Workbench Wednesday

Workbench Wednesday

Frank Hodina, chief Resin Car Works minion, has been building a few HO scale plastic freight car models. Here are his notes.

Here’s what I’m working on besides RCW models. I like pre-painted and lettered kits as they save time. Branchline were some of the best as the lettering is as good or better then decals. Upgrades to these models match a prototype or nearly so. The stock car is an old LifeLike Proto2000 kit. The others are Branchline kits. All were picked up at swap meets for about $10 each.

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Boxcar model holder

Techniques, ,

Schuyler Larrabee recently shared interesting photos of a tool he built to help him with model building. We asked Schuyler to share more details and he sent the following notes.

I did a lot of complicated and fairly delicate work on the underframe and brake gear on this model. It is the 2018 Shake’n’Take project; an ERIE double-door, 40-foot boxcar. Based on prior experience, I was concerned that I’d damage the installed details while I worked on detailing the upper parts of the car. I wanted a way to be able to put the model down on the bench other than installing trucks, temporary or otherwise.

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New email discussion list

Freight Car Kits, Resin Freight Cars, , , , , ,

A new email discussion list has started and modelers have been sharing their work. Here are a few of the posts. A link to the group will be offered at the end.

On my workbench is an HO scale Speedwitch Media kit K111, a 1.5 door, single-sheathed automobile boxcar built by the Pere Marquette in 1926-27. Mine reflects their second group of cars, which rode on Dalman Two-Level trucks. I lettered one side of the car for the PM and the other side for the C&O, their final owner. I built the model 2-3 years ago and in the intervening time started improving ladders using 0.010 styrene rod to replace the ladder rungs. I did the same for this model before painting using my preferred Badger “Modelflex” paint and my reliable Badger 155 Anthem airbrush at 20 lbs. PSI. I have started adding chalk mark decals and will add reweigh and lube date decals.

Bill Welch

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