Aftermarket Scale Williams Interiors: who wants them? Updated 7/2/13

Same here Mike.

I've toyed with the idea of making my own interiors for my Williams streamliners and Amfleets. The recurring thought is to scratchbuild a set of four seats crosswise, with bases designed to semi-interlock with the ones fore and aft  (just an alignment thing--nothing like a set of Legos). This pattern would be duplicated using open-face silicone rubber molds (the bases being the part that faces the open face), and with enough successive copies, a full car could be outfitted.

 

---PCJ

So another way to deal with this is to create a floor plate for the cars we want to update and then plug in (or snap in) any style of seats we create.   This could then turn into an upgrade system for the various scale and  semi scale cars that anyone would want to update.  This requires more thought but the idea is to create something that will serve a variety of needs and not cost an arm and a leg.

Any passenger car with silhouette windows is a candidate.

I can't stand silhouettes.

I have some Williams streamline sets I'd love to detail with interiors.

If retrofittable interiors  were available for heavyweights, I'd buy them.

I would have kept alot of cars with silhouettes if something like this was available

 Mike I hope you work something out. There's a lot of nice passenger car's out there, but I won't buy them because they don't have detailed interiors. I would buy them if I new I could put a detailed interior in them.

 

 

Thanks, Alex

 

I would start buying williams passenger cars if there was an upgrade kit to replace the silhouettes.  I really like the cars other than that.

I some K-line heavyweights I want to do. Put me on the list. 

 

Thanks

AMRRSPA, the American Model Rail Road Silhouette Passenger Association, find your assertions that Silhouette people, (or as we prefer to be called "Dimensionally Challenged Travellers") are somehow inferior, to be highly offensive.

 

Just because we have no depth, does not mean that we have no feelings, or that we cannot contribute to the betterment of scale society.  Take Wily Coyote, as an example. How many times has he been squished to a paper-thin dimension by a falling Acme Safe, and still popped back up to continue to contribute to the Road Runner infestation problem?

 

Take politicians, as another example. As thin, flat and transparent a group cannot be duplicated, and yet, they offer at least some benefit to our country. Wait...that's not a good analogy...strike that.

 

Anyway, go ahead and fill your coaches and Pullmans with your precious little sausage people. You'll be sorry when the cat knocks the cars off the table and you hear hundreds of fat little passengers screaming for their lives as they get tossed about inside the cars. Serves 'em right, we say.

 

Yes, I would be interested if they are adaptable to the 14" Madison type heavyweights.

Also interested in something that would work in the Williams plastic streamliners.

Yes I would be interested. I think a good start could be a strip of a pair of seats. Two strips could make a coach by leaving center space for aisles with one step on each side. This strip could be widened or narrowed by placement in the center Aisle this way the most types of cars could be accommodated Aluminum streamliners to Short Madisons could be done using these strips of seats by cutting to length and placement by width. I think a great start would just be coach seating.

I want some.

Arthur if need be we can make the seats 2mm in width and be able to really pack in you paper thin images of your former selves.

Ditto.

3RMike,
   I guess I am old school on this but I like my original Williams UP Passenger train, just like it is, when I want to run my other heavy weight cars with the people I have added, I simply change out the cars, sometimes I just run them together.  I am a sinner I know.
PCRR/Dave
 

Why can't we just try to get these interiors without someone saying they dont want them.  I wasn't asking you Pine Creek whether you were happy with your silhouettes, I was asking people who want replacement interiors to gauge interest.   PLEASE IF YOU JUST WANT TO COMMENT THAT YOU ARE HAPPY WITH SILLOUETTES....... DON'T.  

This thread is for those who want aftermarket interiors produced, not whether people like SILLOUETTES vs interiors.

Thanks for your understanding

I have the 21" Weaver cars that I would love to fill with passengers. I once phoned Weaver and spoke to Joe Hayter(the owner I believe) and asked for interiors that were put in the latest run of Weavers 21" cars. I was told they arent available for seperate sale. I told him I thought He could do very well with producing the interiors. He told me He gets alot of requests for the interiors. Sure would have thought that Weaver would make interiors for seperate sale.

Good topic, I was enquiring about this topic alittle while ago.  If the new interiors would work for my lionel 19060 set, I'm In !!!!!

Put me on the list. I have Williams sets waiting for the day someone comes up with interiors.

I would like interiors for Williams scale heavyweights as well as K-Line scale heavyweight cars.

Mike, that would be the ticket. Make a floor for 18" cars scribed for 15 and 12 inch cars that could be broken off. Fill the floors with holes to accommodate seats, tables (dining cars), walls (dining cars, RPOs) etc. Make the floor with pins in the side that could be snipped off for narrower cars. Make it as flexible as possible and they would fly off the shelves.

 

Pete

would, or could these kits include detail parts for the windows as well?

With scale (and semi-scale) Williams, Lionel and K-Line sets without interiors, I'm in...

