7mm Richards P48 US Thread

[richard carr]

On Monday I was supposed to fly to Tokyo, but BA cancelled the flight at 2am that morning and put me on the same flight for Tuesday.
So Monday turned into a fairly free day. So I started to build one of the boxcar kits I bought at Stafford last year, I knew it would come in handy at some point.. These are fairly well detail resin kits, they have nice sharp detail but suffer from the usual resin kit problem that dimensionally they are not always as consistent as you would like. To be fair these 2 are pretty good. SO the first thing to do was use some sand paper to smoothe off all the edges and try and get everything to be the same length.

Once you have done that you can mark out where the ends and floor will fit on the sides. You then need to glue some plastic card angle onto the sides to support the floor. I found some ABS angles it does just as well.







Once you have done both sides you can glue the body together.




the second end needed clamping



There are brass inserts that you can force fit into the floor, into which you can screw some trucks.



That was as far I got in couple of hours. But I have brought the other one with me to Tokyo. Its starting to progress, so some more pictures to follow shortly.

Richard

 

[richard carr]

I have been making some good progress with the second boxcar. This time I decided that drilling all the holes for the handrails etc frst before gluing it together would probably be the better approach.

Once that was done it was time to fettle the sides, ends and roof so the I could put the box together



The hotel desk is handily covered in a sheet of glass, which makes getting the box level and square significantly easier.

All I have to do now is the final corner, this time you need the clamps to hold everything while the glue sets.



Once that is done you just need to add the roof, it only needed a little bit of fettling to get it to fit in the space provided by the sides.





that gap between the end and roof does need filling.

This evening I hope to start adding the grab rails.


Richard

 

[Jordan]

I had similar assembling 'fun' with the resin car kit I got last year at Stafford, mine is definitely not quite square, probably in most directions!!
Yours look like prime candidates for the new Kadee trucks; my kit had Atlas trucks supplied, which of course set it far too high up sitting on the molded bolsters! I got a friend to mill off the molded bolsters, and used cut-down leftover ones from an Atlas 53ft Evans Boxcar (another story!!) in their place. I still had to file down the Atlas truck bolsters somewhat, another typical Back of the Class Bodging...
Since this photo was taken the corners were tidied up & it has had white primer on it, other painting has stalled over the Summer.

 

[richard carr]

I think there are a few bits missing from my kits, the sliding door handle, there's definitely nothing in the kit. The end handrail support too.

Richard

 

[richard carr]

I got back from Chicago last Tuesday and brought a few sweeties back with me.

I think I actually bought this one back in April so n ow I have finally got it back, it's ready to be painted into SP red livery.










I have test run it and it goes just fine.So I have unscrewed the main parts, cleaned them in IPA and started painting it.

 

[richard carr]

That should be red nose livery !

 

[richard carr]

I have also been making some progress on the railbox boxcars









Putting on such large transfers was a challenge, but it looks ok.
The final steps can now go on. These are protocraft 70ton trucks.

The second boxcar has just been primed and I did find the 3rd one so I'm ready to start that one two.


Richard

 

[richard carr]

The paint for the boxcar is Tru Color acrylic. It is the first time I have used this and to be honest, although the colour is nice, spraying was a pain and didn't work well at first. Their website says they are designed to be sprayed without further thinning, well mine didn't. It also said that the pressure to use was 28 PSI. My compressor would only give about 25PSI, so I have invested in a new larger more powerful one. It seems to have made all the difference with the second boxcar. The other thing I would warn you about is that the only thing that does thin this paint is their own thinners, I tried a few other things and that did not work at all. To clean the airbrush you need cellulose thinners, I did try Tamiya airbrush cleaner, it's ok but celly is better.

All after just 1 coat of paint, it does a gloss finish, the roof is aluminum, then rail box yellow.

 

[Overseer]

The other thing I would warn you about is that the only thing that does thin this paint is their own thinners, I tried a few other things and that did not work at all. To clean the airbrush you need cellulose thinners, I did try Tamiya airbrush cleaner, it's ok but celly is better.

As the paint is an acrylic lacquer you need an automotive acrylic thinner, should be readily available in large quantities from car paint suppliers or car accessory shops. In Australia a product called General Purpose Thinners is also widely available and works well with this type of paint, also good for thinning most types of paint and cleaning air brushes/spray guns, but I have a feeling it may not be available in the UK.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

The paint for the boxcar is Tru Color acrylic. It is the first time I have used this and to be honest, although the colour is nice, spraying was a pain and didn't work well at first. Their website says they are designed to be sprayed without further thinning, well mine didn't. It also said that the pressure to use was 28 PSI. My compressor would only give about 25PSI, so I have invested in a new larger more powerful one. It seems to have made all the difference with the second boxcar. The other thing I would warn you about is that the only thing that does thin this paint is their own thinners, I tried a few other things and that did not work at all.

I generally ignore the 'designed to sprayed without thinning' notices on acrylic paints and look at the paint consistency first. If it's not at single cream consistency or less then I thin acrylics with Vallejo or MiG thinners and add a few drops of 'airbrush flow improver' which acts as a retarder.

 

[richard carr]

I agree with what you are saying there Dave. I have done quite a bit more spraying with this paint now and I think the main problem was that my compressor just wasn't man enough to deliver the air needed. It was a 20 to 25 litres of air a minute, the new one is 35, and means that it can deliver far more paint onto the model and give me the correct pressure

 

[Gismorail]

I got back from Chicago last Tuesday and brought a few sweeties back with me.

I think I actually bought this one back in April so n ow I have finally got it back, it's ready to be painted into SP red livery.

View attachment 198744

View attachment 198745

View attachment 198746


View attachment 198747

I have test run it and it goes just fine.So I have unscrewed the main parts, cleaned them in IPA and started painting it.

View attachment 198748

Is this a 23/7 sorry if I’ve got it wrong but what a fabulous model. Seen this operating on the Fingerlakes Rail Road and most impressed

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

The hood unit is either a GE B39-8 or B40-8.

 

[richard carr]

Dave

It is a GE Dash 8 B39E, it is going to be 8038 as that's a contiguous number on the decal sheet.

I'm just working out how to draw the nose mask now.

Richard

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

The SP wings nose mask in theory should be relatively easy following the much earlier GP9..... apart from working around the brake handwheel.

 

[garethashenden]

I have also been making some progress on the railbox boxcars

View attachment 198857

View attachment 198858

View attachment 198859

View attachment 198860

Putting on such large transfers was a challenge, but it looks ok.
The final steps can now go on. These are protocraft 70ton trucks.

The second boxcar has just been primed and I did find the 3rd one so I'm ready to start that one two.


Richard

Your blue and red logo needs to be rotated 90° clockwise. The arrows should point left/right not up/down.

 

[daifly]

Your blue and red logo needs to be rotated 90° clockwise. The arrows should point left/right not up/down.

 

[richard carr]

It took you all long enough to spot that one !

 

[Jordan]

It took you all long enough to spot that one !

 

[richard carr]

The final tricky bit for the paint job is masking the nose. As Dave said above after doing the GP9, it wasn't that difficult.

Here's a picture of a nose I found on Flickr, so thanks to Dan Haneckow for taking this back in 1987.



So I decided to draw this in CAD, you don't need to get it super neat, this is just fine



you can then rough cut it and stick on the masking film with some Pritt adessive.



Then you can cut out in detail and stick it on the nose, thats the trickiest bit, then you end up with a nose like this.







Not quite perfect but it should be easy enough to touch it in with a bit of masking and a brush.