Painting Trucks

Dan,  Good to see you at work today!  Are these metal trucks  and who made them?  I need to get back to my project as well, and hopefully can find the time and motivation to restart working on small pieces - not at all like working on combine harvesters.  

Harmon

Trucks are SanJuan that Glenn cast in brass. Really nice.

Dan,

How do you keep the paint out of the journals?

Ed

I normally shoot from the sides so not much paint gets in. What does won't stick as I dab oil in journals before painting. If I forget, as I have done, or the journals did get paint in them I use Microbrushes with a bit of thinner and clean them out.

http://www.amazon.com/MICROBRU...BR1003/dp/B0000WSA5U

A dab of oil as I reassemble and good to go. There may be better ways but this works well for me.

I love these trucks, but only have the archbars.  I ordered the Bettendorf T trucks, but my order got shuffled.  I wish I had the time and incentive to learn lost-plastic myself.

Tell us your technique on the flat car deck.

This was a Gilmaur UP class F-50-4 kit. It came with a laser cut deck as shown. Being one piece of wood it would take a lot of work to make look like individual boards. So I stained a batch of cut boards in ink and alcohol. Once dried I used painters tape to hold them together in a row and placed the laser version on top. This gave me the areas to remove for the stake pockets and other openings.

Once all those were cut I glued the new assembly on to the car using Ambroid glue. I like that better than Walthers or Pliobond as it's not "stringy" out of the tube. Once dried I removed the tape and popped off a few boards and replaced them with fresh stained ones. Then sanding. You could also run some heavy scratches on the planks but this will end up having some type of load so I did not do that.

Almost ready...

That is beautiful work, I love the car.

Thanks Chris!

Dan,

Looks great. You did a good job on the wood, looks like individual planks to me. Malcolm

Beautiful work.  I would have chosen a darker color for the crud that collects on wheels, but I love the flat and the trucks.

I agree, looking at them they appear to have come from the wheel shop  I need to overall weather it.

On the older cars the trucks were usually painted car body color, not black.  Black paint dryer very slowly and usually required it be oven baked to get it to harden.  It was not widely used until the introduction of japan dryers and synthetic enamels around 1930.  The black that was used on freight cars, usually the under side and maybe boxcar ends was something called car cement.  It was a mixture of tar, asbestos fibers, and a fast drying solvent like gasoline. It was used to water proof the floors and car ends, but was not usually used on trucks.  I have a copy of the Baldwin electric car truck catalog.  It says trucks will be shipped painted medium olive green unless otherwise specified. 

So he used San Juan trucks as masters to cast brass copies?

Is using San Juan trucks as masters legal?  

ChipR

ChipR

it is not infringement if he uses them for his own purpose.    He could potentially have an issue if he commercialized them.    However, as they would both be copying a prototype, I am not sure a court would construe a commercial copy as infringement .

unless of course Glenn got permission to cast them.

and those re-cast versions will be slightly smaller from brass shrinkage.

Yes, he did as many have.

Isn't Glenn using the "lost-plastic" technique to make the brass versions?

Yes, lost wax. Glenn bought about 20  and made some trucks for himself.. John had no problem with doing it that way.

Thanks, Dan.  Just wanted to understand the process.

Understand. I should have been more clear about that. If a mold would have been made that would have been a different story.