I had to run to my trusty image editor/drawing application, because you know, picture=thousand words. This is how I envisioned my particular solution to the problem of adding seats to my silhouetted coaches:

1: Two-Seat Module

This was the inital idea. The notch and tab in the base serve to align the seat modules fore and aft.

2: End view of 4-seat module:

It then occurred to me that it would make more sense to make a four-seat module to span the carbody. The alignment tab/slot now resides in the aisle. This will be the master pattern to make a silicone rubber mold.

3: Mold box:

Build a watertight box around the module. This image shows the box upside-down and transparent. The green filling is the liquid silicone rubber, which is poured on top of the seat module sealed to the bottom of the mold box. This is a cutaway view--normally the box leaves a space on all sides so the seat pattern is completely surrounded by the rubber (except for the bottom of the base).

4: Rubber mold ready for duplication:

After the silicone hardens, break off the sides of the box and strip the mold off the pattern. You're now ready to pour liquid resin (Alumilite is a good brand) and make as many seat modules as you need.

Diner-car modules would be built in a similar fashion, but the tabletops would probably need to be seperate castings to avoid undercuts, and the seats made in back-to-back sets that include a table leg on one side, and omitting armrests. The tabletops would be glued to the table leg after removing the castings from the mold

Sleeper-car modules would depend on how the berths are arranged, and would take a bit more scratchbuilding skill to make the patterns. But the person who could do them well could sell them to the rest of us

---PCJ

i have the same problem from the other end.  i have a bunch of passenger cars i really would like to sell, but with no interiors, they are pretty much outdated in this market.  i would buy some just to upgrade mine for sale.

 

if you think about it, for every response you get, you'll probably be able to sell multiple interiors.  who runs a one car passenger train (except Hooterville, maybe)?

 

the problem is then, how do you get a trainload of passengers, though.  i have an MTH train (with interiors) that i put about a hundred people in seats and the thing still looks empty.  maybe make some molds with people already in the seats?  ... unpainted, of course.

 

good luck with the project... i'm sure it will be a winner.

As much as I appreciate what you drew, I am talking with manufacturers about rapid prototyping and manufacturing.  I have over 50 cars myself that I need to do, so I realized that I am probably more the norm than the exception to the rule.  I will report back to everyone as I have news.  But please keep responding and letting us know if you want the seats and any ideas you have!  Thanks again!

I have several older MTH heavyweights and some older Lionel streamline sets and was researching buying ala carte parts to make my interiors from many sources. A time consuming and expensive route. I would be interested. Thanks

Yes, please keep us posted. We have several K-Line sets on hand...

It would be good if someone could design the interior that would work in 16 in cars and with an addition fit 18 in and then 21 in cars.  Modular approach.

 

doug

Mike, this is such a cool idea, I also looked into the allacarta route and it was not worth the time and expense.  Hopefully your idea can produce a cost effective means to add these much needed interiors.   Good Luck !!!!  Please keep us posted

ROTFLMFAO. Brilliant.

 

Railride: I think you're on to something there. Would probably work with Williams cars as I don't think they did any compression like MTH does on some of their cars.

Yes, no other affordable alternative as far as I know.

I'm interested for my 72' heavyweights as well.

Yes, I am interested.

If you can come up with something that is not to expensive run lots of them off and I am sure that they would sell in no time.

 

I was thinking that the most useful thing would be to build a strip of seats in a row like for one side of the car with a thin base. This could  be glued/taped down to a floor.

 

Then depending on what cars you are going to fill in either 0-27 or full scale 21" cars you could best place the rows to fit the cars that you working on any car.

 

I would love a few sets.

 

For seats coach style I have used the white corner bead you get in hardware stores for the edge of drywall or drawers. Comes in about 6 foot lengths for a few $'s. About a 1/2 inch each way looks like letter L from end.

On the bottom I run a couple of layers of the thick foam double sided tape. Cut into the size for seats peel and stick onto whatever floor base I am using can pre paint the floors to what ever color I want. Glue the figures into the seats works well.

 

The other thing that I found for doing diners and sleepers is the Pola. Lima. Rivorossi european passenger cars. Finding them at train shows for as low as $20 they are really long so strip out the interiors and cut and mix parts to get what I want for sleepers/coaches/diners for the old K-Line Williams etc. cars.

Can add some LED light strips. You get a long roll of them and cut to size and add the electrical parts to make them work. The strips peel and stick on the car roofs.

 

I take the European cars back to the next show without interiors and offer them for sale a bit cheaper and get some $'s back on them.

I have a couple of sets that could use these at a reasonable price.

 

Thanks,

Ed

My plan was designed to allow an individual to customize the insert to a particular carbody--15" 18" or 21" since the seats are molded a row at a time, you can produce however many rows needed to fit a particular car. For that matter, one could cast several rows, assemble a larger module, then turn around and make a still-larger mold from that to save assembly time.

 

The two-seat module could conceivably work for outfitting 027-type coaches by eliminating the fixed-width aisle, allowing the seat pairs to sit closer in order to fit the available space.

 

---PCJ