Well I've been slowly and surely (mostly slowly) making progress on this build. Here is an unfortunate phone camera shot of some of the parts I've been working on.
I've just finished one car side. I have the two end panels with ribs done. At the bottom of the frame I have one of the side sills partially done. I need to add extensions onto the ends to reach the full length of the car. I would have preferred to use one piece of course, but I wanted to use .005" styrene sheet for this piece and Evergreen only sells 6" x 12" sheets. The overall car length is a bit over 15". Not visible in this photo is the bend I formed in the bottom of the sill to mimic the prototype. The bend also helps to prevent deflection in the side sill, just like the real thing. I have given thought to using brass for this piece and may try that in the future. The top piece is a sheet of .010" styrene which I am using for the car side. It's laminated to a .060" backing sheet. I'm using these thin sheets of styrene to get prototypical thicknesses in areas where the end of the steel sheet is visible on the real car, like on the car ends, or the edge at the notch in the side sill. The opening in the middle of the sheet is where a resin casting (hopefully) of the plug doors will go.
I'm moving pretty slowly on this build, but then I'm really not in a hurry. It's my first scratchbuild of any type. I'm putting a lot of thought into what materials to use, and how to implement them, before I cut or glue anything. In short, trying to thoughtfully engineer the build. I'm enjoying this problem-solving aspect and it might even be keeping my brain healthy.
The whole project has been a great opportunity to learn and explore materials and methods. I'm in the early learning stages, currently working on the easiest parts of the car. The car roof, underframe, and details will be more of a challenge. I'm hoping and planning on trying resin casting for the roof and some of the detail parts. Yet another new skill. And way down the road, I'm going to need to figure out how to paint and decal the car. The best part of all of this is that I can adapt anything I learn here to future builds. And I'm sure each subsequent attempt will go more quickly and smoothly than the preceding one.
By the way, a background in drafting has been a real benefit. I've used autocad to translate the car from actual prototype dimensions to the closest approximation in available styrene parts. And all the tools from the old days of hand drafting come in quite handing for laying out and assembling parts. I do need to break out my old board with parallel bar to make things even easier.
I'll try to post more results as I move along with the project. Ideally, consisting of pictures taken with a better camera. So stay tuned.
Jim
P.S. Oh yeah. I guess I should include of a photo of what I'm shooting for.
