Dan's O scale USA rolling stock thread.

Now, I haven't yet started a thread here regarding my O scale exhibition layout, Piedmont Blues. This is mainly because it's still in the planning stages at the moment, so there's nothing to show. I will of course create a thread as soon as that changes.

In the mean time, I'm working on locomotives, rolling stock, and structure projects for the layout, which some of you might have seen evidence of already in the Scratchbuilding section with my brick garage/wooden tower industry build.

Today, I've been working on a Weaver kit of a NYC 40ft boxcar I got from Neil at The Little Layout Company.

First up, some prototype photos of similar boxcars I'm using for inspiration:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1711787

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2385901

Now, here's what I started with:



After assembling the kit, I gave it a blast of dulcote equivalent, then faded the car with a wash of watered down acrylic paint - a mix that was slightly whiter than the stock NYC Century Green scheme.



Once this was dry the car got another blast of dulcote - in fact, it gets one after every layer of work is finished. I then added a wash of brown in places to give a base layer for the weathering.



After this, the dirt was built up using various blends of black, brown, orange and red pastel powders. Once I was happy with the result, I sealed it with dulcote, then gave the whole car side a application of white pastel powder to tone the whole car down.



Next, scratches and dings were added using brown acrylic paint, working as always from the prototype photographs..



Finally, for now, the scratches were all haloed using burnt sienna oil paint in a very light application. After this, rust streaks were added in a similar manner. Dab on a little paint at the main point of concentration on the real car, then repeatedly drag the paint down the car side to create streaks.



Next comes the roof and car ends, which I will document in stages as I have done here so far.

 

Thanks everyone. [size=
][/size]This morning I took a photo in natural light to give a better idea of the colour balance.[size=
][/size]

 

Hi Pete, thanks for the offer, though I am not sure I'm building it at home. My partner in crime - Ford - he's building the baseboards at least, and will be doing it from Sheffield, so we might be building the whole thing there.

We're making sure the whole plan is bulletproof before the first piece of timber gets cut. That's why I'm working on just structures and freight cars, for now.

I'll certainly keep you in mind though.

 

After much head scratching due to some incorrect instructions in the build manual, I've managed to get my 3D printer built, set up and working. I've still got a LOT to learn about it, but after a couple of attempts at calibrating it by printing an N Scale coal car (none of those worked, and I had to take some of the printer apart and put it back together to get things working), I've managed to print out the cab from an EMD SW1500.

I've got the files for the rest of the locomotive, and I'm planning on trying to build a working switcher from it, as it has so far cost me pennies for the printing material. If I can successfully do so, I'll have instantly justified the expenditure on getting the 3D printer!



For the technologically inclined, I would most definitely recommend getting a 3D printer. I'm loving it already, and I've barely scratched the surface.





As you can see, there are currently some quite pronounced printing lines on the model, and some places will need filling in where the filament didn't extrude correctly. On top of this, the tops of the windows aren't great, as the heated material didn't cool fast enough to keep a rigid shape before it set. This is a known issue with printing in PLA on some of the cheaper printers, but there's a pretty simple fix - fit a shroud around the extruder heatsink that directs the cold air from the cooling fan down and onto the extruder nozzle, which will cool the material faster as it leaves the heated nozzle.

I don't think you can buy these shrouds yet, however the great thing about the 3D printing community is that they tend to just 3D print their own solutions! Someone on one of the forums for my model of printer designed and uploaded the files to 3D print your own shroud, so that's next on my list of things to print!

If I was excited about the possibilities of the printer BEFORE I got it, now I'm truly over the moon. Once I've got it figured out, I'm going to 3D print soooooo much stuff!

 

So... I actually got some progress made on the Southern gondola I picked up on a recent trip to York. The model is an Atlas Trainman RTR example.

So far it's had a real wood deck added to the interior - made from coffee stirrers, naturally - as well as a brown acrylic fading wash, and a wash of black watercolour to dirty it up. The great thing with watercolours is that if you don't like how it looks, take a wet paintbrush to it and just wash it off!

After this was done, I went over the lettering and car number with a damp microbrush to remove the paint from the white and let it really pop again, as most of the time the lettering isn't too dirty in prototype photos.

 

Paul, I've got a friend who is into 3D printing, he's going to give me a hand getting it all calibrated and set up properly.

Hopefully soon.

 

Further progress on the Southern gondola from last night, one side has had dings and scratches and rust patches added. I think I went a bit OTT with this, but I'm going to attempt to tone it down a little today. We shall see.

Here's the prototype photograph I am working from - found on Southern Railfan (an amazing source of SOU images and information, and my Go-To place for references):