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My first attemp at kitbashing a RR car

T TrussmanOGR Forum Member DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER
After seeing some of the members kitbashing to make MOW cars and conversing back and forth w/ RATTLER21, who gave me some tips and sent some pix of MOW cars. I decided to try my hands at kitbashing a RR car.
This car isn't any car that I've seen, it's my take on a MOW car.  I used a Lionel Lines Irvington passenger car. Cut the top off, filed the sides to make it smooth and even. The floor, side rails and doorway wall is bass wood, the two doors are from the vestibule I cut in half. The window shading in the car and doors are painters tape. The barrels and silver tank are cut out to cover the offsets for the frame screws that secure the body. One pic shows how I made the side rails using styrofoam w/straight edge and straight pins. Spray painted w/ Krylon ruddy brown primer to get the Tuscan red effect. I still have to paint the side rails to get a white wash, paint the brown barrels and also put Pennsy decals on the sides.
NOTE: I used a radial arm saw w/plywood blade to make the initial cut. Using a radial arm saw can be dangerous if the blade binds and catches the car body it can send fragmented plastic parts flying around.
 
 
 
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T TrussmanOGR Forum Member DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER
Big Jim posted:

Nice job Lad!
Where did you get the 55 Gal. drums? I need a drum.

Thanks Big Jim,

Do a search on the bay, Lionel 455-23 oil drums

I bought a bag several yrs back. I drilled the center out w/a smaller then barrel diameter w/a drill bit. If I wanted a destressed barrel, I'd drill slightly off center, which it'll open the side and make the barrel look like it's rotted along the side.  

B brianel_k-lineguyOGR Forum Member

I agree with the others.... looks great. I'm also sure if you looked at enough photos of actual MOW cars, you could probably find something pretty close to what you've done since the real railroads were "recycling" long before that word became part of our culture.

But as a footnote, decals don't adhere well to flat paint. So you'd be advised to gloss coat any area that is going to have decals.

Another possible avenue are the Microscale little bottles of flat, satin and gloss clear finish, called MicroFlat… etc. Though I've never tried brushing on the MicroGloss over flat paint. And yes, I used those same Krylon spray cans for my projects. That Ruddy Brown Primer is a good railroad color. But I always spray gloss my projects (in preparation for decals) before I get as far along as you have.

Once the decal work is done, then I use a couple sprays of the Krylon Flat. Hopefully you can get the car apart enough to do some gloss sprays. One trick I've done when necessary, is to wrap the trucks with baggie type sandwich bags.

T TrussmanOGR Forum Member DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER
brianel_k-lineguy posted:

I agree with the others.... looks great. I'm also sure if you looked at enough photos of actual MOW cars, you could probably find something pretty close to what you've done since the real railroads were "recycling" long before that word became part of our culture.

But as a footnote, decals don't adhere well to flat paint. So you'd be advised to gloss coat any area that is going to have decals.

Another possible avenue are the Microscale little bottles of flat, satin and gloss clear finish, called MicroFlat… etc. Though I've never tried brushing on the MicroGloss over flat paint. And yes, I used those same Krylon spray cans for my projects. That Ruddy Brown Primer is a good railroad color. But I always spray gloss my projects (in preparation for decals) before I get as far along as you have.

Once the decal work is done, then I use a couple sprays of the Krylon Flat. Hopefully you can get the car apart enough to do some gloss sprays. One trick I've done when necessary, is to wrap the trucks with baggie type sandwich bags.

Thanks for the tip about the decals won't adhere to the flat paint.

I did build this car to where I can take it apart.

 

B brianel_k-lineguyOGR Forum Member

Hey Trussman, one more thing I should have added, is that it will take several sprays of gloss coating to make that flat paint suitable for the decal work. I don't know what decals you'll be using? There's a Microscale set for HO (PRR 50 foot box cars) that I have found to be quite suitable for the non-full scaled traditional rolling stock.

Another trick I do when searching for potential decals on the Microscale website, is to open the illustration of the decal set and then enlarge it on my screen to the approximate size of the actual decal sheet - which does vary a little bit. But the Pennsy set I mentioned measures 5 inches by 7-5/8 inches. The word "Pennsylvania" measures 2-3/8 inches in length.

Putting on decals is an art in itself, but like anything else in life, practice makes perfect. When placing decals, I look for things on the train car like rivets, grab rails, etc. to use as measuring points so that I can put everything on straight and level. I use a elongated push-pin to make the fine-point adjustments to decals while they're still damp.

Here's a recent one I did that I should add to my on-going photo thread. It was an Industrial Rail tank car. I chopped the frame to mimic the appearance of the modern-type tank cars. I removed the handrail supports along the side of the car. The decal set was a Microscale HO Procor set, with some added O scale decals, and as you can see, it looks just fine.

But I'm not a precise scale purist either. I used to paint, doing watercolors. Some of that has carried over into my train projects: I'm going for an impression of the real thing.

Procor industrail rail modern tank car

Good luck in finishing this project. Everyone's idea of fun in the hobby differs, but I too rather enjoy taking either a beat up car, or something extremely common and turning it into something I really wanted.

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T TrussmanOGR Forum Member DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER
Traingeekboy posted:

GREAT WORK!

I love it. A well imagined fake car can look like a real car, and this hits the nail on the head.

Gonna remember the trick with the Krylon rust red, it's a nice color. What did you stain the floors with? 

I used Minwax dark walnut stain. I used a small pointy awl, scribed a line across the board where there was going to be joint and also lightly pushed the point of the awl straight down in the wood at areas where I felt a bolt or nail should be. I stained the wood, then wiped the stain off,  the concentrate of stain stayed in the indented areas that had a line across the boards and dimples for the bolts or nails. Gave me the effect of a board joint and bolts or nail  heads.

 

P pennsynutOGR Forum Member

I'm thinking of a possible project that would involve filling in window and door openings in a passenger car and cutting out new openings for relocation.  What type of material would you use for the filling and what would you use to cut into the plastic?  Your project is more invasive than what my possible project involves and I admire your work and courage to make that first cut. Yikes!

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