A Tale of Two...RPO's

Go0d looking cars for sure. K-Line made some beautiful equipment - just look at those trucks!

Now how 'bout some human figures....

@dkdkrd posted:

Car 3409 (bottom side view, right end view) has the original factory finish...very shiny, mirror-like.  Car 3410 (upper side view, left end view) was completely disassembled, cleaned, and painted silver (Tamiya Silver Leaf), body shell, doors, ends.  The new signage/letterboards on both cars arestrip styrene painted with the Tamiya paint.

Nice job all around!

I have a similar letterboard project converting Santa Fe cars to Texas Specials. What thickness strip styrene did you use? Would you choose a different thickness for a future project? Would you choose the same paint?

Thanks.

A tale of two very nicely done RPOs!  Granted the K-Line car tooling is a baggage-RPO, but it's still a great stand in for the 63' ATSF RPOs.

Matching finishes is such a challenge.  I have been tempted to do a little experimenting with one of my K-Line cars to see if I can tone down the brightness just a bit or at the very least tone it down on the vestibules and end caps. 

@c.sam posted:

Go0d looking cars for sure. K-Line made some beautiful equipment - just look at those trucks!

They shure are! The twenty-one inch observations are my favorites; they must be, I have twenty-two of them. One duplicate SP, though.

Note that one (New Haven WATCH HILL for my NH train) has been two-railed and one more (MILW DELL RAPIDS as it is a favorite and GGD did not offer one for separate sale) is scheduled to be done later this year. The rest (all different) will remain three-rail.

EDIT: K-Line makes two-railing very easy with the K-Line two-rail trucks. Just a truck swap and addition of scale couplers.

They look really good.

I have a set of the 21" ATSF K-Lines, and have considered selling them - but, I cannot find the boxes. Uh-oh - you know what -that- means.

I always keep set and loco boxes, and rarely the occasional individual RS box. I wish that I had gone for the 15 inchers, in the real world. Lionel's PW aluminum cars - essentially scale except for length - were the right size. But until I find the 21" boxes - or I give up - I guess I'll keep them.

@c.sam posted:

Now how 'bout some human figures....

Good point.

I considered taking advantage of that opportunity when I had car 3410 totally disassembled for painting.  I did paint the inner floor a plain wood brown, re-located the PO sorting structure to be more centered on the 4 windows, and discarded the K-Line 'Streamlighting' board for new LED strip lighting (from GRJ).  I rummaged through my assortment of figures, not finding anything 'postal posing'.

But I haven't given up the possibility of more interior work.  Turning 80 last December...and encountering some disturbing medical issues requiring hospitalization for the first time in my life!...tended to change the bucket list focus; Complete the list to date, and think twice about adding something gnu.

Thanks for  your thoughts, though!

KD

@Pingman posted:

Nice job all around!

I have a similar letterboard project converting Santa Fe cars to Texas Specials. What thickness strip styrene did you use? Would you choose a different thickness for a future project? Would you choose the same paint?

Thanks!

I used 0.020" strip styrene (Evergreen).  That was somewhat arbitrary of a choice.  I felt that 0.010" was too thin, 0.030" too thick.  I didn't want panels to be too flimsy to handle, or prone to showing any 'witness' when applied to the sharp-ribbed car sides.  By the same token, from a scale perspective, the prototype panels weren't very thick/substantial.

Were such a product commonly available at a reasonable cost, I probably would have used actual aluminum or stainless steel strip stock.  In which case I probably would've considered a thinner stock...say, 0.010", or so...since it would've saved the painting step.

I used a premium  double-sided tape by TESA (www.JDSIndustries.com) to attach the boards to the ribbed car sides. It was recommended to me by a friend in the awards/trophies biz.  I've used it for dozens of projects.  In the long haul it is a very aggressive, PERMANENT, 2-sided tape.

RE the paint...  Tamiya Silver Leaf.  It's been my choice for many O3R cars to represent 'weathered' (?) stainless steel of the prototype.  Especially the vestibule and plain ends of Lionel's 2500-series PW cars.  There's a lot of choices of paint to simulate the natural, painted, or plated finish of these cars of various manufacturers.  I believe there are forum postings in the archives that pertain to this subject.  I could spend a lot of time and money experimenting with the choices in order to get better matches to the factory finishes.  IMHO+OTOH, life's too short for picking such nits.

BTW...final tip re this sort of 'easy' conversion of the K-Line cars...  I discovered that the factory rivet attachments of the signage/letterboards are easily removed with the use of an old, reasonably sharp chisel blade in the hobby knife.  Simply put the chisel edge under the head of the rivet and give a tap or two with a small hobby hammer.  (Do NOT put the blade's chisel edge under the letter/sign board; you'll risk marring the adjacent aluminum car side ribs!...impossible to repair or disguise!!...don't ask how I learned this!!!)  The rivets are rather soft.  The chisel blade will easily do the job.  The remaining rivet shanks can be driven through to the inside of the car with a small pin.

BTW #2... Re the remaining rivet holes.  I considered filling them, but that seemed to lead to more problems.   Since this car was never going to replicate an actual 1:1 ATSF prototype I found I could size and place the new panels (5) to cover the 10 rivet holes on each side.  A bit of serendipity for once!!!

Thanks for asking further clarifications!

KD

@dkdkrd, THANK YOU for your comprehensive reply to my inquiries about your excellent project.

Your choice of styrene thickness makes a lot of sense and my modest inventory of materials includes the sizes you mentioned so some experimentation is called-for in at least one of my applications. Specifically, one is to create a letterboard ("Northern Pacific") painted green and apply the white NP to simulate the separately applied letters of the prototype EMD F-7 booster units of the North Coast Limited Loewy two-tone green livery.

Also, regarding the double-sided tape by TESA you mentioned, do you have a product number? I used the link you provided but a product number would be very helpful to assure the correct product is purchased.

Thanks, again, for your thorough reply.

The Tesa tape is listed in several widths, each having a different stock number.  I was given the remaining portion of a 1" roll by my friend.  For various projects I've used the tape on, I've had to trim the tape to size.

I have a small pane of tempered glass (ground edges) I acquired from who-knows-where that I use in the work shop for cutting tape to size.  Clean the glass surface, lay the tape down, trim to size with a sharp hobby blade.  Works great for a project like this or for cutting masking tape for paint projects.

Ergo, it's really up to your projected usage which sku to order.

KD

Thanks for the reply @dkdkrd.