years now, since Bachmann came out with the first ready to run stuff. It's definitely easier to super detail the O scale stuff, especially with these old eyes... :-)
Check out this post I did a few days ago about one of my O scale narrow gauge projects.
https://steemit.com/hobbies/@amberyooper/hobbies-on-steem-my-o-scale-narrow-gauge-ore-cars
When i was into designing HO model kits, back when Tichy Train Group was Gould, my ideas for making a good running flatcar was to make the piece that flat of the flat car out of solid metal.
At that time i was thinking of etching. (chemical) Today i might use laser cutting.
Then the car would be at least minimally heavy enough.
Who makes good trucks for On30?
I flag trash. You have been upvoted by trash. I have negated the vote from said trash.
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I flag trash. You are trash.
Take it somewhere else please.
The 2 best companies that I can think of for On30 trucks, depending on what style of truck you want, are Bachmann and San Juan Car Co.
This company makes some really good stuff.
http://www.sanjuancarco.com/