2022 Construction Blog

8 axle flatcars

I have a need for many eight axle flat cars. I have exhausted my stock of Athearn heavyweight flat cars to modify. I found an STL model on Thingiverse, the model is no longer available. It was listed as "US 8-axle Heavy Duty Flat Car - 1/32 - Gauge I - OpenRailway". The STL file has to be scaled down to HO Scale.The body was originally four pieces, but could not get them to line up good when printed individually. The four pieces were combined into one using Blender. Then a few trys were needed to get a good print with more supports added each time.

Only printed the main body and did not print the end platforms. The base where the span bolsters were to be screwed were to small, so they were ground down and replaced.  The span bolsters were constructed using the same method as was done with the Athearn heavy duty flat cars.   

Most of the parts

Combined model

A couple of printed cars

Removing the base  

 

New base added

Span bolsters modified 

Mock up with more nacelles

Working to finishing up some long term projects  

Picked back up on a couple of long term project that have been on hold: CEBX 800, GEGX 021154 16 axle depressed flat, and two  KRL 12 axle depressed flat cars. These have been built, but need painting and decals.          

Painting in progress

Applying load mounts

 

Bringing some order

Have many projects in different stages of completion. Need a better way to store, and then easily find them when ready to restart them.  Remembered that my eye doctor used stacking trays for eyeglasses, and found some on EBay.  Labels can be easily printed and cut to fit. Just the right size for many HO Scale cars.

Many of my high wide cars need the deeper boxes for storage. Started to better logically organize the boxes and label (both top and front) them so cars can be quickly found.

Stack able in progress storage

Plenty of room

Organized and labeled car storage 

Printed labels for my paint

 

Fireless locomotives

The navy yard was severed by several fireless locomotives. The Navy yard had both streamlined and and no-streamlined  fireless locomotives. These locomotives were charged up with steam from the power house. The photos of #5 was found on South Carolina's  Lowcounty Digital Library website. The photo was found after the locomotive was completed.  This is a shell from Apogee Locomotive Works, on top of a Bachmann - Porter 0-6-0 chassis.

Number 5

Fireless loco

Ready for service

Shrink wrapping loads

Some of the large loads appear to be wrapped for protection.  Working on trying to reproduce this effect. The first test is with a Multiscale Digital gas turbine loads. More prep work is and will try again. It is very easy to remove the shrunk styrene from the model. The vacuuform is from Micro-Mark.

Gas turbine model

Sitting in the vacuuforming tools   

Ready to remove the extra styrene  

Completing wind turbine loads

Completed two of the three heavy duty flat cars with wind turbine loads. Custom decals were printed by Bill at Precision Design. The loads were decals before being put on the flatcars, and the decals did not line up as expected. These loads will become turbines waiting on the dock to be loaded for export. I will apply decals to the next set after the turbines are mounted on the flatcars.

Decaling a turbine

Decals not lined up

Two of three cars done

End of the turbines