Mount Blue Model Co - On30 22' Boxcar Continued

It’s been a rough month to get anything done but there has been a little progress. I managed to replace the missing corbels on the Bakery (you will have to flip back a month or two for that). and even a little bit on the boxcar. You would think that I could have just knocked the boxcar out but no such luck. I did try some new alcohol based markers for weather and I'm seriously impressed with them. I'll try to remember to show them off in the near future.

Mount Blue Model Co - On30 22' Boxcar

I have been doing a lot of fanciful doodling with railroad plans roughly based on space, potentially, available in the family room. I found that I was suffering from some fairly serious grandiose designs. So I added a couple of parameters to make things actually fit in the space available. 

It has to be portable, best case I should be able to put it up, take it down and move it on my own. I decided I would use a 36"x 80". This means that my widest curve radius can only be 16" which is pretty darn tight. I know that all my On30 engines can be modified to run this tight a curve, although the 2-8-0s might look a little odd. All my current equipment is either 30' (freight cars) or 40' (passenger cars). I'm not sure how those are going to look on this sharp curve so I went looking for some of the shorter kits out there. Mount Blue Model Co has a nice boxcar kit that's 22' long so I ordered two to build and have them ready when I start to do some tests with the curvature.

I haven't built a freight car kit in years and this laser kit is very different from what I'm use to. It practically falls together and has more detail that those older kits I used to build.

 

Painting on the road

I was hoping to get a little break and spend some time at home between projectsat work but that is not to be. I was informed that I'm moving on to a project in Utah whether the LA project is finished or not (it should be, I just hate to leave a project before its finished). If I bring stuff with me to work on then I pretty much have to check my bag. That has its own repercussions. I have to wait at baggage claim and I have no control over the fate of what I put in my bag and I have to pay for a checked bag (well the company has to pay for a checked bag). I tried loading up the cardboard shoebox this time but it did not fair well. If I do this again I will not something a bit more rigid. I probably brought to much stuff with me.

So here is where I am and I hope that at least something in here gets finished or prepped.

Just in case I forgot which airport I just landed at.

The view from my somewhat expensive hotel room. Note the chicken wire. I'm speculating that has something to do with earthquakes. It is a very old hotel.

Just to verify that the view is of an inner courtyard. This is still not as bad as a view I had in a very expensive NY hotel once.

Okay, the downstairs is amazing

My tools of choice, ceramic pallet (probably lucky that didn't break in half), my paint brush case and the shoe box.

The inside of a painter/gamer's shoe box

The tools of choice

Stuff to keep me occupied. CMG 15mm Sci/Fi and On30 Wood Cab kit for my 4-4-0

Calamity's Railroad - Locomotive Project #1 - Mount Blue Model Co Conversion Parts

While many things seem to be on hold with Calamity right now I have been keeping my eyes open for appropriate pieces for the railroad. This week I managed to acquire the 4-4-0 American steam engine that I wanted to use with Calamity. The 4-4-0 refers to the arrangement of the wheels. In the case of the American it means that there are 4 wheels in the lead (or pony) truck, 2 on each side, 4 drive wheels, again 2 on each side and it does not have a trailing truck. There were 80,000+ 4-4-0 manufactured in the US from before the Civil War and into the next century. With Calamity set, more or less, in the 1870 it is definitely the steam engine that I want to use.

The engine I acquired on Ebay has a steel cab and is probably circa 1910, that's a little on the "new" side for Calamity.  I'm not going to be a terrible stickler for accuracy, it is for a game after all, but I do want it to say wild west. So I need to back date the cab to something a big older. I checked the links I have on my blog and went over to Mount Blue Model Co. to check out what they had. That was a good first choice. They have a laser cut wood cab specifically for the Bachmann 4-4-0. I ordered that on the same day I paid for my American and throw in new wood cupola kit for one of my cabooses. The kits arrived yesterday before the engine arrived (hopefully the engine will be here today, maybe tomorrow, certainly by Monday).

I opened them up last night just to check them out and make sure everything was there. These are beautiful kits and they look like they will build up pretty easy. There are three "sprues" of wood parts for the cab. One of these is obviously pine and it is ultra thin, probably not much more than a millimeter in thickness. The other two "sprues" are a bit thinner and are 1/64th inch plywood, the cab sides will be built up in three layers using these parts. There is some interior detail as well but there should still be room for a couple of gunslingers in the cab.

Here are a few pictures of the components just to give you an idea of what makes up the kit.

The contents

A "sprue" of 1/64" plywood

Another sprue of 1/64" plywood

The roof kit

These are the "metal boiler surround plates'. Essentially this is where the cab will be attached to the train's boiler.

Hard to see, but this package contains the bolt details pieces and the window glazing. I won't open this bag till I need it.